Galeria Kaufhof, Food Hall, Mitte

February 22, 2012 8 Comments

I remember walking into Restaurant Gordon Ramsay – Royal Hospital Road, it was one of those days when the blustery wind was making the rain come at me in horizontal sheets, from unpredictable angles.  I was dripping self-consciously on the entrance carpet, my previously styled hair beginning to dry and stick out in a wiry sunburst.  Somehow, as I tried to wrestle my battered umbrella into submission, it rebelled and burst open, drenching the Maitre ‘D and making him look like he too has suffered the same wet ordeal from Sloane square tube station to the 3 Michelin starred restaurant.

“Oh! I am so sorry!” I exclaimed, ready to turn on my heel and go out into the rain rather than face any more embarrassment.

“Ah – so fresh!” he smiled “I was in need of a bit of refreshment.” He eased me out of my coat and escorted me to my table.

He and his brigade continued to serve me as if I were a guest of utmost importance or at least one with impressive spending power (In reality, I am the worst kind of guest in Michelin starred restaurants because I only order 1 bottle of water and 1 glass of wine, I’m not really worth the space I take).It was one of my best multi Michelin starred experiences in London, followed closely by The Square, and Tom Aikens. (A notable albeit surprising service dud was The Fat Duck in Bray).  That was 2005, 7 years ago and I still remember it, although I no longer remember what I ate.  (That’s why, I always keep the menu)

I bring all this up as a way of underlining how memorable human interaction is, can be.  After countless shopping experiences at Galeria where service so bad it borders on comic and should be accompanied by canned laughter I have placed them at the farthest end of the scale from that wet afternoon on Hospital Road. Take the fish counter.  I have had 3 experiences.  First time, they tried to sell me the shriveled up old piece when there was a fresh, plump one right next to it.  Another time, the tail end.  Still another, I asked for two pieces and got one nice portion and another that was almost double in size.  That’s like being given a right shoe in a size 37 and a left shoe in a 38 and when you complain being told to get a grip and just shove some toilet paper in at the toe.  More or less the reaction of the fishwife.  I insisted nonetheless, she grumbled something, probably a hex of some sort as I have been struck down by the most monstrous of colds.Thinking I would be safe if I stayed within the self-service boundary of Galeria, I went to pick up some ground coffee.  My path was impeded by a large woman with a trolley re-stocking the shelves.  ”Excuse me.” I smiled “Would it be alright if I grabbed that coffee?”  ”When I’ve finished.” she replied gruffly.  I stood there, 86, 85, 84…2, 1 until the last tin was on the shelf.  Ok, she moved her trolley out of her way without so much as a nod of acknowledgment in my direction.  Goings on so preposterous, I am physically rooted to the spot with incredulity. Read more of this post

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Carmens Restaurant, Regional Food, Eichwalde

February 14, 2012 4 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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Essen Fassen, German Food, Charlottenburg

February 2, 2012 4 Comments

I went to Essen Fassen over a year ago and had such a mixed experience that I just took the whole thing, put it on a virtual shelf and promptly forgot about it. Then last week a friend suggested we meet there for lunch. A friend whose goulash I love and whose 3 male gendered children eat calves liver on (while my child only eats white food; pasta shaped like zoo animals, Philadelphia cream cheese, yogurt with crunchy pieces shaped like hoops, or stars, peanut butter with jam – no bits in either component).  Needless to say if this girl says it’s good, it must be good and I must be wrong.Still…

“Really?” I asked “Don’t you just want to go to Brot und Butter?  I had some weird food there last time.”

“Huh.  I had a lentil dish the other day and it was very good.  What did you have?”

“Leg of goose, I think there may have been some chocolate involved in the sauce, red cabbage, spaetzle.  All delicious if ridiculously enormous a portion large enough to feed two – which by the way it ended up doing because Hrabi’s dish of spaetzle with sweet and salty peanut sauce was inedible.  Then for dessert a dry chocolate brownie, corners showing signs of age, with a yummy plum compote of which ironically, there was not enough.”

“Ok, let’s go to Brot und Butter.”

