Paris Moskau

No, I am not in Paris but in Berlin, Germany.  We took my nephew Ryan and  his wife Maria to dinner last night. This restaurant originally was  a Russian restaurant and was named Josef. It later changed ownerships and in 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, the restaurant was committed to the idea of combining flavors of the east and west; hence the new name Paris-Moskau.

We got to this cozy restaurant which was fully dressed in white tablecloths at 7 p.m. Though there were no people downstairs, we were led upstairs. We were seated and handed the menu. They had several tasting menus. They had the Goose Menu, the Goose being the main entree. The other tasting menu was the Autumn Menu which featured Prime Boiled Beef. Ryan and Maria opted for the Goose and Joma and I had the Autumn Menu. Otto only wanted the Hauptgang by itself which was the Leg of Goose.

The bread was served with a hummus but really tasted like mustand (not butter) with a side of coarse sea salt. We all enjoyed that. They started us with Amuse Bouche, in this case it was a swirl of salmon with cucumbers. That was inhaled by everyone. The next course for 2 of us was the Cabbage Soup with gold beets. The funny part was we forgot what kind of soup it was supposed to be; and our guess was Pumpkin soup. It was delicious though. Ryan and Maria had a salad with duck ham, lamb's lettuce/ potato dressing with cranberries.

The main entree arrived: Gansekesule/Rotkohl/Semmeltaler/Maronen. Translated, that is leg of goose/red cabbage/"Semmeltaler/Chestnut. Both Maria and Ryan loved their geese. I was too busy enjoying my boiled beef. This sounded like the most boring thing on the menu but I was curious to see how exactly would it be prepared.  I loved it. It was tender and had a very simple yet wonderful flavor. It was served with a horseradish sauce.

After our entree, we all looked forward to the nachtisch (dessert). Maria and Ryan's dessert was a Vanilla parfait with rum flavored fruits.  Otto and I had the Apple Tart with caramel sauce with pumpkin-seed ice cream.

Though all the servers were attentive and very nice, the service was slow. As the evening went by, the slower the service.  It almost seemed like we were there for a 6 course meal (we had 3 course meal).

It seemed to take forever for the desserts to be delivered. We had to entertain ourselves as we were getting antsy because we were all burning. It was too hot as we were all dressed in sweaters since it was cold outside. It didn't seem to bother anyone else but us.

When the nachtisch finally arrived, we gobbled them up as fast as we could. They were all very good; at least it was worth the wait.

Paris-Moskau Restaurant's address is Alt-141 10557 Berlin.