In Dusseldorf...day three

Whenever I travel I tend to lock in to whatever my situation happens to be and then stick with it; by that I mean I arrived in Dusseldorf without any reading matter – and getting hold of anything decent, other than the Financial Times, is difficult. I'd end up with a James Patterson or Wilbur Smith novel or a book by Kate Garraway. I met her once (she won't remember) on an East Coast train that was stuck for hours and hours due to the overhead power lines going down and she was really nice, but her book, The Joy of Big Knickers, is probably not for me. The title alone would mean I couldn't read it in public.

A shot taken on my walk towards the Alt Stadt earlier today...

So I can't really enjoy the 'Starbucks in a foreign country' experience as it always goes hand-in-hand with having something decent to read and I have nothing. Likewise, as I've mentioned in previous posts, breakfast isn't the same without an English language newspaper or a decent book. So I cut my cloth accordingly, I steer clear of coffee shops, where I would be reduced to staring out of the window or, worse still, poring over my iphone like I did earlier over dinner and in the hotel bar. There's nothing worse than dining alone.

Statue in a pleasant park en route to the Alt Stadt

Work finished around 1700hrs so I decided to stroll to the Alt Stadt (or old town) and chill. Or rather that's what I thought I'd do, but in the end I didn't bother because I lacked reading matter; I took a look at the river instead, peeked through a few shop windows and then steadily retraced my footsteps back to where I'm staying at the top of Karlstrasse. It was a great walk. I found a small but peaceful park and then the Alt Stadt, which is fine, but some of the roads leading off from the area down by the river are a bit run-down. There are bars and restaurants that have closed down and I was reminded of London's Soho or Amsterdam, minus, of course, anything sleazy.

Well, I hadn't really mentioned cycling so I thought a photo might do...

It was approaching 1900hrs and I considered dining earlier than scheduled, but then I found the hotel bar and decided that a couple of small (and I mean small) dark ales would go down a treat. I sat at the bar giggling to myself about Viz magazine's Profanisaurus and then, as the time approached 2000hrs I moseyed on down to Da Bruno, my favourite all-time Italian restaurant, for dinner. I'd booked the table on Monday and soon I found myself sitting there perusing the menu. Da Bruno, especially after a hard day 'at the office', is the perfect place to be and I was looking forward to an hour or so of simply chilling and eating good food.

Very close to the Alt Stadt I found this rather impressive piece of work...

Mushroom consomme, seabass with spinach, sautéed potatoes and brocolli, a glass of red wine and a chocolate mousse, not forgetting a cappuccino – and all for just 37 Euros. This really is the best restaurant in town and I defy anybody to find a similarly priced trattoria that offers the same quality of food and the same vibe. I can't think of one and by that I mean anywhere in the world, not just in Dusseldorf.

"Down by the river..."

Towards the end of my meal I was approached by the waitress. Would I mind if somebody else shared my table? No, of course I wouldn't mind, so she directed a German guy towards the vacant seat opposite. I was settling my bill but we managed to pass the time of day and both agreed that Da Bruno was the best restaurant in town, and I suggested probably in the world too. He, like me, has eaten at Da Bruno before and tends to come back for more, just like I do. We parted company and I walked back along Karlstrasse towards the Mercure. Earlier I had considered a return to the hotel bar for one more tiny dark ale, but as I passed it, I noticed it was a little rowdier than earlier on (a football match possibly) so I took the stairs and headed for my room and here I am now, writing what is likely to be my last post from Dusseldorf before I fly home tomorrow.

The Alt Stadt...

My post yesterday was probably a little too critical of the Mercure City Center. Breakfast this morning was, for some reason, better than on Tuesday and has led to me reconsider my remarks; it was alright. The main problem was that I didn't have anything to read. I didn't have anything today either, but let's just say it was better, even if it was exactly the same.

In the park and going back towards Karlstrasse...

While making my way to the Alt Stadt earlier, I found an Apple store and went inside to mess around with the tablets and the lap tops, but in all honesty Apple has lost its appeal – it has, if you like, become the norm. Yes, I am an Apple computer user, always have been, but I think Apple has got a little too smug and a little too mainstream these days and that is epitomised by its stores, which have a certain shrine-like arrogance I can live without. Apple is far too big for its boots in my opinion. The iphone is ubiquitous  (dare I say a 'bestseller') rather than cult (like Apple computers used to be back in the days of Mulder and Scully). Mind you, there are so many examples of 'cult stuff' becoming mainstream. There was a time, for instance, when those who listened to Pink Floyd were considered 'out there', but now they're pretty mainstream too, or when Philip K Dick was a real 'underground' author. Now, of course, there are movies of his books starring Tom Cruise and Arnie. Shit happens.

