It was purely by accident that we found ourselves tucking into pig’s knuckle, sauerkraut, sausages and roast potatoes on the eve of Helmut Kohl’s funeral. It was a meal that the former German chancellor, notorious for his appetite, would have approved of.

We had ended up at Brotzeit on a rainy payday weekend, and there were, as we expected, the usual groups of grumbling office workers waiting out the downpour, as well as foreigners nursing their beers.

But despite the bad weather and the traffic, there were groups of friends out to have an evening out, and couples on dates in their little black dresses and polo shirts. A night out in BGC, it seems, will go on no matter the circumstances.

Like the other restaurants on that row, Brotzeit is great bottled fun. It’s close enough to the real thing, not to be offensive, but in no way authentic, though no worse for it is easy to access, and all about getting slightly woozy and washing off the taste of a sweaty workweek.

Lest you think that German cuisine is limited to schnitzel and bratwurst, there are 10 three-Michelin-star restaurants in Germany, with 292 entries in the Guide Michelin Deutscheland.

Germany, after all, is a rich country, and while it is known for fine engineering that churns out sleek cars, medical technology and other goodies from the Mittelstand, there is also a tradition of high culture and of applying the traditional attributes of precision and ingenuity in the kitchen.

Beer

So there’s plenty of high German cuisine, as well as the sausages and much-vaunted 5,000 types of beer that it’s more known for.

We were also aware that it was a year since the inauguration of the current Philippine president, and that no one wanted to talk about it.

The lesson the opposition had learned, especially the older generation to whom being politically engaged meant something in tangible terms, was the futility of concern. One could be engaged or not engaged—the result was the same.

The penalty of raising one’s voice, either in print or online, was to get shouted down by trolls who held nothing sacred, and the punishment far outweighed the rewards.

Not cheap

Halfway through the first year of the new administration, I likened the BGC revelers to those who fiddled while Rome burned, either unaware or uncaring that an inevitable financial crash was on the horizon.

I am happy to have been proven wrong (so far), but it has also led me to wonder how a country that was so politically fraught could go on producing consumers to eat in restaurants that seem to continue opening at a dizzying pace.

For instance, Brotzeit is competitive, but it is not cheap. One eats very well for about P1,000 per head, which is on the affordable end of the scale—but it is at least 5 percent of a young worker’s income after tax.

Meanwhile, tasting menus regularly go for P5,000 per person upwards, especially with a good bottle of wine in the equation. Where are people getting all the money for this?

Politics, business and lifestyle seem to exist in three different realms these days. And when you read the newspaper, it sometimes seems as though we are living in separate realities. While the front pages continue to document gruesome murders, war, mayhem and diplomatic ineptitude, business continues to boom.

The peso has slid and the stock market is not as robust as one could hope for, but business continues to chug along.

The luxury sector is still alive. The lifestyle pages continue to record not just parties and brand launches, but also events and symposia that deal with issues of sustainability, authenticity and cultural appropriation.

In other words, those are issues that wouldn’t have gotten the space if people were starving and looting the shelves for Spam.

On the surface

The genius of the current administration is its policy of noninterference in the business sector, at least on the surface. This is good for business, especially big business, and the big businessmen who are in the president’s inner circle.

But it is not good for the country. I am firmly of the belief that government and the private sector must work together when they can, but the role of government is to direct policy and provide a check to untrammeled growth.

Government intervention is necessary to avoid gross social inequality. A completely unregulated market is also good news for the gray market and the black market, which means more sex workers, human trafficking and, ironically, drugs.

We’re beginning to see the effects of this in the continued success of high-end restaurants, whose clientele are mostly businessmen who have done well under the current conditions, politicians in favor, and the usual blend of high society and show-biz folk, in addition to the people who really care about food and will pinch their pennies to afford statement meals.

On the other side of the scale, Jollibee has opened its 1,000th branch in the Philippines. That’s a lot of Chickenjoy.

But, as with many other things, it’s the middle that’s most interesting.

There will always be very rich and very poor people, even if the gap is increasing and the rich are hiding it less, which is partly to do with social media.

Over sausages and sauerkraut, we toasted to the memory of Helmut Kohl and of a great vision, and on our end, hope that a stable and prosperous middle class continue to pop into restaurants like Brotzeit and have a few beers after work, to laugh and play and go home to comfortable beds. Isn’t that what everyone wants?

Brotzeit, Shangri-La at the Fort, 30th St. corner 5th Ave., Bonifacio Global City; tel. 8159338