“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 cue 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. Like most farms in and around Berlin, this one has a play area for children complete with sand and a bouncy castle and a petting zoo with ponies, pigs, goats and even a couple of peacocks.  I am still buying green asparagus, it’s more versatile than white and one of my favourite ways to prepare it is grilled, but I no longer give the white stuff wide birth.  Which makes me think, disliking something is more about ignorance than anything else.

www.jakobs-hof.de

To begin with, the train stop is Alexanderplatz- a cluster of mismatched buildings which look like they were put there by a child playing building blocks. Someone who thinks it’s perfectly normal that Barbie, Minnie Mouse and a couple of Lego figures should all be having tea together.  

If you walk down from the station to Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, you have to walk by the ugly shop fronts exhibiting their wares, cringe inducing shoes for €10 or worse, a 3D Buddha who follows you as you walk by. (now who is the snob?)If Sylee hadn’t told me HBC. was up the stairs, I would have walked right past it.  Many times.  Another Berlin characteristic, while restaurants the world over shout from the highest mountain about their presence, quite a few restaurants in Berlin are happy to crouch on a bar stool, legs crossed, arms folded and let you figure it out.

Then there is the space itself.  Enormous.  And the number of bodies contained within, the merest fraction of what they should be to make the rent of such a large place, with views of St. Mary’s Church and the top-heavy Fernsehturm,  viable.As for “What does it say it does on the box?”.  Well what doesn’t it do? ‘A combination art gallery, lounge, party space and art-world cantina’ (excerpt from the New York Times Review, full article here).  In a city where central commercial space is still plentiful and cheap (unlike apartments which, I’ve been looking to buy, have become freakin’ expensive considering the low rents you get) you often get this mixed use of space.The waiter can not be readily identified as such, except that at some point he struts over, hips thrust forward and carves out a dramatic arc through the air with the menus as he hands them over to us.  His arms are (of course) tattooed, an interesting medley the most striking of which is a series of faded burgundy rings, like bracelets or uniform zebra stripes that run up his forearm.

The dining room is eclectic.  Plastic chairs I remember from my art classes coupled with starched heavy tablecloths and glasses so polished, they look like they just came out of their box. Heavy cement lamps, suspended over most tables  and emanating a warm orange light.  Not forgetting the large windows with a view onto St. Mary’s Church.

The menu is only €33 for 3 courses and a side.  There are some kooky things to be found on it, a rhubarb risotto for instance.  The exotic sounding glazed duck with kumquat and liquorice onion which on the plate is a perfectly tame pan-fried duck breast, a neat huddle of kumquats off to one side and an onion not quite tender enough for me to eat with no discernible taste of liquorice.It is plated prettily.  The white asparagus spears come parceled up with chives as twine and purple chive flowers as embellishment.  The lemon meringue tartlets are adorned with paper-thin lemon slices balanced on top like a ferris wheel.I enjoyed my meal, it’s a departure from the bog standard menu in Berlin.  On the other hand, I didn’t like a lot of what my friend ordered.  I found some of the combinations didn’t work or were not cooked as well as they could have been.

I would recommend it for a slice of the Berlin life and because overall it is a good menu with good value and the dining room is lovely.

HBC.
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 9
10178 Mitte
T 030 24342920
www.hbc-berlin.de

Da Baffi
Nazarethkirchstraße 41,
13347 Wedding
T 0175 692 65 45
www.dabaffi.com
Tuesday to Saturday 18:30 to 22:30

maialino
delicatezze – italiane – berlin
Hannoversche Strasse 1
10115 Mitte
www.maialino-berlin.de

