Pizza trials

We got up early (at 10, hehe) to view an apartment on Knaackstraße. It was painful to be out in the cold with icy rain hammering down. It's +24°C in Helsinki – how is that fair? I was emailing with my friend who lives in Lisbon and she told me it's only +15 there too, which made me feel a little better. The apartment was just ok, 60 square metres for €590, "warm", but not our dream apartment. We still have time to search.

Even if we are trying to act as poor as we are at the moment, yesterday we went out. A few weeks ago we invited our friends R and S to A Magica in Prenzlauer Berg for what we have reason to believe are the pizzas in Berlin. S has her own favourite place in Friedrichshain, Il Ritrovo, and we decided we must try their pizzas too, to see how "ours" measure up. Il Ritrovo is a part of a three-restaurant chain that also includes I Due Forni in Prenzlauer Berg and Il Casolare in Kreuzberg – and I have also heard rumours that the best pizzas in Berlin could be the ones in I Due Forni.

So yesterday we did an excursion to Friedrichshain and enjoyed our pizzas in great company. The restaurant is pretty big, very chaotic and not very inviting. In fairness, it was a Friday night and the place was packed. A and I shared a potato pizza (we just had to try) and on the safer side, a pizza with aubergine, zucchini (courgette), cherry tomatoes, spring onions and mozzarella. They were good, the tomato sauce excellent and the dough good. We agreed that A Magica still does them just a little bit better – maybe it's the type of cheese they use? I don't know. A Magica is also a smidge cheaper, which is nice. I do think we will eventually be drawn back to Il Ritrovo just to have the potato pizza again; it was delicious and the generous amount of rosemary made it special. Yum!

And today we're making pizza at home – topped with white asparagus if we find nice ones :)