Sorry for the lack of posting. Snookums’s birthday weekend continues. Last night we headed out to the Rhinedorf, a German restaurant he’s been eager to visit ever since he discovered it online. Apparently they’re the only place in Sydney with Kolsch (a really good German beer) on tap. It’s way, way out in the suburbs though and we had a bit of a train journey to get there. Luckily I’d thought to call ahead because the place was packed with several birthday parties and they were only just able to squeeze us in. It was well worth it. The decor reminded me of riding the Matterhorn at the county fair: it was all mountains and lederhosen and odd pictures of fruit. The waitresses were even wearing dirndls! We drank half-liter steins of beer and grinned at all the fat suburban German-Australians around us. Everyone was happy. We ordered the Farmer’s Platter for Two, which consisted of four big sausages, pork cutlets, meat loaf, sauerkraut, potatoes, and red cabbage, served with a pitcher of a gravy and two tubes of gourmet mustard. It was excellent. We followed that with a couple slices of cake from the dessert menu. (Me: “I like how at a normal restaurant they’d ask you if you wanted custard OR ice cream OR whipped cream, but here they just give you ALL THREE!”) The bill was surprisingly cheap – only $70 – especially considering we’d consumed a liter and a half of beer between us. We staggered out an hour later to catch a train back to the city, echoes of oom-pah music still ringing in our ears.