The Thai Market, Outdoor, Wilmersdorf

May 8, 2013 3 Comments

Nose to tail eating Thai styleBerlin is a city of extremes. On the one hand, you’ve got bureaucrats, trying to out best each other at making you squirm.

Even postal workers are in on it, you should have seen the maniacal happiness in the eyes of the postal worker while I ruffled around in my wallet to find my driver’s license.

“You’re not getting that parcel without your passport. No point looking in there – I need your passport – that’s the only way.”IMG_4128

I don’t take the bait (any more). I calmly (kind of) step out of line and take my time, without the heckling. Find it and line up again. Nor do I take (visible) offense when the same postal worker peers at the license – then me – repeatedly as if I am buying a gun, rather than picking up my Amazon book.IMG_4124

So in this context, I am dumbfounded – no other word will do – to find a place like the Thai Market. Where women (I didn’t see a single man cooking) sit cross-legged and cook. Where everything is either €5 or  €2.50.  Where dishes are washed in pails of water.  Fried chicken languishes in the sun.  Hands don’t get washed for the 5 hour duration that the women are cooking.IMG_4123

Of course if the horse meat scandal in Europe and the rat meat scare in China have taught us anything, it’s that we are  not as in control as we would like to believe, no matter all those inspectors going around swabbing door handles.  (Did I ever mention that fending off said health and safety inspectors and bribing her with brownies and granola was one of my jobs in my other life?). Read more of this post

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Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, Arte Sucre (Macarons) & More, Markthalle Neun, Kreuzberg

April 7, 2013 4 Comments

Big Stuff Smoked BBQSylee suggested we meet at Markthalle Neun on Saturday.  ”I’m obsessed with the place!” she enthused.

It’s evolved considerably since my last visit.  The USP’s of the stands are distinct from one another and reel the Markthalle Neun consumer mercilessly hook, line and sinker.The pulled pork sandwich At Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, there is a line of hungry punters wrapped around the corrugated shack, as tinny Charleston music blares from speakers located somewhere behind the chicken wire that makes up a big part of the shop.  The Italian girl at the cashier is wearing a flat cap, her sweater sleeves are pushed to the elbows exposing a full arms worth of shirt sleeves – she looks like she should be hitching a ride on the back of a Ford Model T truck circa 1920.  I inch ever closer to the guy with the black latex gloves pulling pork apart for the sandwiches.

Sadly for me, Big Stuff has had a good day and they have sold out of everything except the pulled pork sandwich, so I miss out on the matt aluminum tray loaded with mounds of sauerkraut and squirts of bbq sauce (€12 for the regular, €16 for the large).  I get the pulled pork sandwich (€5.50) and a side of smoked potato (€1).  It’s good.  Not shredded to the point of resembling candy floss the way I experienced at Pitt Cue in London but delicious in a less complicated way.  My mother has her sandwich with a glass of ale from Heiden Peters. A beer from HeidenpetersI appreciate that the brains behind Markethalle Neun have been considerate enough to provide ample seating, with feisty coloured plastic chairs so I don’t have to scan the hall long before finding somewhere to sit.Mini macarons from Arte SucreLayla choses to get her sugar fix from Arte Sucre in the form of mini macarons (heaven preserve us from trending sweets: whoopie pies, cake pops, marshmallows – I mean you!). As I try to identify and retrieve the perennial coffee flavoured one, the French woman selling them begins to rattle off flavours: lemon, cassis, chocolate, mandarin mint…

Mandarin with mint? I think, intrigued as I immediately commandeer that flavour and take half a bite.  The other half I hand to Sylee.  ”These are good right?”.

Her eyes grow round. “Really good.” she agrees. I turn on my heel and return to Arte Sucre, this time to buy a pretty box of choux buns (6 for €7.80) to go with our excellent coffees from Kantine 9.

Choux pastry buns Read more of this post

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The Walk, Dubai

February 8, 2013 2 Comments


The Walk, Dubai
I’m in Dubai.

The winter made me do it. Not that I mind winters, in fact I used to like them. The lazy dark days, over-eating, watch some TV, take in some shows. It was good. But it isn’t anymore. Not with 3 kids, two of which are babies that have to be dressed up like Michelin men to brave the weather then stripped down completely to cope with the central heating.  And not with the hypochondria I’ve developed on their behalf, every time I dropped Layla off at kindergarten I would look at the other kids, coughing, wheezing, like a geriatric ward on uppers.  Emirati mall

So Dubai. 24ºC and sunny.