“No, you know what? I need to get out of Mitte, my blog is becoming overly Mittecentric.And so we did which is a good thing because my lunch was great and I realized that I much prefer the restaurant during the day.  At night it’s a little bit too dim and quiet, it makes me think of long winters spent visiting my grandmother who only ever had (still has) one feeble lightbulb in her 10 lightbulb chandelier.  During the day, light bounces off the large white oval table (Ikea, I have the same one) onto the lovely silver and slate wallpaper.  There are more guests adding warmth to the surroundings.  The large (in stature) waiter, who because of his height, can give you quite a fright when he appears, lurch like, out of the shadows is significantly tempered by daylight.I’m not sure if this is a lunch thing or a-year-has-passed-since-you-last-ate-here thing but the food arrived on trays, with the napkin folded into a triangle to one side, cutlery on top.  You keep the tray under your plate as you eat.  I quite liked that detail, it made me think of times (long, long ago) when I used to look forward to what surprises and delights my airplane meal might have in store for me.  Or when I am oh so blissfully alone (can count on my pinky toe how often this happens) because someone else has my child and is taking care that she is eating her white food, my husband (often culinarily challenged) has made other arrangements and I can make my food exactly how I like, place it all neatly on a tray, perch it on my knees and watch something I want to see while eating food that is not only delicious but still hot!  (Ah, the craziness that such trivial details can induce.) Read more of this post

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Sabzi, Cheap Oriental Food, Mitte

January 26, 2012 7 Comments

The team behind Sabzi excel at making much out of little.  They’ve taken what should be a dark dinky basement space and turned it into a serene place, with abstract filigree wall paintings that mimic the overall shape of the sign outside.  A girl with sleek hair, the colour of charcoal, thick eyelashes and similarly thick voice serves from the selections of 5 to 6 stew like dishes from food warmers.  All for €4.50.You get a lot for €4.50 here.  Normally I would argue in the vein of Linda Evangelista, who once famously said they (supermodels) don’t get out of bed in the morning for less than $10’000, that a cook wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning for a cut price lunch deal.  The crew (skeleton though I am assuming it is) do.  Hurrah for that!  It saves Mitte from another uninspired offering of meatballs and mash or bratkartoffeln with (umm, with what? I never order these things).  Or cut price sushi.  Or some vaguely Vietnamese – Thai soup.

In a sea of spuds and pork, these guys are offering fluffy rice that smells like it’s been toasted with a few generous ladles of stew.  Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.  Although I always get the vegetarian option.  For about 3 reasons: 500g a week is what is recommended to ward off certain cancers; the rearing of red meat is straining to the planet; I abhor generic meat, it’s tantamount to eating that weird mouldable cheese that comes packed in individual plastic sheets and calling that Keen’s Cheddar Cheese. Read more of this post

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Muret la Barba, Winebar and Bistro, Mitte

December 20, 2011 4 Comments

After having lunch with my friend Katie at Muret la Barba the other day, I’ve decided she should definitely have a Berlin restaurant blog.  She eats out about 3 times as much as I do and is always trying new places.  She’s already been to Hartweizen on Torstrasse (her verdict, good, a lot of game dishes).  Restaurant 3 (which I had never even heard of but of course the New York Times had already written about in 2009 for chrissakes!).  And she’s been to Das Lokal  or Kantine which was featured in Cee Cee‘s 24th newsletter.
When she suggested a long over due lunch, I said “Let’s go to Muret la Barba.”

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t eaten there!” she teased.

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t.  I don’t know what I’ve been eating lately?  (Oh yes, I do!  The large krakow sausages, straight off the grill with jagged blackened pieces covering one side and an obscene amount of mustard at the Christmas Market behind Galeria.  It’s a Polish sausage and Polish sausages, IMHO, RULE.  They’re firm fleshed, dry, smoky, spicy, with an extraordinary snap to the skin, you need to give it a really good tug before it breaks off.  I’m particular to a stand directly behind Galeria, exiting through the make up and bag department.  They only sell two things; a bratwurst – €2.50 and the Krakow – €3.50.  Confession? As I write this I am plotting one last trip to the Krakow stand before I fly of to Miami on the 27th).
Back to Muret la Barba.  It’s one of Katie’s lunch places, she always get’s the homemade ravioli (whatever the filling) and a salad.  I followed her cue and did the same.  Out came 5 large square ravioli, the size of my entire hand, filled with ricotta and greens, sitting in about 150g of Parmesan flavoured butter (€7.50).  We shared a salad of beetroot, apple, cracked wheat and lettuce – something I could imagine making for myself at home, the freshness of which cut through the richness of the ravioli.

