The living room restaurant

Walking the dog around Friedrichshain has made us find places in our neighbourhood that we never knew about, like the restaurant Engler's Unikat on Samariterstraße. Looking in through the windows it looks like a grandmother's cosy living room: dimly lit, cluttered with shelves, knickknacks and houseplants. We booked a table for six and test dined there on Thursday. The ambiance was precisely as lovely and peaceful as we had imagined, the waiter polite and professional. Our party of six was seated in sofas and lounge chairs around a table clad with an flower-embroidered white cloth. The long menu  (mains €9-17) is written in Berliner slang to highlight the proletarian, meaty Berliner Küche – the vegetarian might have to settle for a mozzarella and tomato salad here. Among us, the diners who ordered from the page-long Schnitzel menu were happier the rest of us who had fish. When we bring visitors and family to Engler's Unikat I might recommend going for the traditional stews and steaks. All in all I want to go back to Engler's soon, even if only for a drink!