Very tender veal, with a sauce of egg and lemon, which had a thin sharp taste, and a steak, tender also, stewed with walnuts, an excellent dish to make a dinner of, were the next items on the menu, and I tasted each; but I protested against the capon and the chicken as being an overplus of good things, and the master of the ceremonies—who I think had a latent fear that I might burst before the feast came to an end—told the waiter not to bring them up.
The smoked beef was a delicious firm brisket, and the tongue, salted, was also exceptionally good. I felt that the last feeble rag of an appetite had gone, but the cucumber, a noble Dutch fellow, pickled in salt and water in Holland, came to my aid, and a slice of this, better than any sorbet that I know of, gave me the necessary power to attempt, in a last despairing effort, the kugel and apple staffen and almond pudding.
The staffen is a rich mixture of many fruits and candies with a thin crust. The kugel is a pease-pudding cooked, as I have written above, in the pease and beans soup. The almond pudding is one of those moist delicacies that I thought only the French had the secret of making.
Coffee—no milk, even if we had wanted it, for milk and butter are not allowed on the same table as flesh—and a liqueur of brandy, and then, going downstairs, we looked into the two simple rooms, running into each other, which form the public restaurant, rooms empty at 9 p.m., but crowded at the mid-day meal.
Mr. Goldstein, who was there, told us that his patrons had become so numerous that he would soon have to move to larger premises, and certainly the cooking at the restaurant is excellent, and I do not wonder at its obtaining much patronage.
What this Gargantuan repast cost I do not know, for the designer of the feast said that the bill was to be sent to him.
I think that a "kosher" dinner, if this is a fair specimen, is a succession of admirably cooked dishes. But an ordinary man should be allowed a week in which to eat it.
13th December.