I left the Apple store empty-handed – not that I had any intention of buying anything. In the past I might have been content to play on the laptops and secretly wish I had the money to buy a new MacBook, but not today. I don't see the point in tablets or the Apple watch and I already have an iphone, albeit an iphone 4S that's four years old and out of contract. It's great being out of contract as all 02 have to do is piss me off and they can sling their hook! Get in! There's nothing worse than being beholden to a phone company. It's bad enough having a loan or a mortgage.

So I'm back in my room, I fly home tomorrow and I can lie in for longer too, although not too long as I've got to pack all my stuff and check out prior to heading for the central station and a brief train ride to the airport. That's what's great about Dusseldorf, everything is close-by, including the flughafen.

It is now 0445hrs and I've woken up, probably because I had a cappuccino for dinner last night or because of that rich chocolate mousse. I could have done without that. I'm finding that eating out is often a kind of culinary Russian roulette, last night being a case in point. Generally speaking I've been pretty 'good' on the food and drink front. My alcohol intake has been very low – last night just those very small beers and a glass of wine with my meal – but when I weaken and opt for dessert it's like crossing a mine field. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who has to watch what he eats, but when the dessert menu was offered (my fault for requesting it) I was presented with a kind of loaded gun, albeit a 'gun' I'm familiar with.

Some of the dessert items had form and I knew to steer clear. Tiramisu, once my all-time favourite dessert, will now always be avoided, not because it gives me a stomach ache or anything like that, but purely because it's so rich and full of things that ain't good for me. Grand Padano, a nice cheese, yes, but the last time I ordered it here the portion size was huge, even if I did, eventually, work my way through it with the assistance of an additional glass of wine; and then there's the dessert that is basically some kind of dessert wine or liqueur accompanied by biscotti; for a start the biscotti is so hard and the drink so thick and syrupy. There are other desserts I know to avoid: the Creme Caramel, the Zabaglione, the pannacotta and so on, but the chocolate mousse, I thought, that can't be too bad. I imagined an elegant wine glass with a light chocolate inside, possibly a fresh raspberry as garnish on top. But no, it was three large 'quenelles' – 'dollops' would be more appropriate – of the stuff, three dog turd shapes in a large white dish, the sort of shit you're proud of before you flush. One dollop would have been enough, but I ploughed through it in between sips of the cappuccino, wishing I'd simply ordered the coffee like I did on Monday night.

And now I'm wide awake as the time creeps towards 0500hrs. There's a bottle of Evian next to me and I'm considering opening it, like I did yesterday in the early hours, thanks, perhaps, to that rich Indian meal, who knows? It might well be that it's 'the hotel life' and unfamiliar surroundings. It takes a while for me to get acclimatised to sleeping in a hotel room and just when I think I've cracked it, it's time to fly home.

My next dilemma is whether or not to go back to bed or simply stay up; but there's little to do at 0512hrs and having not switched on the television since I arrived Monday night, I'm not going to break the habit now.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.

The desolation of Mogg...

Breakfast was fine. Not brilliant, but fine. Why not brilliant? It was plenty to do with the hard chairs and the glass roof, which lent a kind of basic feel to the whole experience, but they had everything one might expect from a hotel breakfast room. There were sausages, scrambled egg, sautéed potatoes, a variety of breads, including croissants, yoghurt, fresh fruit, cereals, tea and coffee and fresh fruit juice. I chose a bowl of fresh fruit and a bowl of yoghurt plus a banana, some scrambled egg with sautéed potato and a cup of English breakfast tea. Tea is always such a faff as it is contained in a sachet that needs to be opened – sometimes a big problem – plonked in a cup into which hot water must be poured and so on; that's the problem with self-service, I tend to get fed up with the process.

Why the long face?