You would think it was a no brainer decision but I had my doubts.  I always thought of Dubai as coarse.  A male centric blemish on the earth (you can see The Palm from space.)

But who can argue with 24ºC and sunny?IMG_1417

We land in Abu Dhabi because there is no direct flight to Dubai from Berlin (No surprise there then).  Passport control is staffed entirely with women, wrapped in black, their pinned up hair making their  shrouded heads look conical and alien.

Avocado tartine at Le Pain QuotidienThen there are the feet and the big man toes.  In Europe if you’ve seen a man’s toes, it goes without saying you’ve seen a lot more of him besides. Not in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Dishdashas swish this way and that, backless sandals scrape against the pavement (Arabs are famous for the shuffle walk) exposing toes the size of limes, tufts of hair sprouting generously beneath the nail beds.  Their magpie nature means that the sandals are adorned with all manner of shiny accessories. Read more of this post

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Petersham Nurseries, Garden Centre & Restaurant, Petersham-Richmond

August 2, 2012 6 Comments

IMG_3313The first time I went to Petersham Nurseries was for a Slow Food lunch with the subject of edible flowers. Back then Skye Gyngell had just started to work her magic behind the stove, today she has handed over her wooden spoon (or whatever) to Greg Malouf claiming that receiving a Michelin star has driven her away.I’ve read a substantial amount of grumbling regarding the prices (for example in John Lanchester’s review for The Guardian) which for a la cart is about £50 a head and for the set lunch goes from £28.50 for two courses and £32.50 for three courses. In London and environs that can’t be considered extortionate, surely? Is it because you can also buy pots of lavender that this seems expensive to some? Or because of the bathroom, which reminds me of the composting outhouses from my days at girl scout camp but with running water.The service is faultless. Young british women, wearing flowery blouses and sensible flats. Thick, straight (in spite of the 70% humidity) hair pulled back in ponytails and a sheet of fringe brushing their eyebrows. Their cheeks blushed just like the many heavy-headed roses surrounding us. Our principal waiter is a british man, who looks like he’s come off the set of Chariots of Fire.My sister and I eat outside under a loosely thatched roof, which provides plenty of dappled sunshine. We are close enough to the trickling fountain that it gives us some relief from the sweltering humid heat (what is it with the weather? It can only do 18ºC and raining or 30ºC and humid?).

I am looking forward to seeing what Greg Malouf does with the produce of the garden. And with Middle Eastern food which is still largely unexplored in the west and at its point of origin, very rustic.

I order the 3 course set menu finding it at once good value and a good way to discover the new style of Petersham nurseries. This starts with a fattoush salad, whose usual form is a chopped salad with fried pieces of flat bread but in this incarnation is all manner of greens I don’t recognize and small beets, juicy white radishes, sweet cucumber, even sweeter tomatoes some cherry and some peeled wedges of a larger variety. Instead of deep-fried flat bread, there are crunchy slices of sourdough sprinkled with sumac. Three violet blossoms adorn the salad like a crown. It is beautiful, to behold and to eat.

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Jakobs Höfe, Asparagus & Pumpkin Farm, Beelitz

May 22, 2012 10 Comments

Two years is the length of time t it took me to concede that “White asparagus is not that bad.”  I would go as far as to say: “It is rather good.

“For the last couple of springs, I would encounter mountains and mountains of the stuff, swollen and pale – looking like a sick relative of my beloved green asparagus and turn my nose up at them.  I would scan the corners of the stand, be it at the supermarket or an outdoor market until I would spot a few bundles of the green stuff, usually imported from Greece or Spain.

What made me change my mind?  A plate of asparagus, boiled potatoes and schnitzel at the Ritz.  Ravenous after my Athens flight with EasyJet (why did Stelios call it ‘Easy’ I wonder, is it tongue in cheek? Is it so that when you are ranting like a mad person in your head, about the injustice of paying the same price you would pay a ‘civilized’ carrier, one that doesn’t make you queue ad infinitum, the word ‘easy’ can continually bait you?  Yes, I would fly another carrier, any other carrier, except wouldn’t you know it ‘easy’ jet is the only one that continues to fly to Athens from Berlin.)

