Lila Sosse is a fashionable, nay, trendy, restaurant in
the Neustadt across the river. It's in an alley, with
half the tables inside (sought after when it's crappy
out) and half outside across the passage (sought after
when it's nice out). We had a reservation, and it was
nice, so we got a table outside. Later we saw some
people who had reservations inside just refuse to go
in and appropriated an outside table. After some
negotiation possibly involving a few Euro they were
allowed to stay.

Up above in a bridge across the alley there was a
dance studio complete with a pounding piano and a
ballet master apparently armed with a staff or riding
crop or something. Eins, zwei, drei, vier, PLI-E, drei,
vier, JE-TE, drei, vier, to the screaming ghosts of
Schubert and Chopin. At some point the pianist was off
the hook, and thereafter the slightly more tolerable
sounds of the CD player.

It's a free-form dining experience, with big plates
and little plates (actually served in pint or half-pint
Mason jars) commingling on the table as people ate as
they wished in the order they wished.

We started with a main dish, veal filet with green bean
salad and au gratin potatoes. The veal, ordered rare,
came nicely pink in the middle, gently cooked at a low
temperature. The vegetables were nicely al dente, but
the potatoes had been made with some weird cheese
mixture, probably things I don't eat, like goat and blue,
so I didn't eat them.

After that I got a half pint of crawfish with chard and
sweet chili sauce, which was imaginative or something.
It was a sufficient serving of crustacean and tasty
enough, but the greens and the Thai-style sweet sauce
added nothing.

Spaetzle with carbonara, Lilli's next, was comforting
in taste and texture but appalling in quantity. It cost
the same as the crawfish, but as the ingredients were
cheaper, the jar was four times as big. She ate her fill.
I ate my fill. There was nearly a pint left, and no room
for dessert.

A bottle of Nebbiolo d'Alba was not too expensive, not
too memorable, and just the thing for a warmish night.
We had our fill and gave a glass of it to one of the
parched-looking students at an adjoining table.

With my crawfish, I ordered a glass of the house Riesling,
which was fresh and went well. With the Spaetzle I had
another.

We got out for under a hundred US, not too bad for one
of the more hopping places in town, and not that much
more than lunch at Hans im Gluck. Still no great bargain.
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