Earlier, in the room, I had a small battle on my hands with some unruly coathangers, which hadn't bothered me last night purely because I'd left everything in my suitcase. Flustered from the experience and still smarting a little from the locked minibar and safe I left the room to have my breakfast and it was something I was looking forward to despite the fact that I had absolutely nothing to read; and there's nowt better than a book or a newspaper with a hotel breakfast. But then again it wasn't a cosy breakfast space so reading a book or a newspaper wouldn't have been as good as it might have been in a less basic, and slightly more cosy, environment – a softer chair, perhaps, a tablecloth, waitress service, tea brought to my table rather than me faffing around trying to open a teabag prior to immersing it in hot water. But then I guess you get what you pay for and one thing I won't do is complain too loudly about the Mercure City Center because it is what it is and in many ways it's a cut above so the only causes for complaint that I can see are the locked safe and minibar, the unruly coathangers and the bathroom. Well, not the whole bathroom, just the hot water situation, particularly in the shower: it wouldn't warm up and the only way to make it hot enough to use was turn the lever in such a way that the flow was severely limited to just a dribble; it was the same with the sink tap. It made showering less of a pleasure than it might of been, that's all, but still it's another negative to add to the locked minibar, the locked safe, the unruly coathangers – you know the ones I mean, not proper hangers with hooks but those you can't get off the rail. I found myself thinking that the hotel doesn't trust its guests – they can't trust them to tell the truth when asked "did you use the minibar" so they lock it; they don't believe their guests will have anything worth putting in a safe, so they lock that too, and because they think their guests will half-inch the coathangers, they provide the unruly variety. "That'll teach them!"

I decided to wander about town in search of a decent restaurant. To be honest I wasn't really sure what I wanted. I started first with the internet and keyed in 'Italian restaurants in Dusseldorf' but the best ones, according to Trip Advisor, were a good 25-minute walk away and I really wasn't inspired enough to go on some kind of trek. In the end I wandered out having checked the menu of the hotel restaurant. I've dined here before and it's not brilliant, although in retrospect it would have been fine. But still I wandered, up past the Thai restaurant next door to the Burns Art Hotel and around some of the surrounding streets. I passed Jaipur, an Indian restaurant, and suddenly thought I fancied a curry. If I'm honest, I didn't. I just wanted to get off the street and into somewhere cosy where I could chill for a while. Jaipur wasn't really it, and while I've already broken my 'never eat in an Indian restaurant outside of the UK' rule once before (The Spicy Grill, Brussels, arguably the best Indian restaurant I've ever visited) I found myself breaking the rule again, except this time it simply didn't cut the mustard. First I ordered a Warsteiner but was given a Paulaner – odd when Warsteiner is advertised all over the place – on the menus, outside the restaurant – but I wasn't complaining. Then I asked for poppadams, expecting the usual plate-sized variety but getting instead a couple of dozen mini poppadums each the size of a 2p coin. Very disappointing.

I certainly picked the wrong table, right by the door. Every time somebody walked in I got a cold blast of April weather. It went right through me. Decor-wise it was fairly basic: red and beige tablecloths with a bar/servery counter on the back wall and tables in front of it.

The waiter was the height of good manners: polite, friendly, he passed with flying colours.

A hot plate arrived, always a pleasant moment of the Indian restaurant experience, but not today. It was cold. Put it this way, I could easily place my hand palm down on it without risk of burning myself. The food followed and, fortunately, it was warm, hot and fine to eat.

I had ordered a chicken curry dish with pillau rice and a naan bread and found the entire meal a disappointment. First the rice was a little on the crunchy side (not what I'm used to) and the chicken, while fine, was, I don't know, chewy? Gristly? Not like the prime chicken breast meat I would have been served in an English Indian restaurant, and I can't help but compare like for like, it's only natural. Theoretically they should be in the same ballpark, Germany is, after all, a Western European country, just like the UK. The meal was sort of average and I kind of regretted making the decision to cross the threshold of Jaipur, although, that said, I might be completely wrong about the place. I say that because as I was about to leave many Indian customers came in, virtually taking over the restaurant. Having so many Indians sitting in an Indian restaurant is, in my opinion, the best review an Indian restaurateur can hope for. So I started to reappraise my attitude towards the place, although I stand by what I have written. Put it this way, I felt reassured about Jaipur's credentials.

At the end of the meal I was given scented 'bird seed' – a kind of Eastern Trill – to refresh my mouth. It did the trick.

The bill was around 26 Euros, which was a fair price for what I'd eaten. Soon I was back on the streets and heading for my hotel from where I now sit, writing this review.

It's just gone 2130hrs, I'm tired and looking forward to my bed, which is next on my agenda.

I've enjoyed eating a few of these excellent snack bars.

Snack of the trip!!!
Arguably one of the most moreish, tasty snack bars you'll ever eat, the Briiggen Sunny Erdbeer Joghurt bar takes the biscuit. I'm guessing that 'Erdbeer' is German for strawberry as the English translation says just that, 'Strawberry Yoghurt'. Either way it's tasty and I'll be getting hold of some more tomorrow. This is serious competition for the Balisto bar.

In Dusseldorf... day one

I'd like to call myself a 'biscuiteer', but having mistaken a small, wrapped block of hard foam designed to clean shoes for some kind of free snack, possibly even a biscuit, I think I seriously failed the entrance examination.

