One of my favourite things to do on a warm afternoon, is to walk through a residential area and look at all the different houses and gardens. I like to imagine what the inside would look like and what part of the house I would want to incorporate into my dream house. The one downside to this is that these areas are often tucked away from the busy streets and nowhere near a good restaurant or café. Often when you have been admiring beautiful buildings for a long time, you soon become hungry and have nowhere close to go to.
When wandering around in a lovely residential area one hot summer’s day in Winterthur, looking for a furniture shop, we stumbled across an amazing little restaurant. Even midweek, the place was thrumming with life and I think that if we had been more than two people, we would not have got a table. The restaurant was called Nachbarsgarten, which translates to neighbour’s garden. The atmosphere was wonderful. We had a table sitting out in front of the restaurant under a sun canopy which gave us a great opportunity to examine the gorgeous houses and to watch people as we waited for our food to arrive.
I ordered the grilled chicken with a peanut crumble, served with lime couscous and grilled vegetables. The dish had a wonderful mix of colours. Bright yellows from the roasted peppers, vivid green from charred broccoli, dusky orange from the carrots and the golden brown of the chicken. As I tucked into the food, I was delighted by the lime couscous, paired with the sweet and spicy crumble, it made a wonderful contrast. First I took a bite of the crispy, slightly smoky chicken with the creamy peanuts and then had a mouthful of the lime couscous and which refreshes the palette, so you can enjoy the chickens taste as if for the first time. I could not get bored with the flavours in this dish as they allowed the enjoyment of each taste to last longer than if it was all mixed together. The different vegetables kept the tastes new and fresh.
The only small downside with enjoying the dish so much, was that I was too full afterwards to try one of the desserts. I am sure that such an amazing place must have a stunning selection of desserts.
The best places to eat are the ones that you stumble across, making it just that more special. If I could, I would like to have this restaurant on the same street as my dream house, so on warm evenings I could walk down to the neighbour’s garden, have chicken with peanut crumble and lime couscous and watch the world go by. We never did find that furniture shop in the end as we were distracted by the restaurant!
Restaurant Nachbarsgarten, Feldstrasse 22, 8400 Winterthur
Rassasy 