The weather cleared up nicely this afternoon, so Bill and I decided to go to Wiesbaden. I read there was going to be a festival there, starting at 3PM. So we fired up my neglected Mini Cooper, put the top down for the first time since last year, and drove to town.
We actually got to Wiesbaden at about 1:30. I watched a lot of people walking around in costumes. Bill said there was some kind of Cosplay event going on… Glad he explained. I might have thought Let’s Make a Deal had made it to Germany.
We walked around a bit, enjoying the beautiful, warm, sunny weather. We passed a new looking wine bar that appeared to be inviting. But when we got to the end of the street we were on, we ran into what looked like an anti-vaxxer demonstration. We turned down another street and soon passed a new restaurant called Godfather. Bill said he’d just gotten a Facebook ad for the place, which opened on July 17th.
Since we didn’t have any other big plans, we decided to give it a try, even though I’m not always impressed by American style restaurants in Germany. The first thing I noticed when we went inside was the music. It was a bit loud, and consisted of a single female singer doing covers of somewhat recent hit pop ballads that mostly sounded like the same type of emotional song. The singing certainly wasn’t bad, but the tempo was a little depressing, especially for a burger joint. I heard the playlist at least twice through during our visit. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it or minded if there had been a mix, rather than just the one singer doing covers of songs like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.
I looked on the wall and noticed there was an “Uber Uns” (about us) statement hanging on the wall. It read that the people who owned the restaurant were from Iran and had come to Germany because the husband was getting an education in engineering. They decided to stay in Germany and open a restaurant. The wife is a singer and a writer. Hmmm… sounds like we have something in common. I also used to live just north of Iran, in neighboring Armenia.
The restaurant offers burgers, fries, quesadillas, pizzas, snacks, and a full bar. Bill and I decided to have a round of beer, and I had the Philadelphia burger. He had a quesadilla. I got a choice of what kind of bun I wanted, as well as the type of patty. The waitress also asked if I wanted everything on it, which in the case of my burger was “salad” (lettuce), tomato, avocado, guacamole, Godfather sauce, and there was supposed to be cheddar cheese (although my burger didn’t have cheese on it).
Bill’s Washington Quesadilla had beef, mozzarella, cheddar, tomato sauce, corn, pico de gallo, avocado, and their version of Ranch dressing.
We also had a round of pommes (fries) which reminded me of what we might find in Belgium. We couldn’t finish those and took them home with us.
Overall, I thought the food and service at Godfather was very good. The staff was friendly to us, and the serving sizes were ample, as well as reasonably priced. The only thing I didn’t like as much was the music, which I found a bit sedate and a little too loud. They did change it to something peppier as we were finishing up.
I thought the presentation of the food was very nice, and noticed there was a lot of fresh vegetables. I think my burger was also hand formed, which is excellent. One thing I don’t like about German burgers is that a lot of times, they’re very tightly molded, so they aren’t juicy or flavorful. Not so at Godfather. I had to eat my sandwich with a knife and fork, because it was a bit messy!
I think we’d go back to Godfather. We had a good experience. I do wish they offered some Iranian food, since there are plenty of places to get burgers in Wiesbaden. I noticed they had a burger called the Tehran Burger, though. Maybe they’ll come up with some interesting twists of their burgers with Iran in mind… even though Godfather is meant to be an “American” restaurant. I won’t get the Tehran burger, because it has mushrooms on it, although I guess I could ask them to leave them off.
Below are some photos from today. We really enjoyed the weather. Wiesbaden is such a pretty town!
As we were leaving, the car ahead of us had trouble getting out of the newly refurbished garage. Bill was getting irritated by that… but then we ran into traffic due to the breaking up of a football (soccer) game. It was fun to watch all the men walking down the street with their plastic cups of beer.
We never did make it to the fest that prompted us to go out. I was thinking about hitting a wine stand or something, but decided I’d rather just come home and hang out with Noyzi. It was good to go out for awhile, though… especially since there were so many people celebrating life.
Maybe tomorrow, we’ll do something truly different. We’ll see…