A meal at the Ritz will make most things palatable, they even gussy up the lemon half with a bit of yellow gauze (to keep the pips from dropping out when you squeeze the lemon, since you ask).  €30 is what that plate of food cost.  ’Beelitz’ asparagus is what it said on the menu.  Beelitz and its asparagus seems to be to Berliners what Yorkshire and its rhubarb seems to be to Londoners.  I have journeyed to Yorkshire and strained my ears with the rest of the rhubarb tourists listening for the rhubarb squeak.  It seemed reasonable to me that I should travel to Beelitz and see white asparagus in  the stalk.After spending some time poking around on www.beelitzerspargel.de, I settled on Jacobs Hof.  I bundled hubby and daughter off into the car and 45 minutes later we were staring at a 2 story inflatable asparagus spear with a big grin pasted on its face. We made our way to the restaurant and were asked if we had a reservation – ‘Eh…? To eat asparagus in the middle of nowhere?” I thought?  But the lady wasn’t off her rocker, it was buzzing in there.  True most people were over 70 but they were having a grand old-time.  They found us a table.  We ordered asparagus with potatoes and ham (€12.50) with hollandaise sauce.  The asparagus was dreamy, the potatoes were incredibly flavourful and the ham was, good sliced ham.  The hollandaise sauce was from a carton, I think it almost always is here, except for at the Ritz but even there it was more like a mayonnaise than an hollandaise.  To be honest, even that didn’t sully the asparagus.  It was good.  So good that I bought some and made them with homemade hollandaise a few days later.  Read more of this post

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Hofcafé, Garden Cafe, Wannsee

March 18, 2012 6 Comments

Can it be?

One and a half days of brilliant sunshine seem to confirm it.

Although the trees are still brown and bare with no promissory green buds.But today as I sat in the courtyard of the Hofcafé in Wanssee, I could hear euphoric bird song and pretty flowers dazzled me every which way I looked. They were all greenhouse grown and potted but it didn’t matter to me.  My eyes fixed on their brilliant colour.  I grew optimistic and slid my sweater off, exposing my bare arms – ah well, perhaps a smidgen too early for that but a whisper of what is to come.My first week in Berlin, I remember chatting to a Brazilian father in Kollwitzplatz, I was delirious with the excitement that seems to afflict nearly all those moving to Berlin.  I gushed about how wonderful it was.

“Yes…” he paused, perhaps considering whether he should quash my enthusiasm.  ”The winters though…  They are very hard.  Grey skies every day, for days, for months…”  His voice trailed off and so did his gaze, as if contemplating something unsettling.Pah!  Probably seems that way to a Brazilian used to seeing everything in Technicolor I thought then.  Now two years later, a Londoner entirely acclimatized to setting out with an umbrella even if there isn’t a cloud is the sky and a person who believes that SAD is just another made up Western affliction to keep company with lactose intolerance – I say

“Yeah, WOW! Those Berlin winters will knock all the ‘raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens‘ right out of you!” Until all that’s left is, well the grey fluff you find when you move the sofa.

If what my iPhone tells me is to be believed, Spring may just be coming to town next week.  I hope it plans on sticking around until buxom Summer knocks it aside. Read more of this post

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Carmens Restaurant, Regional Food, Eichwalde

