Number 22 #12

Baluchistan. A little like India. Only less delicious.

A quick glance in wikipedia will tell you where it is, but having some of the food from there, just might make you want to never go.

Admittedly, generalizing a region’s cuisine based on a sole visit to a restaurant thousands of miles away from the actual place is wrong. For all I know, the local specialties may well be delightful, a mixture of Indian and Persian influenced cooking, with nuanced spices, tender meats and refreshing exotic ingredients.

The version of Baluchi cooking to be found in this Hamburg restaurant used only one spice. And I am not really sure it even is a spice. Salt. And lots of it. The meat was fish, but remarkably dry as a bone. The only exotic ingredient to be found: a few pomegranate seeds strewn over the iceberg lettuce, (but trying to blend in by hiding under a heavy layer of dilled dressing.) Ok, here is my point: It stunk. This clearly might have been the worst of all possible Number 22s to be found. It was only the appetizer, so I ordered a main course to round off the evening as well and give the kitchen a second try. I will say this much: the chefs working here are at the least, erm, consistent.

photo: by number 22 and a beer

Balutschistan
Grindelalle 91
20146 Hamburg
Tel +4940 41280246

Date eaten March 31, 2009
Price € 4,20

This number 22, “Lahori Machli,” was a fillet of fish, presumably pollock, fried in chick-pea flour and served with a side of two chutneys and a mixed salad. I think Lahori machli translates to “abhorrently mushy,” the deep-fried fish fillet was by no means crispy as the menu proclaimed but soft and fibrous. The concealed fish was dry and bland. The chutneys would have been great on toast, but were just very sweet and a total visit to the chutney shithouse. Terrible. And a mixed salad to go with it is just a lame way of filling up the plate. Guys, you really need to work on this one.

The beer was a refreshing König Ludwig Weissbier which is brewed in Castle Kaltenberg. The brewery is still owned by the descendants of bavarian King Ludwig III.

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Number 22 #7

This Number 22 and a beer comes to us from Tobias Krämer. I am always happy to have non-asian 22s, if only to knock over the stereotype that only Asian restaurants use numbers. Actually I am currently thinking about calling my local government representative to have him sponsor a bill at the EU, that would require all restaurants to number their menus. Even the ones with really good food.

Tobias Number 22 and a beer is from a portuguese place in Hamburg, Germany. I know this area well as it is in my hometown, and being near the harbor this listing is particularly of interest for tourists who plan to visit Hamburg reading this site, I love my hometown but this quote from comedian Mike Myers as Dieter on the hilarous SNL-Skit “sprockets” sums up the atmosphere of this city best:” Ahh, Hamburg. A place where you can skate home on other people’s frozen vomit.”

photo: Tobias Krämer for Number 22 and a beer

Restaurant O Pescador
Ditmar-Koel-Straße 17
D-20459 Hamburg

Telephone: +49.(0)40.319 30 00

http://www.pescador-hamburg.de

Price: appr. 6 Euros

My Nummer 22 & a beer comes from a nice portuguese Restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, which is called “O Pescador”. It is a two minutes walk from the S- and U-Bahn Station “Landungsbrücken” to the Ditmar-Koel-Straße, where a lot of portuguese and spanish restaurants reside.
Number 22 is a starter called “Tapas Chef Style” with ham, cheese, olives and pickles. This dish itself is nothing special, but the fish in that restaurant is awesome.
So if you like fish and don’t want to spend much money (6€ the starter, about 12€ the main couse), it is a good choise to go there. There is a nice atmosphere and decoration, but you should make a reservation if you don’t want to wait for a free table.

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Number 22 #2

Bok Restaurant
Schanzenstraße 27
20357 Hamburg, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)40 4306780

http://www.bokgmbh.com

Date eaten: February 17 9:17 pm

Price: € 6.90

Oh the glory that is satay! Not only one of Thailand’s top 3 exports, the other two being wacky names for their royals (Bhumibol in the house!) and of course, sexually transmitted diseases, satay might be one of the greatest contributions to the global food chain.

When done correctly, its simplicity is as stunning as it is pleasing. Some tender chicken straight off the charcoal grill and a peanut sauce that combines the sweetness of palm sugar or honey with the refreshing heat of ginger and the bite of fresh garlic are all it takes to make for a great meal. Throw in some exhaust fumes from about a million mopeds, and one is immediately transported to a street food stall in Bangkok. If done poorly, satay just might make you wish you had ordered a ham sandwich.

I wish I had ordered a ham sandwich.

Don’t let the zen-like sparseness of the dish pictured fool you. No meditating master chef was at work here. The uniform color made the alarms go off, before I had even tasted the skewered insulating foam on the plate in front of me: where were the grill marks? Where the scent of charcoal? Instead these appeared to have come straight out of the kitchen appliance from hell: the deep-fryer. (The only thing worse than satay out of a deep fryer is Wiener Schnitzel.) The crust did have an amazing ability though. While being cool to the touch, it managed to conceal behind its dry barrier relatively moist chicken, at a core temperatur of what I’d guess to have been around 397°C. The resulting burns on my tongue did manage to make the next course, tom kha gai, more bearable.

But what about the sauce? This I had hoped would be the saving element, the deciding goal in the 90th minute of the World Cup final, turning desaster into delight. But alas, the shot went straight over the cross bar. Thin, uneventful and boring. But strangely enough, I wish there had been a little more of it. Because the last two skewers were rather dry and drab all on their own.

The beer was an Erdinger Weißbier. Light and refreshing.

All in all a pretty lame Number 22. While not inedible it left me pining for the real thing. Minus the mopeds.

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Number 22 #1

Man Wah Restaurant
Spielbudenplatz 18
20359 Hamburg, Germany
TEl +4940 3192511

Date eaten: February 15 12:27 am

Price € 11.90

Number 22 here was “Chicken with straw mushrooms and ginger.” Served piping hot in a small steel wok-type thing. The chicken was tender, though slightly bland. The sauce was pungent and fruity-spicy, due to copious amounts of fresh ginger. A little odd: the straw mushrooms. They looked like the eyes of an extinct amphibious bi-ped, and shared a similar consistency. Or at least I figure this is how the eyes of an extinct amphibious bi-ped might feel in my mouth. All in all, a fairly tame, but quite tasty Number 22. The beer was Warsteiner, a self-proclaimed “premium beer,” but definitely my least favorite german industrial beer.

Man wah is a Hamburg-institution and offers good quality chinese food and dim sum. I think they are almost always open.

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