Gunter Emlien treats us to a fantastic homemade meal.

No pictures in this post as the night was too good to pick up the camera. Gunter Emlien, Lieselotte's brother, hosted us for a dinner in his home. His wife was out of town tending to her ill mother and I think he appreciated the company as well. His apartment is very different from Lisa's in that it is very small, essentially 1 room, but has many levels with each level being its own room.  We chatted as he cooked and enjoyed observing the typical brother sister dialog as Lisa joined in the food preparation.

We had salad and smoked fish as an appetizer which was delicious. Yeah... I know.... I hate fish.... but surprisingly I tried it and it was very dry not mushy and had an outstanding smokey flavor to it. I ate it all. Gunter served a Kenner very dry Riesling wine that was to die for. OMG. I have never had a white wine as good as the one that Gunter served that night. He even offered to let me finish the last few sips in the bottle.

Our main course was a chicken dish that was fall off the bone tender and packed with flavor. Of course he had an excellent pairing of another Kenner wine, this time a Pinot Noir. The meal was delicious, but these wines were a feast for the palate. To wrap the evening up he broke out his very special Riesling Grappa. Yep, I had two servings of that as it had a beautiful finish that made my taste buds dance with joy.

Lisa and Gunter finished off the evening with Espresso which was a bit more than I wanted now but Lisa said she needed to stay awake for the drive home. We said our goodbyes and Gunter decided to join us for a wine tasting later this week. All the way home I was responsible for looking for signs that said "Ludwigshafen" to be sure Lisa made us back to her apartment. Which we did in a pretty short amount of time. It was weird in that there were like six different Ausfarhts (remember.... exits) that were to Ludwigshafen. I learned that they all generally headed that way but some put you south of the city  while others sent you north and we had to the one that put us in the center. It was a fun day and we get to sleep in as tomorrow we are on a harder cruise in the afternoon of Mannheim.