I think I have figured out what this thing is… It is a dumpling – actually two really big dumplings – filled to the limit with some sort of stinky cheese. The whole thing is soaked in “browned butter” (which sounds like “slightly burned but still edible” butter to me) and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Hmmm… I'm eating this at a pace of about 1 bite every 5 minutes. Pretty soon it will be congealed and achieve the level of truly disgusting. I already drank all of my tea. I just asked for a “Cola Light” which is what they call Diet Coke. The good thing about Diet Coke is that, like battery acid, it washes anything down.
The up side of being alone here is that I can take all the time I want to write this play-by-play experience in the cafe. My Diet Coke has arrived. The service is pretty quick here but not quick enough to save me from the “dead milk” taste forming in my mouth from this cheese. A few quick scours with the Diet Coke should save me. Now for another bite… Yuck. I'm not eating anything with cheese in it or on it or around it for a long time.
A revelation!!! I have figured out how to not each much more of this thing and still somewhat save face and avoid being scolded for not eating all of my food! I have taken the two separate dumplings and applied Sieg's First Rule of Smooshing and created a single dumpling. This is sort of like that law of energy and mass where energy can be converted to mass and mass to energy without loss of anything in the change. It's like that except you can take two large pieces of unwanted food and apply a hearty smoosh and give the impression of a great loss of mass. Perfect for this situation. I'll take another two bites and bid it a good day. Then it will look like I just got full instead of sick. Bonus.
Okay, on this bite I tried eating only stuffing. Big mistake. It appears that the stuffing is the generator of the stinkiness. Almost passed out on that bite. A couple of people were looking at me as my eyes were watering and I strained not to choke. I'm already drawing a fair amount of attention to myself being the only person typing on a laptop in the cafe and certainly the only one snapping action photos of his food. Time for the magic words “Zahlen, bitte.” Well, after another cleansing Diet Coke.
Bummer. I just saw the dessert menu. An excellent selection of premium ice cream awaits those who finish their meals. As I have not finished mine I am weighing the pros and cons of ordering a dessert anyway. Ah, I should pass, I have other things to do before the stores close. Best to get the heck out of Dodge while I can.
Well, I was prepared when it happened. The waitress came to pick up my plates and there was this mass of cheesy-dumpling stuff looking about half-eaten. She started spouting off in German about blah-blah-blah-nicht-blah-nicht-blah-blah??? I figured that meant something like “What??? You didn't finish your food? Didn't you like it or was it not good???” Therefore the response I prepared (doing the Boy Scout always prepared thing) was “Nein, Das Essen war sehr gut!” and rubbed my tummy and sighed as if in bliss. In other words, “No, it was very good! I'm quite full and happy!!!” As if.