Yesterday, the radiant sunshine was accompanied by a cool breeze.  This coupled with sucking down two ice laden frappés (turns out that frappés are not a quirky habit but an operational necessity in these parts)  in quick succession made me decide to go down to Kifissia and try out PBox.  A diminutive eatery I had earmarked on my last trip but missed when I found them closed for lunch.I suffer from mild bouts of spring fever.  Among the squat bitter orange trees that line the narrow pavements in my mother’s neighborhood of Holargos it’s not too bad but once I get to Kifissia all villas, nestled in verdant gardens, my sneezing takes on the frequency of machine gun fire.  Entirely worth it, I love Kifissia and its lack of high rises tottering on pillars.  You would never see one neighbor talking to another in a wife beater ribbed white undershirt, hairy nipple poking out through the saggy arm holes in Kifissia (something you will see frequently in most neighborhoods).No, in Kifissia, everyone is elegant, coiffed and sunglassed.  The older ladies wear large chunky jewelery perhaps to complement their large hair (I don’t think they every truly said goodbye to Dynasty).  Every female over 10 years old has a flawless mani-pedi with that telltale sheen that speaks of a trip to the salon as opposed to a home job.  10% of the stores are for rent here as opposed to the rest of Athens where I would put the number closer to 60%.

There are lots of ladies (and gentlemen) lunching and plenty of places catering to them.

P Box is an all day eatery that snags a lot of them.  The menu runs along two different veins, Greek or Japanese / Asian / International.   The Greek part is simple fare, cheeses and meats from around Greece, grilled halloumi from Crete for instance and sausage from Lefkada.  And then a faffy aspirational menu, carpaccio, blue cheese tart, something 3 tables away with way too much truffle oil gaining in pungency as the heat got to it- lots of green salads with things on top, say chicken or tuna.  I’m lamenting this lack of conviction to going with local when it occurs to me that most of the tables have ordered the aspirational stuff with a favouring for the large bowls of frilly salad leaves.Criminal really!  The tomatoes here are so fleshy and full of juice that I cut them straight into the bowl I will be eating them from.  From the two tomatoes I cut up for lunch today, I had over a cup of tomato juice to which I added 1/4 cup of organic olive oil from a greek monastery and a shower of oregano that the 80-year-old mother of a friend of my mothers picked herself in Chania.  Such purity and strength of flavour and there they go eating a frilly leaves with overly sweet Dijon mustard dressing.

Ach!  It makes me think of that story of the ‘lazy’ fisherman by Heinrich Böll.  Where a tourist tells a fisherman how he could increase his takings, make more money and retire early.
The nonchalant fisherman asks, “Then what?”
The tourist enthusiastically continues, “Then, without a care in the world, you could sit here in the harbor, doze in the sun, and look at the glorious sea.”
“But I’m already doing that”, says the fisherman. (Excerpt taken from Wikipedia, see link provided above)

Not everyone can have the wisdom of that fisherman and see the inherent value in simple things.People rave about the desserts but when I saw a vacherin of strawberries arriving at two adjacent tables I decided I preferred to take the short walk down to the Kayak ice cream shop where I picked up a scoop of lemon and Greek basil ice cream.

Locations in Kifissia, Kolonaki and Thessaloniki for more details check their website www.p-box.gr

I can understand his urgency, it was ten to four and Centro Italia closes at 4 on saturday.Finding good Italian food is a challenge in most cities, not just Berlin (in London I recommend the River Café, Locanda Locatelli for a sophisticated  glamorous approach, or Zucca).  Sure you can find mozzarella with tomatoes and basil, pizza, limp pasta with arrabiata sauce or a grainy Bolognese.  But that’s like pretending those refrigerated plastic trays of sushi have any relation to the real deal.  Italian food is so varied and nuanced, you only have to look at the number of grape varieties they have – thousands, to understand why an authentic Italian meal proves so elusive.

I used to lament the many stops I had to make to get one meal together in Berlin, when in London I could get everything I needed at Waitrose or even better, online with Ocado.  Now I am totally into it.  It takes all day here to prepare dinner especially if I am using an American or British magazine for inspiration, they nonchalantly suggest crab or veal shanks.  Like I could get crab or veal shanks!  I found some picked white crab meat at Frischeparadies, it was €17 a tub.  I turned that tube over in my hands until I had taken the chill right out of it before reluctantly putting it down in the refrigerator and moving on to vacuum packed lamb shanks.  Irish the packet declared, like that somehow indicated the meat would be good (that’s like pretending that all croissants in Paris are good, because it’s Paris).  They turned out to be terrible.  Even with diligent browning and long slow stewing the only smell I could entice from them was one of wet wool with a strong kick of animal nudging up behind it.  I binned it and suffered guilt pangs for two days.It’s best to eat what the locals eat.  If that means I have to put away my fair share of flammkuchen or come up with inventive ways to use up quark (best one so far? quark pancakes with caramelised apples) then so be it.

