July 29th,2010

Ute travels:HUNGRY IN BERLIN

Berlin is a city of contrasts:it is the capital of Germany with imposing looking government buildings and embassies. On the other hand it still recovers after the end of the GDR 20 years ago with unemployment rates up to 30%. This however makes the city so exciting and diverse –incredibly low rents lead to a plethora of galleries,shops of independent designers and innovative cafes and restaurants.

I did fall in love with Berlin a little bit and here some of my (food-related) recommendations.

Breakfast

After our first morning breakfast shock with the most expensive breakfast of my life (breakfast buffet at Adlon Berlin with the most amazing selection of fruit,cheese,jams,eggs,you name it,(even champagne) was incredibly good,but 40 pound/ person,wow!) which was not included in the room price after all,we ventured out for the following 2 days. We found a lovely Viennese Cafe (Cafe Einstein) at a perfect location in Berlin Mitte. What I most miss about Vienna is the great breakfast/brunch you get everywhere. So I was so happy at Cafe Einstein!

The atmosphere was very Viennese with the only exception that the waiters were much friendlier (if you haven’t been to Vienna –the waiters there are infamously grumpy!). Le me warn you,the portions are huge and you will very likely not need lunch. Even though they have a myriad of different and very tasty egg dishes (e.g. the scrambled egg with salmon was made with fresh salmon,the egg was perfectly fluffy and the portion would have been big enough for two to share for 8 Euro) I followed my nostalgic feelings and went for the Viennese style breakfast. Fortunately they had real Viennese rolls:so fresh that they were still warm,crunchy and very tasty. They were served with my favourite brand of Austrian jam (made me a bit homesick) and a selection of different cheeses,ham and curd with fresh herbs (8.50 Euro). And can I just say,the cappuccino was perfect too.

Dinner

On the fist evening we ended up at some Italian restaurant with cuisine from the region of Emilia-Romagna called H osteria del Mon te Croce. It must have been one of the first supper clubs actually or at least it embraces a similar principle –a tiny place hidden away in some backyard in Berlin Kreuzberg it serves only one 8 course meal which changes every month and you share big tables with other people. The feast costs 51 Euros but includes as much wine and sparkling water as you can drink (with surprisingly little headache the next day) and the quality of the food was impressive. The only downside was that it was far too much and we could not finish the delicious meat dishes towards the end of the meal

It would be too lengthy to list all the courses we had,I just want to point out the lovely antipasti di verdura selection (see picture) and I also loved the succulent pork with caramelised onions and the prosciutto with rucola and caramelised pears. The duck was lovely too. I really recommend this place,it’s really fun,just don’t have lunch and best also don’t have breakfast…

The second nice dinner we had was at Maxwell in Berlin Mitte. It has a lovely terrace for alfresco dining. The food was a bit hit and miss and was definitely not cheap. The starter of crustacean soup with coconut,chili and lime (8) was divine and also the second starter of 3 different kinds of Foie Gras was rather pleasant

We had one very good main:the beef with chanterelles and spinach feta strudel

The artichoke apple risotto however was clearly not worth 16 Euros. Even though the vegetables were nice,the rice was not as you would imagine a good risotto rice to be,it was under-seasoned and a fully unremarkable plate of food.

For the food so far I would actually recommend Maxwell,however,they made us wait over half an hour for the dessert that was part of the set menu. No apologies,nothing. So I don’t think I would necessarily go there again actually.

Tea

We found this amazing Tea To Go place (Chaja),which was just as well as it was boiling hot in Berlin and we were revived by their very intriguing selection of iced teas such as Chai tea with milk and frozen berries instead of ice cubes (which you sucked up through a wide straw), Matcha tea with fresh mint and Fruit tea with lime and mint. Refreshing,fun and I would love to have a cafe like this somewhere close to where I work. I might give up coffee..