A 5 minute guide to German food. On the Baltic Sea beach!

Hey everyone!

It’s Autumn.

It’s October.

And it’s starting to rain but no matter! I’m going to tell you how Summery it was on the Baltic Sea beach.

It was gorgeous!

The sun was shining, the locals were smiling, and we were living it up in a five-star hotel in Usedom!

Usedom!

I bet you can’t say that really fast!

I’ve already spoken about Usedom and going to the seaside. I wrote 51 reasons why you should go to the seaside in Germany last week, and quite frankly, if you’re not convinced by that, then I really can’t help you!

There’s loads of things going on in October so I’ll tell you all about it. Next week!

But for now, let’s focus on food.

Not just any old food you  understand, but German food.

Eeek!

I hear you say. Isn’t German food really gritty and full of stodge?

It can be.

But it can also be quite the thing. Especially at Xmas where the alcohol was so strong that I literally fell to the floor!

At a German Christmas Market.

Yum!

So would the beach be somewhat similar to seaside food in Poland, or would we get scammed, as we did in Bratislava?!

Let’s find out!

A 5 MINUTE GUIDE TO GERMAN FOOD. ON THE BALTIC SEA BEACH!

So let’s start with the basics.

ICE-CREAM:

You really can’t go the seaside if you don’t have any ice-cream!

I mean.

Come on!

The seaside without ice-cream?

And it had better be an Italian gelato, ‘cos what else?

You can even go one better and have an ice-cream sundae of sorts.

I had a huge one on our self-made cycling walking tour in Usedom with vanilla scoops, wafer sticks, clotted cream and a silver jug of strawberry sauce!

Now I don’t like chocolate.

Yuck!

But The Tall Young Gentleman availed himself of the very best near the Zinnowitz pier, so here’s his chocolate ice-cream and clotted-cream-chocolate-chip-sundae!

The Music Producer didn’t have any ice-cream this time and was very happy with his ice-cold Warsteiner premium German beer!

SEAFOOD:

There were lots and lots of possibilities to eat some sort of seafood. In fact, all sorts of seafood. I mean, OMG!

Here are some pictures.

Sadly, I’ve forgotten the prices, but these seafood items were between €2.00 – €4.00 a piece!

Here are slices of smoked mackerel with berries and lettuce garnish, at the Usedom Palace Hotel breakfast table!

The soused herring above otherwise known as matjes in German or rollmops in English, can be found all over the Baltic Sea coast and is a herring soaked in a mild preserving liquid. It can be raw herring in a mild vinegar pickle or might contain cider, wine or tea, sugar, herbs (usually bay leaf), spices (usually mace), and chopped onion.

It is generally served cold either with a bread bun (brötchen) / bread roll or mixed in sour cream with apple chunks, and onions, or mixed in a beetroot chunk brine, and served with boiled or baked potatoes!

The Music Producer isn’t a fan of raw herrings so the Tall Young Gentleman and I merrily did all the stuffing down ourselves!

Here’s another photograph of my fish bun, otherwise known as Fischbrötchen, made with a pickled or Bismarck herring!

A Bismarck herring  is a delicacy in Europe, and has become a part of Baltic, Nordic, Slavic, and Jewish cuisine! It’s herring cured with salt with similarly added vinegar, peppercorn, bay leaves, raw onions, sherry, mustard and dill.

Our herring was served on kitchen foil in a bread bun (brötchen) with pickles, lettuce and huge slices of fresh raw onions. You can ask for different sauces such as remoulade, creamy horseradish sauce, ketchup, or cocktail sauce too, but we went to an extremely local food hut and we weren’t sure what most of the things were.  There were eels and varieties of fish that I couldn’t identify in German…!

Gulp!

THE USEDOM PALACE HOTEL

We were guests of Usedom Tourismus GmbH and the Usedom Palace Hotel, but we paid for all our meals and transport ourselves.

The Usedom Palace Hotel is a small 40-room traditional style 5-star seaside hotel about five (5) minutes from the sea itself, and a 15 to 20 minute walk to the local train station!