A delicious homemade ravioli lunch for €7.50? Perfect.  More than that however, I’m totally seduced by the vibe of MLB.  It takes leave from the typical Italian places around here, which feel contrived, the available Italians working within, turning up their Italianess to pander to the locals who seem as addicted to all things Mediterranean as they are to the sun.  Instead they keep things simple with a few unexpected bits, each one telling me a story, like: Read more of this post

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Cocolo, Ramen Shop, Mitte

December 11, 2011 8 Comments

Cocolo is open for dinner only, from 6pm to midnight. After spending last week reading about David Chang’s pilgrimage down the ramen route in Tokyo in issue 1 of Lucky Peach, I had an acute craving.  I got there early, at 15 minutes to 6. Not so much because I anticipated a line but because I was starving and couldn’t trust myself not to stop off somewhere and ruin my appetite (as the half eaten butter pretzel from Hofpfisterei in my handbag could attest) or fill my belly up with a liter of sweet flavoured tea from the newly opened ‘Starbucks of the east’: Comebuy.  My stomach was growling as I approached Cocolo and there, hoping from one foot to another to stay warm, were three people.I took out issue 2 of Lucky Peach, leaned against the wall and tried to steady myself with thoughts of noodles.  A Japanese family of 4 arrived to join us.  5 to 6.  1 to 6.  Doors open.  We shuffle in.  In the next 5 minutes all the seats are taken and there are people standing by the wall waiting for us to order, eat, pay and go.I sat with my back to the front window, looking into the kitchen (which I think is the best place to sit because you can see what they are doing and are sheltered from the regular opening of the door).  You do get splashed a little because on the other side of the bar is the sink in which they wash the dishes (by hand) during service (spoons go into the adjacent ceramic hand wash basin for some reason).I had already tried the Tonkotsu (a milky looking broth made from pork bones, fat and collagen) so I ordered the Shoyu: a broth salty from soy sauce.  Hrabi ordered Tan Tan, a spicy soup with minced meat and corn. We also got kimchi, gyoza and edamame.  Embarrassingly, the only gyoza I’d had previous to these were at Wagamama (not that I am knocking Wagamama you understand, I would kill to have a Wagamama in Berlin! It’s fast food but it’s good fast food.), these were in a different category altogether, I would go back for the gyoza alone.  The edamame came in a slated wooden box, with a sheet of paper from a Japanese magazine fashioned into a box perched on top – for discarding spent edamame shells.Details like that get me because they are indicative of a perfectionist at work.  To take the time to fashion a paper box, when any old dish would do, is rare.

There are more details and quirks.  The small but deep wire noodle sieves that line the wall, the timers over the heads of cooks that are set when a new batch of noodles go in.  The orders displayed on the white fridge, fastened with black magnets, because there isn’t one centimeter of space left in the kitchen, let alone a 30 cm for an order slide rack.  There is only one cutting board (black) meat is sliced on it, eggs are halved.  The gyoza are cooked on a grill the size of a paperback novel.  The bare bulbs sport coffee filters as lamp shades, yellow with age (Hrabi spotted that one).   Read more of this post

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Kochhaus Delivers

November 22, 2011 9 Comments

On Thursday night, the buzzer rang. Thinking it was a delivery for a neighbour, I let them in.  My name was said, a paper to be signed was thrust forward and two large bags were handed over.  I frantically flipped through the empty rolodex in my head trying to find the words to say “This is not for me!” But the man was already gone.