Homemade Italian, although no more authentic to the stuff in the restaurants, is a good alternative – at least you can cook your pasta al dente.  It’s amazing what you can do with a tin of Mutti plum tomatoes, garlic (not Chinese!) and basil.  Or now that green asparagus is in town – try this recipe, my only change is that I pan fry the tips rather than boiling them.

Centro Italia is the place to stock up on dried pasta, canned tomato (best price for Mutti tomatoes I’ve found is at Ullrich), cheeses, cold meats, olive oil and so on.  Being a cash & carry, expect strip lighting and not much in the way of interior design but if you are a Berliner, you aren’t expecting a good-looking supermarket let alone a cash and carry.  Just like at Mitte Meer (the Spanish cash & carry I love) the staff are helpful and warm.  Really, it’s worth a trip just to have them be nice to you and ask you if they can ‘be of any help’ when you stand perplexed in front of a shelf of dried pasta.

Centro Italia Prenzlauer Berg
Str Greifswald 80c
10405
www.centro-italia.de
Mon-Thurs: 10am to 19.00
Fri: 10am to 20.00
Saturday: 10 am to 16.00 pm

Two other locations in Marienfelde and Charlottenburg check website for details

Lest I forget again, I quickly made plans for lunch with my girlfriend.  When we arrived,  someone had already scratched some nonsense into the thick pane of glass.  I felt for the owners.  I know how hard it is to open up a business and get it going well enough that you can stick your neck out and open a second place only to have someone deface it within weeks…The spunky awning outside is echoed with a wall of the same colour inside.  A bar is lined with framed photographs of  movie stars (Paul Newman, Marlon Brando type movie stars).  There is an open fridge where you can help yourself to yogurts, quarks, drinks and the likes.  Another serviced vitrine with some cakes and sandwiches.  Or you can order from a small menu.  The kitchen at the back is visible through a large open pass – always a sign of confidence that the cooks have nothing to hide.

I ordered the Flammkuchen and my friend a vegetarian tartine.  The onion was on the thick side my preference for the onion on Fammkuchen is that it be paper-thin, so that it has a chance to melt during its brief stint in the hot oven.  I use a mandoline and Nicky from Delicious Days recipe.  I am looking forward to adding another Flammkuchen recipe to my arsenal in September when Luisa Weiss’ book, My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with recipes) finally comes out.

We spent a good couple of hours there, enjoying the atmosphere in the pretty shop.  It is a great addition to the Rosanthaler Platz clutch of  shops.  In other news, I attended one of the first Parlour Dinners in Mitte.  A good effort from the enthusiastic organizers, our waitress in particular was gorgeous and charming.  It was only the first one but my impression was that it is more of a Pret a Diner on a shoestring, more about the concept and perhaps meeting other hip young Berliners or thinking of becoming Berliners rather than a supper club the likes of Thyme & Co (for a list of supper clubs read the listing at the end of this post).

I’m off to Athens tomorrow for a couple of weeks but I will be posting from there.  Wishing you guys some serious sunshine.

Petit Fleury
Weinbergsweg 5
10119 Mitte

Thumbs up?

Thumbs down?For me? Definitely thumbs up.  No question. No contest.  Sometimes I prefer them to the real deal (plums).  (Without me being to indelicate or unladylike, let me underline that my love of prunes has to do with flavour and texture only and not an other activities they may set in motion.)There are prunes and there are prunes though.  They have to have their stone intact and come from Agen.  Even then, not all packaging, handling is equal.  Recently, I found some extraordinary prunes at Galeries Lafayette, I can’t be sure but I think they were from Thorem.  Today I found a jar of St. Dalfour giant french prunes at Karstadt on the Kudamm.  I ate half the contents on the way home.For this prune cake, I use stoned organic prunes reasoning that they would be simmered in alcohol, pulverized and have ground almonds and 70% chocolate as bedmates.  It’s a recipe by Annie Rigg’s which I found in the Easter edition of BBC Good Food magazine.  Despite the unflattering picture (seriously, take a look at the link, did they photograph it on a paper plate?) the ingredient list  and method moved me to bake.  Rigg’s suggests whipping up the 2 eggs and 2 of the yolks with the sugar, folding everything in and then whipping up the remaining two egg whites and folding those in at the end to keep it light.  Success rests upon taking this cake out of the oven when the center is still slightly uncooked.  If you cook it all the way through you will find it gritty and dry even with the almonds and the puréed prunes.  It eats well for 5 days (I had another slice today – day 5 and if anything, it’s even better) and is best kept at room temperature under a cloche. 