February 14, 2012 6 Comments

Where I live in Mitte, it’s all concrete, grit and black snow, I was hankering after something different – probably spring but I was willing to settle for a foray outside Berlin.  And not Potsdam.  (Heaven preserve us from overly sweet hot chocolate and towering ‘kuchen’).  My husband, having grown up in a suburb, within a suburb, within a suburb, in other words 3 houses clustered together or where the fox says goodnight to the owl – has an acute fear of anywhere without a Starbucks.  Not that he has a thing for Starbucks per se but you need a certain population density for a crowned green mermaid to take over a coffee shop near you.  I on the other hand grew up in Athens, up in the mountains.  From the age of 5, I could walk out by myself and get a Snickers bar from the kiosk to sustain me on my 5 minute amble to the video store.  So I want a garden and he dreams of living in a hotel, where the ketchup and shampoo is miniature and sealed.Predictably, I started cooing over all the tree houses I saw in the large gardens.  ”Imagine how much fun children must have out here!’  He got tense and started driving faster, presumably reasoning that the faster we got there, the faster we could get out again.  ”And how did you hear about this place again?” he asked.  ”Someone I follow tweeted me the recommendation.”  ”You and twitter.” he mumbled.  (See “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” in the NY Times)Carmens is about an hour outside Berlin.  It is, as my husband’s rigid body language testified, very rural.  A former butcher’s is now home to a restaurant specializing in regional cuisine.  The Michelin guide lists it under best value and charming restaurants.  We walk in, Hrabi carrying Layla, Layla carrying an armful worth of Disney characters, a Muller yogurt and a plastic spoon. A roomful of older people, stop eating, cutlery poised mid-air and breathe a sigh of relief when we are discretely shown a table on its own by the window.  Not a place that welcomes children then.  The feeling I got is that Carmens is a place that families (with older children) go for special occasions and where they eat food like they used to find in an interior that would go well with the outfits in Debbie Gibson’s 1989 video Electric Youth.  Remember that time? The chairs are metal and painted in matt black paint, circular metal cabinets with glass shelves hold rows of glasses.  The carpet is blue, the tablecloths are yellow.  It has been a long time since the place was updated.

The food was similarly nostalgic.  The components of the salad that came with my fish were all peeled.  Everything; green peppers, tomatoes (deseeded), cucumbers (deseeded).  The fish had been wrapped in an intricate confetti of potato and fried in butter.  Fried in butter was the theme of the our main courses, it was wafting out every time the kitchen door swung open.    Hrabi’s schnitzel had been similarly bathed in butter, the potato salad came with the superfluous addition of mushrooms.   Read more of this post

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Friedrichshain: Aunt Benny’s, Cafe; Kinkibox, sewing cafe; La Récréation, Ceramics; Hops & Barley, micro-brewery; Olivia, Chocolate & Cafe; Goldschmiede, jewellery

October 8, 2011 2 Comments

At this juncture, I would say that I know Mitte inside out; Prenzlauerberg very well; I am surprisingly well-informed on where to eat in Kreuzberg; Charlottenburg is pretty shaky; Schöneberg, vaguer still; Friedrichshain had been blank (with the exception of Cupcake which I visited only once); don’t even get me started on places like Wilmersdorf it might as well be a different city, in fact from what I hear – it kind of is.While the weather was ‘Fa la la la la, la, la, la, laaaaaa‘ glorious, I took out my new copy of Tip’s Speisekarte (in which I got a mention on a special they did on food bloggers – Yay!) and plotted out a few addresses to try out. Then I printed out the google map and off I went with a girlfriend to explore.Yes, I’m a geek of epic proportions. Something it’s taken me a long time to embrace but now that I have, you know what? Geeks have much more fun.Annoyingly, two of the places I had been looking forward to trying were closed on Tuesday (Factory Girl! and Melt) but Aunt Benny’s was open. It has a similar aesthetic to places like The Barn or Bäckerei from the Alpentstueck group, namely, black painted walls, designer bare bulbs, good staff / service. I was still full from tasting a lot of mediocre food along our tour (places I won’t name because they were unoriginal even in their shortcomings) but I couldn’t resist the chickpea and kidney bean salad with rocket in a large weck jar.At that point the tour was over and it had been disappointing. The extraordinary number of young Europeans on the streets told me that there was more to Friedrichshain. Layla nodded off in her pram which gave me ample time to follow my nose.

(Note to self: always rely on the nose!)

I turned up some truffles, not all culinary but you don’t mind if I go off brief every now and again?

First up: La Récréation, a ceramic workshop with dishes so pretty they made me think of pastel coloured, Pierre Hermé macaroons. I wanted to buy a set then and there and thankfully was impeded from doing so by a man who actually was buying an entire dinner set.

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Buchholz: Gusthof Britz, Refined Simple Food, Neukölln

October 4, 2011 5 Comments

UPDATE (OCT 10, 2011) I went back to Buchholz this weekend and found a few changes I wanted to share with you. The Bratwurst plate had changed from 1 large sausage to 2 small ones, that could have just been a supplier issue. More irksome was that the pear and chocolate dessert I had lauded so vehemently in my last post had been struck off, replaced instead by a very ordinary (in comparison to the pear dessert you understand) plum compote, topped with cream and crumble, in a glass. *yawn*

Mysterious things continued to happen when I went upstairs to visit the loo and found a door ajar, leading to a beautiful dining room with some beautiful books by Oscar Marti in the bookshelves and an entirely different menu from downstairs.  I scratched my head, returned to our downstairs table and instructed my husband to quiz the waiter.