Then I remembered, the email from Kochhaus letting me know they would be sending over some food.  I was sceptical about the concept but nothing like a load of free stuff to change your mind.  Ha!  No, I’m kidding (kind of, you might think the guy who sent over a drink, sitting at the end of the bar is a total sleaze but secretly you’re pleased that he went to the trouble because even from way down there he thinks you are wonderful – that or he has money to burn and he’s been pulling that stunt all night hoping someone will bite.)Kochhaus is doing in Berlin what premium online supermarkets  in London have been doing for years: thinking up a recipe, photographing it in a flattering light so that it gets your juices going, working out portion sizes and sending the food over.  By providing this service in Berlin (where most bricks and mortar supermarkets look like they’ve been hit in the face with a sack of ugly and the idea of an online service shopping service seems decades away) Kochhaus have found their niche.A few things niggle me, namely an over reliance on the stove top (I use my oven where I can to avoid smelling like a line cook) and that their meat and two veg approach means you end up using a lot of pans.  Although I was thinking that perhaps if they had sent me over a pasta bake scenario, I might feel hard done by whereas the way they are building up the meal there is more value in all the individual parts. Read more of this post

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DUDU, Pan Asian Food, Mitte

November 17, 2011 4 Comments

(Update February 2012.  Reading through this post, I realize I didn’t describe the food very well.  It’s a mish mash of Asian things, not authentic or sophisticated, big portions, Yo Sushi! style combinations.)

I’ve never hankered after one of those classic beige and brown Louis Vuitton totes, the ones that never go on sale and purportedly out of fashion. Not wanting a Louis Vuitton bag in Berlin is no biggie because obvious brand names (unless they’re vintage or second-hand, in which case they are ok) are avoided and ostentatious displays are in very bad taste, except in some parts of former West Berlin where girls in their twenties still wear pearl studs in their ears.  But from where I came, London, everyone wanted one.  No sooner had you scraped enough money together to buy the (cheaper) Marc by Marc Jacobs, an actual Marc Jacobs being the price of rent (although I do prefer the cheaper brand) then the season would change and it would be out with zips and in with something else.  (I don’t miss shopping for sport, or happiness, or whatever it was I was doing in London one little bit.  Although I admit that when I first moved here, it used to freak me out that the shops were – still are closed on Sundays.)All this to say, that even though I might deride those that have / want LVS bags I still love the guides.

Yes they do guide books, something you wouldn’t know unless you’ve braved the two behemoth security men that flank the door (if you have the chance, visit the gift shop at the Musee des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and browse at your leisure).  I discovered them quite by accident when I snuck into the Louis Vuitton Shop in Selfridges (much less scary to visit a concession).  I was intrigued, the European guide came as a box set only so I chose New York guide and it was like having a friend show me the city.  It wasn’t, as I had feared, filled with over priced, over hyped restaurants but with real jewels of the city.  Through LV New York I discovered Rice to Riches, a pickle shop (possibly this one), Shake Shack (oh I could so have a burger, curly fries and a frozen custard right now!).  It was a great trip, my husband was so impressed that I was such a local never noticing the thin chocolate box covered book I kept looking at.

In the LV Berlin Guide Dudu is listed, Transit and Kuchi aren’t.  I’ve been twice, both times for lunch.  I went for the set lunch each time.  First time I had a seaweed salad followed by a large sushi rice roll, filled with panko coated shrimp.  Second time, a soft rice paper roll and then again a large roll.  There are other things on the menu besides large rolls but I haven’t tried them yet since I can’t resist the €8 menu.  Going by those rolls, I imagine it’s all good.  Which considering their tiny kitchen (so tiny, that on one occasion I spotted veg prep being done in the hallway of the school above the restaurant) is impressive.

Don’t go by the picture on their homepage, in fact think the opposite.  As opposed to a blindingly white restaurant, you will be sitting in a cosy room, sharing communal tables and benches.  Service is very friendly.  In the summer everyone crowds into the small terrace in front of the restaurant, among the birdcages the potted plants and dark bamboo screens blocking out the traffic of Torstrasse.

Dudu
Torstr. 134
10119 Mitte
T. 030 51736854
www.dudu-berlin.de

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Coledampf’s & Companies, Kitchen Accessories & Cafe, Kreuzberg

