Tag: Regensburg

PSA: Beware Raj Mahal in Regensburg

TL;DR: I am not impressed with Raj Mahal and it’s going to be a long time before I try ordering from them again. They smell good on the street, but their customer service stinks.

I placed a carry-out order for dinner through their website today around 14:00. It was slick; I (generally) like a restaurant that has ordering processing built into their own website instead of farming it out to an order processor and delivery service.

I ordered a couple main dishes, paid through PayPal (another plus) and made a note of the pick-up time.

4.5 hours later, I showed up, parked my bike, and walked in, cooler in tow, enjoying the smells from the street on my way in. The young man behind the counter seemed flabbergasted. “But we are closed the WHOLE DAY! You can order for another day, OK?”

“No, it’s NOT OK!” I responded. “I have a confirmation email from your website, and a confirmation of payment through PayPal and now you are telling me you don’t have the food I ordered. Why do you permit orders to come in on days you are not in business?” He said it’s automatic through the website and they have no power over that.

He called someone to talk to me in German (my skillz are stronger than his in that language, apparently) and we went another couple of rounds on the clerk’s phone. When I told him I was angry that his company took my money and didn’t honor the transaction, he told me to get my money back through PayPal. When I asked what I should do with my dinner plans, he said I could do whatever I want.

After I cancelled the payment through PayPal, this blogpost is what I want to do.

Bridge Work Update February 2014

Finally had nice weather today in Regensburg. I can’t remember the last time I needed sunglasses. I was glad to have them today while out grocery shopping.

Regensburg Stone Bridge Update 2014-02-22

The bridge work appears to have stalled again — there is nothing new to report since last time, except that that new segment of auxiliary bridge is in operation now. You can see it in the picture above; there are only three unused trestles left now. Once those are supporting walkers ((And not bikers, right? No ever rides a bike on the Fußgängerbrücke, right?)) as well, the whole stretch of bridge from the South shore to the North shore will be closed off.

I wonder, since the rampy part leading down to what we call Tammy‘s Island has been completed since around the time the Christmas markets closed up shop for the year. If you can walk up the ramp adjoining the West side of the original bridge, how will they let you cross its width, ostensibly under construction, to get to the wood-and-steel auxiliary bridge stretched out parallel to its East side?

Oh well, a mystery to be revealed, I guess.

Flood Update or Batten 2: Keep on Battenin’

For everyone asking about us: we’re fine. Our apartment has a couple inches of standing water in the basement that they pumped out and it seems to have returned. This isn’t actually that big a deal in the short term, as we don’t use our basement for anything. Other than that, the biggest impact of the flooding on our daily lives is on transportation. Bus service is disrupted at our nearest bus stops and roads that we most frequently use are closed. So far, we’re doing pretty well.

That said, four more days of rain are in the forecast. So things might still get hairy. The flood waters are receding very slowly, so more rain might do a lot of damage.

Update: the state of emergency has been lifted for our area and the waters are still dropping. I’ve added some photos I took yesterday.

Friendly Faces: a visit from the Best Man (and Wife!)

I had last week off. It was kind of a staycation for us while the Best Man and his excellent Wife (shall we refer to them as “BMW”?) came to sample three regions in Bavaria:

  • the Upper Palatinate
  • Lower Bavaria
  • Franconia

The BM (okay, let’s stop that right now.) Nate had visited once before, back in 2004, along with fellow Algonquin Middle School alumnus Sam, and they got full into Oktoberfest mode. At that point, Excellent Wife (EW) Carrie was just barely in the picture. But we got to know her over subsequent visits to Detroit and Puerto Vallarta and love to see how happy they are together. Continue reading Friendly Faces: a visit from the Best Man (and Wife!)

Donaumarkt moved slightly further south to Alter Kornmarkt

Regensburg’s Donaumarkt is, as I have written before, one of my weekend joys. Due to construction at its usual spot down on the riverbank, it has had to move Alter Kornmarkt — at least temporarily. Will it end up there permanently? How long into the autumn season will it continue to run?


Continue reading Donaumarkt moved slightly further south to Alter Kornmarkt

Couple wordsy things and a relaxing Saturday morning

Several “foreign” visitors to the region — and by that I mean non-native speakers of German who learned their German in other regions — have mentioned that they find the German spoken here to vary from disconcerting to bewildering to unrecognizable. At several meetups, we’ve commented on how refreshing it is to hear natives speak German in areas where the spoken dialect is closer to the dialect we learned in classroom instruction. Continue reading Couple wordsy things and a relaxing Saturday morning

Let the Beer Gardening begin

The weather’s been nice enough for beer garden visits for months now, but I tend to think of the kick-off of the Maidult (Regensburg’s Spring Festival) as the true opening of the season. Yesterday, pleased to be able to get out of work at a reasonable time, I zipped home on my bike, changed my clothes, and we headed out into the street to watch the parade of local clubs marching onto our island toward the Dultplatz. Then it was just a few steps further over to the Spitalgarten for dinner.

I’m not sure what the deal with the Zombie Bride & Groom was, or what their association with Regensburg’s Youth Wind Ensemble was. Continue reading Let the Beer Gardening begin

Volkshochschule Regensburg Cooking Course: Indisch

A local friend of ours and novice cook drummed up some interest in a cooking course, and we managed to fill up the Volkshochschule Regensburg‘s classroom kitchen on a recent Tuesday evening. Sarah and I attended with some new friends and some old ones to get our Indian cuisine on. Continue reading Volkshochschule Regensburg Cooking Course: Indisch

Donaumarkt, Regensburg’s farmers’ market

One of my weekly joys is a Saturday morning stroll along our island and over a bridge to the south bank of the Danube to scout for groceries. There are lots of local producers represented there: family-run dairies, butchers, bakers, and vegetable farmers, along with a few beekeepers and herbmongers. Some of them are pure-organic producers, too. It took us a couple years of living in Regensburg’s Altstadt before we stumbled upon it. I don’t think that’s because it’s any sort of a well-kept secret (indeed, there are murmurs of uprooting this market and moving it elsewhere in town), but rather because there’s not trace of it come Saturday afternoon.

To help you warm up, or wake up (whatever the case may be), Moccafee has a tiny mobile outdoor coffee shop set up.

And if you’re very good at the butcher stand, you might even get a little reward for your behavior.

For now, at least, you can find it (nearly?) every Saturday morning on the south bank of the Danube just east of the Eiserne Brücke. The rest of the week, it’s plain old parking lot on Hunnenplatz. Get there early for the widest selection and best ease of browsing. It gets crowded pretty quickly after 9:30 and could well be deserted by noon.

View Donaumarkt in a larger map