Mason in Kaiserslautern is global cuisine with a German accent
Masons bills itself as a culinary adventure around the world, complete with menus resembling passports and food listed by continent.
The experience is indeed global in scope, though it feels a little like you’re traveling in a German tour group. You can cover thousands of imaginary food miles and end up in the Americas or Australia, but the German tendency toward pork, potatoes, cabbage and cheese is never that far behind.
The Asian dishes have a few successes, though the spice levels are mostly toned down, in line with the standard-issue German palate (I’m not sure where these are issued, but I’m reliably told this by our German staffers, one of whom thinks mayonnaise is wild stuff).
Where Masons succeeds is with its fun concept. It’s a new addition to Kaiserslautern, which isn’t especially known for its restaurant scene’s creativity, unless you count slight variations on brown schnitzel sauce.
Every meal here is all-you-can-eat; the only difference is whether you order from a list of five specials, which cost one euro more. Kids 4 and under eat for free, so if you’re a single parent showing up with a horde of hungry children, you’re getting a deal. Otherwise, at 27.95 euros for dinner, consider this a splurge.
Diners have two hours to select up to 20 small plates, which can be ordered every six minutes from a tablet on your table. I found this off-putting at first until I got into a rhythm and realized that there was no way my party of three was going to order 60 plates of food.
If you’re a hungry adult, 10 or 11 of your own and a few bites from the plates of others should stuff you pretty nicely. So I relaxed, knowing that my plates were coming, though not always in the sequence I ordered them.
In two trips to Masons, I tried all of the approximately 30-40 items on the menu. You could start off with the grilled halloumi cheese, which is delightfully squeaky and dressed with fresh greens, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It’s tasty and it’s the adult thing to do. But that’s not what I did.