November 6, 2011 4 Comments

Coledampfs third store (this one with partners) in Berlin, is in Kreuzberg and it is incredible!  I’d heard about its imminent birth for some time but I just though “bah”.  I never imagined something of this retail magnitude was what they had in mind.  I would stick it up there with Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table.  A toned down European version of course because no one can compete (or tries to) with the volume, the ‘oh so shiny and new’ and bright displays that instantly convince you (me) that: Yes, you (me) absolutely must have the electric Zoku popsicle maker with accompanying book. (Even though the last time I ate a popsicle, I still had some of my milk teeth in.) of the American market. This Coledampf doesn’t have the variety that the Savignyplatz shop has, notably absent are plastics (spatulas, Tupperware, moulds).  Instead there is a stunning collection of de Buyer pots and pans; chefy tools, about 10 formats of conical strainers; glassware; dishes; German wines, from the 13 growing regions; a tower of Cynthia Barcomi’s aluminum bakeware; and books – 1 shelf of which is in English.There is a focus on craftmanship, environmental sustainability and regional goods.  As I understand it, Coledampf’s & Companies is a collaboration between the big, the good and the virtuous; bread from Beumer & Lutum; the culinary bookstore Kochlust; a range of edible products from Essbare Landschaften, I gathered that they are the ones that run the cooking school; something (opinion maybe?) from Garcon magazine.I don’t really need the partner credentials, it could be a collaboration between the 7 dwarfs and I would still love it.  The enormous space (500 sq ft), the large communal tables, the freedom to amble along slowly and peruse the contents of the shop without being verbally tackled by an exasperated sales person that wants to know if ‘you’re just wasting their time or what?!?!’.

But the best part?

You can order food.There is a cafe on the ground level and a warm food cafe upstairs.  From memory, the menu upstairs went something like this: a celeriac soup, a pan-fried salmon, a regional duck dish, a pear dessert. Entirely seasonal, with not a raspberry or asparagus spear insight to dilute credibility.  With dinner at Renger Patzsch not far off on the horizon of the evening.  I ordered a soup and a dessert.  The kitchen is open and has some super strength extraction because although the salmon was coming out with perfectly crispy skin, I couldn’t smell it being cooked.  The chefs plate up on the open pass, as professional as if it were the pass at Maze, then *ping* goes the little silver bell and the order is expedited to the table. (Mains are in the €12-€15 range but look to be worth every euro.) Read more of this post

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Peking Ente, Chinese Food, Mitte

October 24, 2011 13 Comments

Chinese restaurant = chopsticks – right?

Well not necessarily.

Go the cheap Chinese take away route and you get plenty of them.  Even if the only vaguely Chinese thing about the food is a splash of soy sauce and bean sprouts. Visit one of the hipster pan asian restaurants instead (Kuchi, Dudu or Transit, say) and you are free to help yourself to the chopsticks huddled in a pot on the table.  Actual Chinese restaurant, where the titles of the dishes don’t read like a possible contender for the name of the next Kung Fu Panda, not a chopstick in sight.  Nor any dinky miniature bowls which you can bring up to your mouth to snarfle up that rice with minimum droppage.  You get a flat plate so that your piping hot food is arctic and congealed within a matter of minutes.

Chinese food eaten off the tines of a metal fork isn’t the same.  In the same way that Arabic food eaten with cutlery is just wrong (and no you don’t stick your fingers in your mouth and then in the food, you use flat bread as a scooping device and put that into your mouth or else use the flatbread as an edible handkerchief to remove big pieces of food).  Dealing with Chinese food in Berlin, the lack of chopsticks is almost besides the point.  It just doesn’t taste like Chinese food.  Or rather, the Westernized version of Chinese food that I’ve become accustomed to over 13 years of living in London.  It mostly tastes like something that would come out of a jar, overly sweet, too much cornflour.  I almost hear the thwak of the suction going as they open the jar, the bloop bloop bloop as the gloopy contents spill out into the pan.  I can’t.  Seriously? Just can’t.  Not worth it, just hand over the sausage and the bratkartoffeln and leave me to my memories.Still, I break down because  I need Chinese food even more than I need Arabic food (although someone please tell me where I can get some good humus and labneh around here? Turkish supermarkets don’t seem to carry it.  Are there no Arabs in Berlin?).

Peking Ente was recommended to me by a friend from Hong Kong, the same one that took me Tian Fu.  And I’ve been there about 5 times now.  I even celebrated my birthday there.  I wanted somewhere laid back and Chinese food is so congenial and promotive to good times and easy laughs.  But also, I wanted to know what they thought.  Because having been here a year, I wasn’t at all sure whether Peking Ente had become my regular weekend haunt out of desperation or because it’s good. Read more of this post

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