Prune and Chocolate Cake adapted from Annie Rigg’s recipe

Ingredients
140g prunes, pitted
4 tbsp Marsala or PX Sherry (I used cream sherry)
100g butter , plus extra for the tin
2 tbsp cocoa
140g dark chocolate (70%), chopped
100g caster sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
4 large eggs , 2 separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g ground almonds
1 tbsp plain flour

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan. Gently heat the prunes and Marsala over a low heat until hot. Remove from the heat and leave for about 1 hr (I left them overnight) or until the prunes have absorbed almost all of the liquid.
2. Puree the prunes and any remaining alcohol in a food processor.
3. Butter and line the base of a 20cm springform tin. Dust with cocoa, tip out any excess and reserve.
4. Melt the butter and chocolate over a bain-marie. Stir in the prune mix.
5. Whisk the sugars, 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks until pale, thick and doubled in volume.
6. Fold the chocolate mixture and vanilla into the egg mixture, then sift over the ground almonds, flour and remaining cocoa. Fold until everything is combined.
7. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, spoon in a third of the mix to loosen the chocolate mixture and then gently fold into the mixture. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 20-25 mins or until a light crust has formed.
8. Allow to cool in the tin – it will sink and crack as it cools. Remove from the tin and dust with cocoa before serving.

Kollwitzplatz market in Prenzlauerberg is probably the most known but I haven’t managed to fall in love with it.  It’s somehow too self-conscious of its good looks.  Winterfeldtplatz market is like a sensible pair of shoes, it does what a market should.  As with most market squares, there are plenty of cafes surrounding it.  It is a market I go to often, especially as I have a few friends living in the area.  Wittenbergplatz (across from the KaDeWe) is a bijou sized offering, with prices to match some of those in the pricey food hall across the street.  Still I often find interesting things there. The Market at Karl August Platz is another sensible place to shop.Boxhagener platz market in Friedrichshain is one of my favourites.  It wraps around a large sand filled children’s park, seemingly always full to capacity with children and young European parents.  It has a couple of the large Turkish stands that seem to sell everything at all times of the year but unlike in other markets, they don’t dominate the square.  There are plenty of small stands selling seasonal, organic fruit and veg.What sets it apart for me is that there are plenty of people having a go at something different (I get a similar vibe from Markt Halle Neun).  Wether it’s the ‘got dessert‘ marshmallow stand. Or the bruschetta stand.  The lady selling rings made of old keyboard buttons.  The Turkish stand making fresh wraps with thin elastic bread that is baked there on a domed metal oven.  I get the spinach filled bread and they fill it with shredded cabbage and carrot and then drizzle in what they call ‘herb sauce’ but is more like thousand island dressing.  I am hopelessly enamoured with that elastic bread, I tear pieces off the wrap and stretch it out slowly marvelling how long it takes to snap.  The filling is ok and the thousand island dressing is totally oddball but warm bread, fresh off the stove is irresistable.  (They sell Ayran to go with it but don’t have a fridge and in my opinion, there is nothing worse than warm Ayran). These more original stands are interspersed between the quark sellers and the poultry sellers with weeping chicken fillets stacked high (I am not yet unaccustomed to the displays of meat and poultry here, there seems to be too much mingling of juices for comfort).I always dispatch my husband and daughter off to Cupcake so that I can take my time prodding and selecting.We regroup when I have accumulated too many bags to carry unaided and then get a big glass of sweet fresh orange juice from the red and white stripey stand, where the orange is pressed manually by one man with a grossly calloused hand.