I'm safely ensconced in my room at the Mercure Hotel and I thought I'd scout around for any freebies and that's when I encountered what I thought was a biscuit. Life can be infuriating. There's not much for free: a sachet of premium peppermint tea, two elongated sachets of instant coffee, some 'Zabielacz de kawy creamer' – that's powdered milk to you and me – and a couple of sachets of sugar. Oh, there's a bottle of Evian mineral water.

Hoteliers can get a little angry when I suggest that a locked minibar means they don't trust their guests, but I hate that unmistakable feeling of exclusion. There's a couple of locked doors, one being a small safe that has been rendered unusable, and the other some kind of fridge, which I'm guessing is either empty or jam-packed with beers and wines and wasabi nuts, but just not for me for some reason. I wonder if they thought, 'hold on, we've got Moggridge staying with us, lock the minibar and don't give him access to the mini safe either'. There must be some kind of policy decision that says 'lock the fridge and the safe and don't leave any keys floating around'. Annoying, but so far I have very little to complain about, well, apart from trying to find the elevator. One of them was out of order so I was directed along a corridor to where I would find another, but I got lost and had to ask for directions. It turned out the lift was up some stairs, on the first floor no less, so I figured what was the point? I walked instead and soon found my room, which was absolutely fine. There was a carpeted floor, a single bed, a flatscreen television, power points, a telephone (that worked!) and various leaflets. The bathroom was small but perfectly formed, there was space for my suitcase and suits and I was pretty pleased for another reason: I was under four minutes' walk from my all-time favourite Italian restaurant, Da Bruno, where I had booked my usual lonely table for one.

The flight over from Heathrow T5 was fine: some initial cloud, but fairly smooth and now that BA has decided, a la easyJet, to charge for its food I decided not to bother, opting instead for lunch at Huxley's (butterfly chicken and a glass of Pinot Noir followed by a single espresso and the bill). I'd arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and once lunch was out of the way I moseyed around getting angry about the assumption, made by airport operators the world over, that once people find themselves 'beyond passport control and through security' they're somehow able to afford Prada handbags and Rolex watches, not forgetting Burberry coats and sich like. I found a WH Smith's but couldn't find a book decent enough to warrant my attention and left for gate A18 empty-handed.

Bang on time, the train from the airport to Dusseldorf HBF...

Once I had landed in Dusseldorf, German efficiency kicked in: passport control was a breeze, jumping on board the Skytrain was simplicity itself and when I reached Dusseldorf HBF I walked for five minutes until I reached the hotel, from where I write this.

Time is moving fast and it's almost time for dinner so I'm skipping off to my favourite restaurant of all time, Da Bruno on Karlstrasse, which is under a four-minute walk away from the hotel's front desk. I couldn't ask for more if I tried. The reason I'm in the Mercure is because once, when I bowled nonchalantly into Da Bruno expecting a table and not getting one, I wandered around and eventually decided to have dinner in the Mercure's restaurant. Alright, it was a last resort and wasn't a brilliant meal but at least I knew there was a hotel close-by that was even nearer than the Burns Art Hotel a few doors along. The only reason I knew of Da Bruno's existence was because the receptionist at the Friends Hotel, which is located at the other end of Karlstrasse, recommended it to me about a year to 18 months ago. Now, whenever I'm in Dusseldorf, I book a table, like I did tonight.

After dinner (Parma ham with melon, pappardelle with mushrooms, two glasses of red wine and a cappuccino) I took a stroll in the direction of the Friends hotel, but turned left and found myself in a kind of Japanese area of town. I milled around for all of two minutes and then turned back, whistling that guitar riff from the Rolling Stone's Last Time single. "This will be the last time, maybe the last time I don't know..." and I can't remember the rest, or whether what I've just written is even correct, but I do remember the whining guitar riff.

Fortnum & Mason, where we all shop!!!

I'm back in the room. To be honest I now know when to stop; in the past I didn't have a clue and would happily prop up the bar drinking beer into the early hours – oh how foolish I was! It's not yet 10 o'clock and I'm already thinking about switching on the television, possibly drinking that bottle of Evian and then hitting the sack. While I drank the bottle of water I refrained from watching the television, but then, lying in bed, lights off, deep in thought about this and that, I felt restless enough to get up and start sub-editing this blog post and, as you can see, write something extra too, but now, as I look at the clock in the top right hand corner of my laptop's screen, I see that it's now ten past midnight and this time I really am shutting things down and hitting the sack.

I write a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor, which can be read by clicking here.