Zürich Kunsthaus

Some time ago Andre and I went to the Kunsthaus in Zürich. The art gallery. We went on a Wednesday because on Wednesdays you can see the main collection for free. Why pay when we are not working and able to go on a Wednesday. We only had to pay to see the special Bührle exhibition. These paintings belonged to Mr Bührle. He bought many many painting including paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and Cézanne. You might have heard about four of these painting that were stolen in February 2008, one of Europe's biggest art heists. Two were later found but the other two are still missing. 

My favourites were the three very big Monet paintings of water lilies. I saw paintings like these, I'm not sure but maybe it could have actually been these exact ones, in books when I was studying art history at school. I wish I could have taken pictures of these paintings, but you're not allowed to take any of the Bührle collection. Only in the main exhibition. So hurry and go see the Bührle collection. It only runs until the 16th May.

The main collection has some well known artists too.

As well as some weird artists who like to display blank canvasses.

The place is huge and I don't think we even saw everything there was to see. The wife got tired..

Oh and get an audio guide. It's free. And in English too!

Sushi

A while ago André had a work function and they got to go on a sushi course at this restaurant, Ishi, in Zürich. Even though we've made sushi many times at home, he came back with lots of interesting facts about sushi and tips on making different kinds. Click here to see us making sushi for new years eve in Germany.

Here the guys are on the course at Ishi.

And Andre even thought of his wife at home and brought me left over sushi which he made himself!

Andre's favourite is salmon roses, but we haven't seen it on any sushi menus here. It's a bit of rice, wrapped in salmon with mayo and caviar on top. So the sushi chef at Ishi said he would make Andre salmon roses. This is the chef:

A few weekends ago Andre took me to this restaurant. We started with... guess... cocktails! And of course I had a pina colada! What else!

Ok after that we went on to the sushi. We started with a surprise platter, which consisted of a mix of about four different kinds of sushi. Then Andre went and asked the chef if he could make those salmon roses he promised. He asked if we would like small or large salmon roses. And of course Andre said LARGE! Maybe if I were with him when he spoke to the chef I could have said small, but I didn't know there was this choice...

Well. They were huge. Eight of them. There was no way you could get the whole piece in your mouth in one go. It was more like a three bite piece of sushi! But is was good, just very rich. I can recommend the sushi at Ishi. Just ask for small salmon roses!

The Singing Christmas Tree in Zürich

Singing Christmas Tree, Zürich from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

Zurich's Christmas Market

Yesterday we went to see the Christmas market at the Hauptbahnhof (main station) in Zurich. There were some nice stalls but the most impressive was the Christmas tree. It's really really big and decorated with Swarovski crystals and more Swarovski figures around the base. Beautiful and sparkly!

Some of the stalls selling colourful toys and Christmas decorations carved from wood.

It was freezing cold in the city with a little bit of wind blowing the icy cold off the snowy mountains. Andre took most of the pictures because I was too cold to take my gloves off!

We walked around a little bit after finishing the Christmas shopping but didn't last long in the cold and decided to go for cocktails and dinner to warm up inside a restaurant. Before leaving the cold streets we saw Samichlaus (or St. Nikolas) and his helper Smutzli handing out treats.

On the 6th of December Samichlaus brought treats like candy and cookies to the kids who have been good. But the naughty kids get carried away to the forest by Smutzli. He wears dark clothes and carries a broom of twigs to punish the children. Scary!!! Click here for more interesting info about this tradition and its origins.

Dad & Colleen's visit day one: Zurich

My dad and stepmom came to visit us this past week. They arrived Monday night and so Tuesday when I came home from work we took the train in to Zurich. It was a cloudy grey day but luckily no rain.

This swan was not impressed after it came all the way out the water, only to find our hands empty.

Andre met us in town after work and we went for drinks before dinner. Again cocktails at Widder Bar.

And of course dinner at Zeughauskeller where Andre and my dad had the famous beers.

The food was really good as always.

I can make an album just of pictures of me eating. This one my dad took, but Andre has this habit of snapping at me with the camera whenever I have food in my mouth. Flattering.

This weekend: flambe beer and skateboards

Last night we had another great dinner at Zeughauskeller and I had Jessica's recommendation of Kalbsgeschnetzeltes nach Zürcher art -panfried sliced veal and mushrooms in a delicious creamy white wine sauce, served with Rösti. It was good! We went with friends, had drinks somewhere else beforehand hoping that the long line outside Zeughauskeller would be gone when we go back. But no, there was still a line just as long and that was around 9pm. It was definitely worth the wait though. The guys had the Hövels "flambe with firewater" beer and us girls decided this looks like a cocktail glass and needs some cocktail decorations:

At 11pm they kindly told us they are closing now and we took the hint and went for another cocktail somewhere else. We got the train back at 1pm, (a late night for us!) and again thanks to Jessica's informative blog I was able to figure out that "mit Zuschlag" meant we now had to buy an extra ticket for Sfr.5 for using the night train. (Thanks Jessica!) We weren't impressed though that no one came to check our tickets after we paid extra. But had we not bought those tickets I'm sure we would have been checked! I won't take that chance.

This morning André and I felt like we were at a major party last night. We're not used to going to bed after 12pm anymore!!

But we dragged our tired bodies to the Glatt shopping mall in Wallisellen near Zürich. It's the first time we went there, well first time for me. Andre's been there before when he came over here for work last year. It's a nice shopping mall. We're getting used to not expecting too much from the malls here and this one was really nice. New and quite big enough, nice variety of shops, free undercover parking.

