Saturday in Bülach

Yesterday we walked into the old town (Aldstadt) to have some coffee and breakfast.  We sat outside of a bakery and had croissants filled with egg salad, bacon and sprouts, housemade yogurt with thinly sliced strawberries and a hazelnut torte.  The brought out our lattes which were equally impressive.  They usually come in tall glass mugs with handles so you can see all the amazing layers.  On the bottom is steamed milk, the middle layer is the coffee and on top is the foam.  I love to put one packet of sugar on the top of the foam and let it sink in slowly.  Then I get to eat the lightly sweetened foam before stirring the milk and coffee together.  I'm telling you, it's pretty lovely.  The other thing that fascinates me about the coffee culture here (which is very strong), is that they use the Italian names when ordering the coffees. I guess you have to be very specific about what you want and those words seem to be in Italian!

After breakfast we showed Brian the local library and then went to the outdoor market by the main church in town.  Bought some mussels (Belgian) for dinner tonight as well as some really beautiful (read expensive) winter lettuce.  We also went to the local organic store and found some Italian white balsamic vinegar, Italian olive oil and some parsley to sprinkle on our mussels tonight.  They have a pretty good selection of gluten free products and organic meats.  It was the first place I found our version of bacon, but it came in a big slab.  It was quite the mangled slice of bacon we had for breakfast today, but it was delicious!
 
Last night we went to a restaurant in town. Their specialty was to serve a piece of meat on a hot stone with a few different dipping sauces.  The meat arrives rare with a piece of rosemary under it so it smells awesome!  I chose lamb and let it cook just a little longer to make it perfectly medium rare.  I let it rest while I ate the Rosti. Rosti is coarsely grated potatoes cooked just like hash browns.  Brian has the cordon bleu which seems to be adored around here.  Each restaurant seems to have their own special type and they are not limited by the standard ham and cheese variety.  His dinner came with rosti croquette which is really just a long tater tot.  Who wouldn't like to live somewhere that the national dish is tater tots?!?  We had some local wine and ended with crème caramel.  Pretty nice to be able to walk home afterward too!  Nora and I left right when we were done eating because her nose was very stuffed up and her throat was starting to hurt :(

Today we're going to drive to Schaffhausen and then right over the border into Germany.  I'm not sure what we're going to do once we get there or if there will be anything even open, but we'll figure it out. 

We're making Nora drink honey and lemon tea in hopes it will make whatever she's got pass quickly.