Rehrücken of the Year

Stop the clock! Fantastic news! As of Saturday night, both Steph and I have achieved our dinners worthy of Meal of the Year 2008 honors. Blog followers may remember Steph nailing hers in June at a French bistrot in Lucerne. I found mine last night--in none other than Zürich itself (gasp!)--at the hip Blaue Ente or "Blue Duck" restaurant (those foggy on Meal of the Year may review the protocol here).

Dining out was probably our #1 pasttime in underrated but undoubtedly world-class restaurant city Chicago (judged by both restaurant quantity and high-end quality), but in Zürich we've unfortunately been shaken from that favorite hobby by ridiculous prices for less than top-notch cuisine. Not that Chicago didn't have its share of duds, but at half the cost on average vs. Zürich the "risk" was easier to stomach. And the grocery store food here is so phenomenal that our home kitchen results make rampant restauranteering less necessary.

So how did we discover this Zürich gem? Ha ha, we didn't! After some assiduous Web research, my younger brother and sister-in-law T&A sent us a very generous Blaue Ente gift certificate way back in December (they claimed we did something nice for them in the past to deserve it) during our down-in-the-dumps Kloten apartment hunting phase. After surviving that, Steph and I waited nearly nine months for a special occasion to use the gift, in this case the occasion being our first open weekend since early May.

As with all romantic dates, ours started with a bus ride to the restaurant, a block off the lake. The restaurant's contemporary decor included a refurbished large mill of some sort, smack in the middle of the dining area. We started with glasses of prosecco (Italian sparkling wine) then--determined to quickly dent the gift certificate--pulled out the big guns ordering our first-ever bottle of Barolo, the purported king of Italian red wines (it did not disappoint). Our starter selections of signature duck confit ravioli (me) and gazpacho (Steph) were solid if not spectacular. Then came the best decision I've made all year--Rehrücken aus der Sommerjagd, Eierschwämmli à la crème mit hausgemachten Schupfnudeln und Preiselbeerjus. Luckily we procured one English menu along with the standard German to aid translation: roast saddle of venison in cranberry sauce with accoutrements. Simply amazing, forget about it. Steph's gebratenes Lammcarré, or ribs of New Zealand lamb, also ranked highly but not quite equal. For dessert, we finished the wine of course.

We capped the excellent evening (after another bus ride) with two final glasses of wine at a normally packed wine bar, on this Saturday night nearly empty, mirroring much of Zürich so far this August, Europe's primary vacation month. And as proof of the interconnectivity of the cosmos, our Chicago Meal of the Year co-conspirator Sasha achieved her 2008 MOY the same Saturday night (OK, maybe eight hours later) at restaurant Fuego in Santa Fe [food photo courtesy of Moises's iPhone]:

A huge debt of gratitude to T&A for the gift certificate that, even after the passage of time, indeed proved quite uplifting--specifically by removing that pesky MOY monkey from my back. They can pick my restaurant from 4,000 miles away any time.