(Zürich, Switzerland)

For our last meal in Switzerland, the posse agreed to meet at Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Zürich’s main train station) and set out in search of mutually agreeable food.  Our plan was to head to “Tibits”, a vegetarian restaurant in the Bellevue neighbourhood that I had enjoyed on some previous visits, unless something else really caught our eye along the way.

However, when we arrived at the station, we were quite surprised to see that there was a street food market!  And it was only there for this particular weekend, so it was a pretty big deal.  The street food market concept really took off in Copenhagen, where a temporary set-up in a vacant industrial space became the “go to” place for affordable food in that expensive city.

As Zürich is even more expensive than Copenhagen, the street food market suddenly seemed like a great idea.  With about 80 different vendors offering food from around the world, we would each be able to find something we liked.  And so, after some crafty manoeuvres to nab some seating, we each faced one of the biggest dining decisions of our lives!

As we had eaten (more or less) Swiss food for the previous 12 days, I was less inclined to eat something local for my main course.  However, it also didn’t seem right to have something I could easily have at home or in another European country that I frequently visit…this eliminated the Dutch food and several others from contention.  I was quite tempted to try one of my favourite dishes from Chile (pastel de choclo), but this is readily available in Toronto.   I eventually decided to grab some Indonesian food, which is very scarce in Ontario.  The peanut sauce was amazing!

For dessert, I decided to go for Kaiserschmarrn, a favourite of one of our other posse members.  As he had already moved on to Basel, I figured he would appreciate it if I ate it on his behalf.  Kaiserschmarrn is an Austrian specialty named after Emperor Franz Josef and consists of shredded pancake, apple sauce, rum-soaked-raisins, icing sugar, and various other toppings:  mine featured almonds but plums (“Zwetschgen“) are quite popular in Switzerland.

And who would have thought that a dish called “cholera” would last into the 21st century?  As you can see from the photo above and this explanatory article, people really do want to eat cholera! I didn’t have any, but in retrospect it would have been interesting to try.

It was a lot of fun to eat street food in Zürich.  The only real negative was that smoking is still permitted in that part of the train station.  For a post-dinner coffee free of second-hand smoke, we adjourned to the Brasserie Federal in the station.   This is a very old-fashioned railway restaurant with furnishings that probably date back a century!  It was a nice way to relax after the hustle and bustle of the street food market.

Und jetzt bin ich bereit nach Hause gehen!

(Zürich, Switzerland)

I definitely had mixed emotions upon arriving in Zürich.  On the one hand, I am quite familiar with it, as it has been the “endpoint” of many Swiss holidays.  It’s always nice to return to a city where you know your way around, and I have had some memorable stays here.  On the other hand, it was rainy, cool, and relatively crowded.  Most importantly, we were no longer in the mountains.  We could still see them across the lake, but they were at quite a distance.

No matter how appealing a city may be, it can be a bit of a letdown to return to a drizzly urban area after spending nearly two weeks on the (mostly) sunny slopes.  The day before flying home also brings with it a sense that you are on “borrowed time”:  the vacation is just about over and nothing can turn back the clock.

I suppose the high costs here also were a factor, after a relatively expensive holiday in the Alps.  Walking along the famous Bahnhofstrasse reinforced just how much money is lurking in this very prosperous city.  While the rest of Zürich has plenty of banks and jewellery shops, they are different on the Bahnhofstrasse.

We saw “private banks” where there was essentially no signage and you had to enter a security code just to get in the door.   As for the jewellery shops, many of them were open…but locked.   There were also generally two very large staff members poised just inside the door.  It was reminiscent of seeing bouncers at the front of an exclusive club.  It sent a very strong message.

While I don’t remember this happening on my prior visits to the city, I also felt extremely underdressed. I had no idea people wore so much silk in the winter:  the scarves alone probably cost more than all of my clothes put together!  I have friends in the Zürich area and I know this is not how everybody lives, but this was the first time that I felt so conspicuous in my luridly-coloured ski jacket.  Traveling light meant that I had to wear it here too!

After doing a little bit of last-minute shopping (at a grocery store!), I returned to the hotel and prepared to meet the remainder of our posse for dinner.  It would be a challenge to eat economically and still have a memorable final meal.  Stay tuned for the unexpected solution to the challenge!