Apart from on Tinder of course – it is the modern era after all – I first clap eyes on Matthew outside a pub in North-East London. He locks up his bike, apologises profusely for his tardiness, and a few hours later we part on a road close to my flat. I walk away and a high-pitched squeal emanates from somewhere within me, of which I am fortunately the only witness.
Four months of dating and drinks and laughing and cycles and learning to squeal internally pass by, and suddenly we are pulling into the Hauptbahnhof of a South-West German city I’d never even heard of until that first sunny evening. Five years’ prior, Matt studied in Mannheim on exchange for as long as Warwick University’s grey concrete clutches would allow. A young man from a northern brewery town, he loved Mannheim and hated Warwick. He very nearly didn’t bother return.
Mannheim too has its fair share of grey concrete – the city centre was completely obliterated by WW2. But a campus near Coventry it is not. Thank god.
We cross the station car park towards the city centre. I inhale that low hum of potential and excitement that I recognise from some of our own industrial cities. Do you know it? It’s the buzz of something a little unrefined, a little rough around the edges. Of something mysterious and adventurous, because your numbed eyes haven’t already seen it a thousand times on the internet or in guidebooks. A fresh feast for my eyes, Mannheim is actually, genuinely new.
We head straight for Matt’s favourite currywurst spot – trendier and more polished than you might imagine – where the sauce is sweet and hot and spicy, and the beer glides blissfully over the parched midday-mouth of someone who arrived at Stansted at 4am. Shame on you, by the way, if you look down on this beautiful banger-based phenomenon. At home we have limp plastic-wrapped sandwiches – in Germany, they have hot sausages in curried ketchup on every corner.
Bags deposited at the hotel, we amble around the sites. I’m very lucky to have this bilingual insider to run around with arm-in-arm. I’m shown the exquisite terracotta-coloured triumph that houses the university and then some sort of vaguely-important historical water tower. But it’s with much greater enthusiasm that my tour guide leads me astray from the city’s (albeit brief) typical tourist trail.
We sit outside a café on a square that flanks the town-hall, where the table service for inexpensive local beer could put Michelin-Starred maitre-d’s to shame. Our glasses are never empty for longer than ten or twenty seconds before someone appears asking if we’d like another round. “Noch ‘ne Runde?” – “Bitte!” – and our beers materialise near instantly.
We go on to a funny rock-metal bar, where stories of late night hilarities are recounted and I laugh, eyes wide and very much falling in love. When we leave, it’s started to get dark and we are hungry. It isn’t late or anything, it’s November, so it’s no later than 4 or 5pm. And in spite of the beers, we aren’t drunk – they’ve just warmed us up.
I am lead off in a very specific direction, on a road called Jungbuschstrasse. “You know Germany has this huge Turkish population, right?” I nod – my reference point may only be the number of kebabs I have both seen available for consumption and consumed on various trips to Berlin and Cologne, but yes I do know that, even if only by process of döner-deduction.
“Well, Mannheim’s is massive. Really massive. This whole area from this street on is something like 70% immigrant. There are Greeks, Cypriots, Italians – but mostly Turks. So basically all the food is great. Let’s go to my favourite kebab place.”
And off we trot, this way and that through the gridded streets, seeking our prize. We arrive at the location, correctly remembered, but – “It’s gone! I can’t believe it’s gone. It was so good. Never mind, we’ll go for Lahmacun.”
I’ve never had Lahmacun before. Maybe because I’m young and ignorant, or maybe just because I’m Scottish. ‘Turkish Pizza’ rings a bell, but more from strange menus at bad restaurants I remember from inter-railing around Europe as a teenager.
We cross one street and we’re there, stood before a neon-lit shop front that gleams onto the dark, quiet street. It’s all hubbub inside – half of the room taken up by a massive kitchen-come-counter where three young men work like clockwork, performing the same movements over and over with expert speed and efficiency. They work like high-tech machinery or perfectly synchronised ballet dancers – or both – moving huge pieces of elastic dough down the production line, towards an enormous glowing brick oven in the corner. I’m staring through the glass with my mouth open, as if I’m watching the moon-landing through a TV shop-window. I blink and we go in.
There are only five, maybe six, formica-topped tables – all packed, bar one two-top pushed right up against the counter. I take a seat. Matt orders – two lamb Lahmacun – and grabs two Ayran rip-top cartons from the fridge. He informs me they are salty yoghurt-like drinks, and I note that every other table is drinking them too. It all comes to no more than eight euros.
What appears before us minutes later is two platter-sized plates lined with rough paper serviettes, each piled with four enormous squares of dark-gold, blistered, piping-hot flatbread topped with ground-lamb and minutely-diced onion and all manner of red-tinged spices. It practically glows. A side plate carrying a great mound of flat-leaf parsley arrives, with thick wedges of lemon and long pickled green chillies. I look at everything and look up at my date.
I’d love to bring everything I’ve told you so far to a crashing thud right about now. I really would. The build-up, the excitement, my little love-filled heart – just let it all crumble. Shock you as I get up and leave this scruffy establishment and never see young Matthew again. That’d shake things up, give you something to remember.
But I can’t. It is the best thing I have eaten in years, maybe even my life.
The dough is flawless. Simultaneously crispy and fluffy and pock-marked with char, it soaks up the rich, fragrant juices of the lamb without effort – and it doesn’t even get close to soggy. We throw heaps of fresh parsley on top of each square, spraying them with lemon juice and spiking them with pickled chillies. Matt teaches me to dress them like this and roll them up into tubes because his Vietnamese-Canadian friend Brian told him to do so, who was taught by his friend before him, and so on. According to a long line of fresh-faced exchange students, this is the Done Thing.
There is so much texture, zing and flavour – so perfectly balanced. It’s so good there are tears in my eyes. I’m bopping around with joy. There is a no-frills hullabaloo around me and something expertly executed on my plate. I think it might be perfection.
I am a very cheap date.
Based on a 2017 visit to Uzun Taş Fırını - G5 12, 68159 Mannheim, Germany.