On the way back to the car, we spot a father and son hammering in a fence around a public tree. Plants will be added later on in the day. People who pass by will admire it but not touch it. Even the normally obsessed with the correct procedure council men and women will leave it alone.  Cheerful spots of Guerrilla gardening is something you can spot often in this city.  I read an interesting story in The Independent the other day saying that gardening is as effective for treating depression as medicine (I think they could add baking to that).  Seems that Berliners don’t need a study to tell them that, I also like to be reminded that it doesn’t take much to have fun or spend a nice day outdoors even if you don’t have a garden or even a balcony.  

A list of Berlin food markets I or other bloggers have written about;
Ackerplatz Market, Prenzlauerberg side of Mitte
Karl August Platz Market, Charlottenburg
Marheineke Market Hall, Kreuzberg, Kreuzberg
Markt Halle Neun, Covered market in Kreuzberg
Kollwitzplatz market (Slow Travel Berlin link), Prenzlauerberg
Winterfeldtplatz Market, Schöneberg
Wittenbergplatz Market, across from the KaDeWe

We skipped over to the office and handed over the DHL notice.  The girl handing over the box launched into a rant.  I could tell it was a rant because her cheeks flushed.  I asked her to slow down and repeat what she had said.“You should know.  This is the last time we are going to be accepting any packages on your or anyone else’s behalf.  Otherwise all we do is answer doors to give people their packages.”  She must have seen my perplexed expression because then she said “I realize that this is the first time we have accepted a package for you but nevertheless that is our decision.”

I shrugged my shoulders, smiled and said thank you.  But to you I say there goes another sufferer of the resentful martyr syndrome  and ”Don’t you need to know someone before you chew them out? Or at least – Hell I don’t know – be aware of their first name?’  I feel like I should walk around the city, depositing fortune cookies with nuggets of self-help ensconced inside.  She would get; “Doing the right thing has no value if done begrudgingly” or “Life is too short to be this anal and you are too young to be this bitter.” or “Smoke some of this green stuff, it will take the edge off”.This all used to wind me up to no end when I first moved here but now I understand the psychology I just smile politely.

Meanwhile I finally snagged some rhubarb at Wittenbergplatz market last friday.  I wouldn’t bother going yet, it’s looking rather poor with most of the stands selling non-edible goods.  But there was one man tucked away in the corner with a collection of organic vegetables and Pinova apples.It was my mother’s birthday so I made her the Miette Tomboy cake, pretty as a picture but definitely a cake for the patient baker equipped with a stand mixer.  Layla is the self-proclaimed cake decorator so we had to forgo elegance for excess.

This is one of my favourite ways of eating rhubarb, wedged between almondy crumble on top and sweet sponge below.Adapted from Rachel Allen’s Entertaining at Home (Serves 6-8)

For the rhubarb
400g rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 2– 3cm chunks
100g caster sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger

For the crumble topping
50g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
75g chilled butter, cubed
75g light soft brown sugar
50g ground almonds

For the sponge
100g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3 tbsp milk
175g plain flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan 10C. Butter a 20cm square tin and line the base with baking parchment.
2. Place the rhubarb, sugar and ginger in a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of water and simmer on a low heat, with the lid on, for about 4–siz minutes or until the rhubarb is tender but not mushy. Remove from the heat, take off the lid and allow to cool (it will continue to soften while it is cooling so by all means – take it off the heat when it is still holding it’s shape. Keep the syrup to make rhabarberschorle)
3. To make the crumble, sift the flour, ground almonds and baking powder into a bowl, then using your fingertips rub in the butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, mix to combine, then set aside in the fridge while you make the sponge.
4. For the sponge: cream the butter in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until soft. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then whisk in the ginger. Sift over the flour, salt and baking powder and fold into the cake batter. Add the milk to lighten the mixture.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared tin, spreading it out evenly, then gently place the drained rhubarb on top. Sprinkle the crumble topping over the rhubarb and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes or until golden and cooked in the centre.
6. Allow the cake to cool slightly before removing the tin, then place on a serving plate.