“Where had the wonderful dessert gone?”
“It’s been taken off.”
“What’s upstairs?”
“A restaurant.”
“Is it a different menu from this one?”
“Yes.” (also about 30% to 40% more expensive upstairs)
“When is it open?”
“Thursday through Saturday.”

The conversation didn’t exactly flow. But what I surmise from that is that there are two distinct restaurants: a more upscale and pricey one on the first floor and a simple, rustic, cheaper one on the ground floor. You may find some gems in the rustic ones or you might not. It’s slightly frustrating, especially that I was so enthusiastic about my first experience there and am feeling considerably subdued after my second visit.

I feel the two places need to be more clearly delineated, nothing worse than a confused brand. Maybe they aren’t clear themselves what they are going for. I still like it enough to keep an eye on it.
So will go ahead and report any further changes back here.
After just one visit, Buchholz’s Gusthof Britz hurtles to a prominent position on my ‘Berlin: Favourites’ page.Mainly because it’s the closest approximation to the British gastropub I’ve found here (albeit the German version of one). Unexpected, because it seems to me, most chefs cooking at this level are chasing the golden ladle at the end of the rainbow, they want the big dining room and the blockbuster menus. (I think two notable exceptions to this are restaurant ETA Hoffmann and Renger Patzsch.)

In an admirable act of restraint, the menu lists only 9 dishes, 3 each of starters, main courses and desserts (I read online somewhere that the menus will change often). I sidestepped the starters because I was going to a special El Celler de Can Roca evening at Aqua; I didn’t want to run up the bill; but also because, in this city, starters can often resemble main courses, I imagined the celeriac soup would be served in a bucket, that the veal roll would be the size of Layla’s thighs. Undeterred by portion sizes and un-hampered by future dinner reservations, my husband ordered the veal (€14) and it turned out to be a perfectly manageable 6 slices, with firm lentils – delicious.

We were lucky with the weather and were able to eat in the gorgeous courtyard, with gravel scrunching under foot and a pert box hedge dividing the space into 4 rectangles, the chairs set on red herringbone flagstones. The tables were set simply with green disposable table mats, potted flowers in the middle and a handful of chestnuts scattered on each table: which I found to be a pretty, almost feminine approach, something I would expect to find if I went round to a friend’s house for lunch. I ordered the bratwurst with potato puree and sauerkraut (€7.50) it came with a side dish of pungent mustard. Hrabi had the talioligni with rocket pesto, I appreciated the inclusion of oven dried tomato and the bright runny pesto but that pasta shape is not a favourite, there are often pockets of raw dough at the twists and simultaneously overcooked extremities. (I should mention that a friend went the next day and had the crispy pork with potato cucumber salad and found it to be on the dry side).

I am not knocking it down, just trying to give you and indication of where to set your expectations so you can love it as much as I did. I’m planning to go back every weekend that the weather allows us to sit outside (I’m hoping there will be heat lamps in the subsequent cooler autumn months?).

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Vern Summer Festival, Outside Berlin

August 16, 2011 6 Comments

Sylee and I went to the Vern summer festival this saturday.

We won the lottery on the weather, it was sunny the entire day, with fat fluffy clouds gliding lazily against the back drop of endless blue sky.

We stopped by the Brodowin farm to see some cows, get an ice cream and soak in the country side. We gushed and cooed over how beautiful the country side is and mentally I chided myself for not going into it more.Calling it the Vern summer festival made me imagine an entirely different event. Homemade jams being hawked, open expanses with bales of hay, maybe some music, certainly some flags. I think I am guilty of watching too many American films and reading too many lifestyle magazines. The Vern festival was very modest. A stall each for honey, smoked fish, tomatoes, eggs, potted flowers and potatoes. Proper country folk, with sensibly short haircuts for men and women.

The garden is tiny but grows a wide variety of heirloom plants. That’s what Vern is all about, preserving these varieties.

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