The hotel although modern-ish from the inside, has the look of an antiquated classical German castle, complete with steeple top roof, huge windows, and a white sandstone finish!

We were put in a Gold / Silver Category sea view room.

Our room was huge with a European-style double bed for us, and a single bed for The Tall Young Gentleman with enough space in the room for him to feel that he wasn’t near us!

Our room also had two armchairs, a small glass table, a standing lamp in the corner, and two bedside tables with two more bedside lamps.

The window was huge and you could actually (safely) sit on the window sill and take in the view of the sea, which was clearly in front of us. You can never be entirely sure when hotels describe the view as “sea,” but in this case, it was!

I don’t like air-conditioning in bedrooms.

In fact, I don’t like air-conditioning at all, so it was quite nice to be able to sleep with the windows wide open, and the curtains billowing in the wind!

There was also a huge wardrobe that had fluffy dressing gowns and fluffy slippers for us each, a safe, a mini-bar, a flat-screen TV, a writing desk, plenty of plug holes, and free WiFi!

The bathroom was very nice and had underfloor heating and loads of fluffy towels, a bath, a shower, and hair and body wash items and body lotions.

Be careful with the shower though because the glass covering wasn’t really long or wide enough to prevent water from splashing everywhere, and as The Tall Young Gentleman is indeed quite tall, we soon found ourselves with a bit of a puddle!

The hotel also included a nice swimming pool.

A very nice swimming pool, and a hot tub and sauna free of charge, which I completely forgot about, until a few hours before we had to leave…! And a paid-for spa and massage unit.

I really regret not trying out the spa as it really looked nice.

But then again. Maybe not, as this was FKK – Free Body Culture – Nudist territory!

No!

Pleeeeeeeease!

Our hotel stay included a generous buffet breakfast of both Baltic and Nordic origin.

You could sit either indoor or outdoor. For dinner we ate outdoor, but for breakfast, we ate indoors.

For breakfast, we had delicious cold cuts, a variety of seafood, vegetables, sauces, caviar, pickles and cream, scrambled eggs on order, sausages and bacon.

As well as a wide variety of cereal, fruit, bread, cake, pastries, tea, coffee, juices, and help-yourself glasses of champagne!

All this from €225.00 per night in the Gold/Silver Category room (high season) and €145.00 (low season) which for three (3) people wouldn’t be too bad at all!

The thing that really stood out for me was the evening restaurant service. They were quick, full of smiles, and impeccable.

The food was good too!

FANCIER SEASIDE FOOD:

Apart from all the rustic local food that we had above, we also had fancier food which we either had at our hotel, or at a nice restaurant nearby.

Take a look:

Grilled salmon with avocado. Interesting!

A traditional fish lunch.

A delicious plate of pasta and shrimps!

A well-known summer starter of tomato soup.

A healthy fruity starter of melon and ham.

Freshly-caught fish, grilled to perfection.

More fish and with one of my favourite vegetables – beetroot!

A rather too well-done steak, but The Tall Young Gentleman wasn’t complaining lol!

Look at that temptingly delicious crème brûlée. That’s all I’m saying…!

A most enticing Panna cotta.

All washed down with a chilled glasses glass of white wine!

Enough said!

As you can see, most of the fancier food items were taken by my husband – aka – The Music Producer – as my camera decided at that moment to run out of battery!

Thankfully, my husband stepped in and took the photographs himself!

Wow! I couldn’t have asked for better, so now you have it, no need to thank me.

You’re welcome!

A 5 MINUTE GUIDE TO GERMAN FOOD. ON THE BALTIC SEA BEACH!

Even though I was invited on this trip as a guest of Usedom Tourismus GmbH,  all opinions and the delightful time that we had devouring seaside nosh in Usedom, are my very own!

In the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about travels to Bremen, art and films in Berlin,  as well as a comprehensive post on how to use the train in Europe!

In a few weeks, I’ll be travelling to the TBEX ASIA travel conference in the Philippines, and revealing the extra Chinese-speaking country. It’s a new one!

In November, I’ll be travelling to Austria and starting a new job!