Happy Sunday, dear reader.  Let me introduce you to rathskeller: a basement restaurant or tavern, typically one serving beer and hearty Germanic fare, where the lighting is dim, the atmosphere thick with the promise of shitty decisions, and the clientele ranges from the questionably employed to the aggressively unemployable.

We stole it from the German Ratskeller, literally “council cellar” – because apparently even medieval bureaucrats needed somewhere to drink themselves into legislative oblivion.  The word combines Rat (council) and Keller (cellar), though let’s be honest, the only council happening in most modern rathskellers involves debating whether that fifth shot of Jägermeister was a diplomatic triumph or an act of war against one’s liver.

Speaking of questionable decisions, I once found myself in such an establishment during what I’ll generously call my “young and stupid” phase (as opposed to my current “older and marginally less stupid” phase).  Picture this: It’s 2 AM, I’m three schnapps deep, and my date – a charming woman who claimed to be “between careers” but whose LinkedIn profile suggested she was between decades – decides we should order the house specialty.  Now, in any respectable rathskeller, you’d expect schnitzel or bratwurst.  But this place?  They brought us what can only be described as a crime against both German cuisine and the Geneva Convention: a pretzel the size of a steering wheel topped with what they optimistically called “artisanal cheese” but smelled suspiciously like corpse feet. 

My date took one bit, declared it “rustic,” and proceeded to eat the entire thing while maintaining eye contact.  It was weird.  I knew right then I was either witnessing true love or a serial killer testing my resolve.  It was neither.  She stuck me with the $47 tab and disappeared into the night like some sort of overpriced pretzel bandit.  For no good reason at all, I went back the next week.  Apparently, my standards for both food and romance had officially hit rock bottom, and they were serving it with a side of regret and mustard that definitely wasn’t Grey Poupon. 

N.P.: “Touch” – Wolfsheim