André sold his old MacBook Pro this morning so we spent the money at the mall! He bought a slalom skateboard. His been looking at this for a while now and was getting quite excited about it.

This guy in the shop was really nice. We had a long chat and he convinced us to try snowboarding first instead of skiing. I like the idea of snowboarding, it sounds cool. But I can't picture myself staying upright on a snowboard. We'll see... So anyway, here the guy is putting together Andre's skateboard. Tomorrow I'll go on my bike and Andre can go on his skateboard.

And then André bought us a Nespresso coffee machine :-)

I've been nagging a bit for this. Those who know me will wonder why since I don't really drink coffee. But I like pressing the button on a machine and coffee comes out! And I like the frothed milk so we had to get one that can do that too! So now I'll start drinking coffee.

See here's my first one and a fancy one I made too. A latte macchiato. (I had to check the name in the manual, that's how little I know about coffees!!) The sales lady was really nice at explaining everything and even gave us an extra set of all 16 capsules for free. You also get a set in your box with the machine.

Tomorrow there's an expat expo in Zurich and it's also Knabenschiesen (translated: boys shooting) festival this weekend until Monday. I don't know if we'll go to either. I think we'll just catch up on sleep tomorrow and go try out the skateboard and drink coffee of course. We've still got another 14 flavors to try and then we can start all over again!

Oh, I did some baking on Friday and made jam. I'll tell you about that later on my food blog.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Saturday in Zurich

Saturday we took the train in to Zurich and walked around the old town part. Here's a picture of Zurich Hauptbahnhof.

I was in search of a new pair of jeans. We weren't successful so I still am in search of those jeans...

In the one store while I was trying on jeans I heard André speaking Afrikaans to some other people. There were this couple who heard us speaking Afrikaans to each other and they're also from South Africa now living and working here. It was so nice to hear and speak Afrikaans again to someone else besides each other. We stood in this small little shop chatting and after a while the shop assistant asked us to stand and talk outside if we're not going to buy anything!!

For a late lunch/ early dinner we went to the Zeughauskeller again where we went for Andre's birthday. This time we remembered to also get a picture of the entrance of the restaurant. (Not much to see actually..)

We ordered the Major's Sword which is steak wrapped around a very long sword! It's for two people. And we had it with rösti.

André convinced me to have dessert which didn't take too much convincing. I had the Vacherin Glacé which consisted of two toffee/ caramel flavored meringue biscuits with vanilla ice cream in between. Topped with (lots of) cream and marinated raspberries. It was amazing!!

Oh and André tried their special beer that comes in this huge glass. First they pour some whiskey in the glass and light it.

Then they pour the beer, which is some malt beer, and sprinkle some wheat on top. I don't like beer at all, but this one I didn't find too bad actually.

And André like it too of course.

André's Birthday

Yesterday was André's birthday and we went for dinner at Zeughauskeller, a restaurant in Zurich. It's not far from the Hauptbahnhof, a nice stroll down Bahnhofstrasse.

The building used to be an armoury (where weapons were kept) and was rebuilt in 1487 after a fire destroyed it. Many old weapons are still on display in the restaurant and according to an inventory of arms dated 1644, even William Tell's bow was on display here.

The food was really good. They have a very big menu with one whole page filled with different sausages. I had the smoked sausage from the Engadine valley and it came with potato salad, my favourite salad! André had the spicy beefsteak tatar and he said it was really good too. Then of course we had dessert too since we were celebrating his birthday! André had the "Walnut Parfait made with sugar-roasted walnuts and frozen nougat-crème. Topped with real walnut liqueur (a rarity!) and garnished with whipped cream. Highly recommended!" And I had Tiramisu with vanilla ice cream.

I was surprised how full the restaurant was on a Wednesday evening. It's quite a big restaurant with tables outside too. Outside was already full when we arrived so we sat inside. Most of the tables are big so you might share a table with other people. They have these trolleys which they use to serve from and clear the tables which I thought was very clever.

The service was really good and your food comes out very quickly after you've ordered. Usually we don't ask for English menus in a restaurant, we manage to understand the German. But last night I got a bit frustrated because the menu is so big. In the end André got me an English menu which helped! Our waiter spoke a good English and we heard a lot of English spoken in the restaurant by the other people there. The owner is around all evening, dressed smartly but with an apron over, checking on everything and helping where needed which I thought was nice too.

It was such a perfect evening. Even when we left it was still warm outside. We walked back to the station with a quick stop at the apple store (André can never resist!) and with over full tummies!

Uetliberg hike

Here are some more photos taken by André from our hike on Sunday from Uetliberg to Falsenegg. He went up a tower, a really high one, and that is why I didn't go with him. It was too high! But he got some stunning pictures from up there of Zurich city and the lake.

My feet hurt!

We just got back from a hike at Uetliberg. It was great. Amazing views over Zurich and the Alps, the weather was perfect and the hike was just enough to say we did some walking without it being too hard! We did the 1 1/2 hr Planet walk from Uetliberg to Falsenegg. Then took the funicular down to Adliswil and the train back to HB. Walked around a bit in Zurich, had some great apfelstrudel... mmmm! There were so many people out. The grass was covered with bodies!! What a beautiful summers day.

In other weekend news: I tried to bake my first milk tart on Saturday. You can read about that here. Didn't turn out exactly as I wanted it to, but it's still good enough to eat!

Here are some pictures I took today on our hike. Will see what André has on his camera and if there's anything better I will post that later.

Have a great week! :-)

xx

Zurich Lake

The Alps

Bikini bodies in the sun at Zurich lake!

And cooling off in the lake.