Redo XXL restaurant

On one of our 'riding the trains' days we came across a restaurant called REDO XXL in the Tempelhof - Mariendorf area of Berlin.

With XXL in the title I knew this was a place not to be missed. Back at home we checked out the menu online and just as I suspected - everything is super sized there.

We told our friends Tom and Danika about it, they were keen, so we went there together for dinner.

We had all looked at the menu beforehand and had no idea what to order.

The restaurant has only been open since March this year and is situated in a modern brand new looking building overlooking the Teltow Canal. Inside the restaurant you have a great view over a canal 'inlet' and ironically the XXL restaurant looks over this inlet to a gym!

We had reserved a table, and my limited over the phone German was apparent when looking how they spelt our name on the reservation board. At least they got the gist.

We were seated and started flipping back on forth on the menu - complete with pictures of ridiculous sized meals. Being new to the concept we started thinking that we would order one thing each. This caused much confusion amongst us as we each accused the others with 'Do you really think you are going to eat all of THAT yourself?'

We couldn't decide, it was too hard. Ordering drinks was easier. Tom 'had' to get the biggest beer which is 2 litres and nicely priced at 10.95 Euros. Nordine and I got 1 litre steins, also attractively priced at 5.95 Euros. Danika went for a small 300ml beer.

Tom's beer came out first. We were all laughing at his comical two litre glass.

Next our steins came out, looking a bit dwarfed by the two litre cup - but still respectable. Then Danika's little lady drink came out, embarrasingly small and looking pathetic in the orbit of the big beers.

By now we had gone over the menu. Should we get the burger with 1kg of mince, the 1kg sausage, the 3kg meat plate or something else. We still were not thinking rationally about our devouring abilities, but did just settle on two dishes. The special of the day was all your can eat ribs (9.99 Euros), so we went for that and also the 2kg schnitzel (25.90 Euros). That should do it.

The schnitzel came out after a long wait. The thing was massive, much bigger than expected. It took up so much of our table! Not only was the schnitzel so large but it also came with a ridiculous amount of chips, probably about 2 kilos worth! We had to rake the chips off the schnitzel to assess the integrity of the schnitzel. Amazingly it was all one piece, quite thick and as big as a door mat.

We all got stick in, sampling the two sauces that came in gravy boats. The schnitzel tasted excellent!

The ribs came out shortly after and looked puny in comparison to the schnitzel. We divided the ribs into  quarters so we all could share. The ribs were really great too!

The ribs went almost immediately but it didn't matter as it was supposed to be all you can eat. This became the only disappointment of the night as we never got any more ribs. Once we had been given our food we were pretty much ignored by the wait staff and never got a chance to order more ribs. At one stage I did manage to get the waiters attention and gave him a wave. He gave me a knowing nod. Ok maybe that means the ribs are on order. Nope nothing ever came. Realistically, no one wanted more ribs and we were only going to get them because we could.

In the absence of ribs we concentrated on the schnitzel - after all we had 500 grams each of meat and 500g of chips EACH. It was too much, though I am sure I ate my portion of meat but definitely not of the chips. We gave up with maybe just less than a quarter of the schnitzel left and crap loads of chips lonely on the huge tray.

We had been at the restaurant for three hours and over the last half an hour we all crashed badly being so full. We all started to feel extremely full and then a bit unwell.

The total bill came to 70 Euros with tip. From the bill we found out that if you are sharing a meal you then have to pay a supplement of 1.90 each, which makes sense. We had seen it on the menu when we ordered but didn't understand it at the time. As we had ordered two meals we had to pay two lots of the 'schnorrteller'.

Catching the U-Bahn and S-Bahn back home was an uncomfortable ride. All of us were clutching our overstuffed bellies and intermittently exclaiming 'Oh Man!'.

Other than the service and not being able to get more ribs, we all liked this place a lot. I loved it and can't wait to go back!