Steampunk bar

I'd never heard of steampunk before, so when a new theme bar opened and I made my friend L check it out with me, she had to explain the whole science fiction genre to me from Victorian aesthetic to Jules Verne adventure. Looking at the lovingly assembled Aetherloge 12° says a lot, too. The hand-built big, wooden bar, enforced with bolted steel plates, shelters the exotic rum and absinthe bottles and a set of decorative, brass pipes. What isn't hand-built is at least tweaked to perfectly suit the purpose, like the lamps; orbs that sit in simple iron holders, omitting a pleasing yellow light around the bar. As my friend was leaving Berlin for the winter, she made us promise that we were going to patron the customer-less bar and make sure it doesn't go out of business – but it seems like business has picked up and we now have to go on a week night to get a table. I guess it's apt that a steam punk bar allows smoking indoors to create a veil of mystery, but thankfully on weeknights the veil is thin.

Onigiri, for the first time

Our first time eating onigiris. We got it all wrong and had to go home and watch Youtube videos on how to properly unwrap and eat this triangular rice snack. But even if we failed embarrassingly in eating technique, we really liked our onigirs and can go back soon again with all the youtube knowledge we gathered and do it right! Rice in, Grünbergerstraße 88, Friedrichshain.

Friedrichshain Tex-Mex

When I hear 'Tex-Mex' I think of supermarket taco shells with minced meat and lettuce – an exotic family dinner in the 90's. Luckily, there's been a bit of a burrito revolution in Berlin with great Mexican food available in every district of the city. I have learned about home made tortilla chips, pico de gallo sauce and fresh guacamole as I've tried Mexican soft tacos at Ta'Cabrón, California style burritos at Dolores, and, last weekend, Tex-Mex at Dirty South.

Dirty South opened at the beginning of 2012 by the people behind successful Cupcake Berlin across the street. As we step into the small restaurant the first thing we see is a bar built in dark wood – the whole decor is very 'spaghetti western saloon'. We pick the table by the window and don't have to wait long until the waiter/bartender came over and, in fluent American accented German, asks if we are ready to order. He's super friendly and talkative, so throughout the meal we chat with him and he tells us that business is great and that he's excited to be making classic cocktails with real ingredients.

We order Bloody Marys (€6) as appetisers, but they take so long to make, that we only had time for a sip before the food starts to arrive. They are good though! But next time when someone asks me if my Bloody Mary should be spicy, I won't be as quick to say 'yes' – these things had a kick to them! But it actually complimented the food really well. A ordered the Deluxe Chili Cheese Nachos (€6) with a side of vegan chili (€2). I ordered a Cajun Tofu Quesadilla (€7) with a side of guacamole (€1). The food was all super delicious, the quesadillas weren't too greasy, the nachos had a lot of toppings – if I had to nitpick; I prefer my guacamole chunky, not smooth.

Next time I want to go to Dirty South for a Sunday cocktail session – I'm dying to try the soft tacos (€2 each) and a Mint Julep cocktail! Word has it that at the beginning of April the menu will be renewed and feature Texan comfort food like mac'n'cheese and biscuit and gravy, too. Can't wait to try it!

Vegetarian brunch – Sunday with Jesus

We met Jesus!

Jesus was hanging out in a little bar/café called Die Wohngemeinschaft on Bänschstraße where we went for Sunday brunch. Jesus is a six-month-old little rascal who instantly fell in love with our dog and the two of them kept themselves entertained while we helped ourselves to the delicious salads, croissants and crepes (vegetarian brunch buffet, €7).

After such great Sunday for both us and the pup, we'll definitively frequent Die Wohngemeinschaft for more brunches and for evening drinks, too!

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!

The Labyrinth - Peristal Singum

I waited for my new friend, A, for a half hour sitting at the bar at Salon zur Wilden Renate. She had gotten lost; her iPhone had her to go somewhere near Rigaer Strasse rather than to Alt-Stralau 70, near the Treptow Park S-Bahn. We are going to visit Peristal Singum, the art project / labyrinth built in connection to Renate. I've heard it's disturbing and cool, and I'm very curious, A's excited. At the bar a girl asks me if I was already in the labyrinth. "I was going to go, but as my friend was going in she saw a girl crying inside the doors, so we didn't want to go anymore," she says.

A arrives and we are sit in front of a fire place, holding giant golden coins, waiting. I finish my small bottle of Pilsner Urquell and get invited to follow a girl wearing a Davy Crockett style coonskin hat. I leave my bag and scarf behind the bar. I keep my winter jacket on – I don't want to get lost in a labyrinth and be cold, too. I'm a bit nervous. She ties a scarf around my head to cover my eyes. She makes sure I have my gold coin as she slowly leads me to the entrance. She speaks softly and tells me to forget my stress and worries and to stay in "there" as long as I want to. "So it's my happy place, then?" I laugh dryly.

After I insert my coin in the door it takes me embarrassingly long to figure out how to actually enter the Peristal Singum. I can't be sure if I'm feeling excited or scared. I hurry my steps. I try to smile to encourage myself. I walk through hallways bedecked with scruffy collages of old wallpaper, painting and pictures and am lead to a hole. I have to kneel down to look into it – but it's dark and it twists in a downward spiral. I realise it's a slide and that I have no choice but to ride it.

I don't want to describe my Peristal Singum experience in detail, as not to ruin it for anyone. After the slide came more dark holes, pits and narrow corridors. I definitively had to push myself. I felt claustrophobic not knowing where the exit was and how long it would take to find it. I wanted out. I crawled through a tunnel and poked my head out and found my friend A. With her excitement and the light from her iPhone we faced the pits, tunnels and the darkness together. When we found the exit all I could think about was the bar and having a shot of vodka, but A wanted to keep exploring all the routes and doorways we didn't try yet. Knowing where the exit was made things easier.

Back at the bar, after a shot of Stolichnaya each, A reckoned it was a pity that she didn't have a chance to be alone in there – she missed the core of the installation: discomfort and endurance.

It costs €10 to enter the labyrinth. Only one person can enter at a time. You can't book a ticket in advance, you just show up and express interest.

Baby, it's cold outside

Although it looked like we might escape it this year, winter arrived to Berlin on last Friday, a week ago, lightly dusting the city with snow. The sun has been shining and temperatures have dropped to -5 and -10°C. Icy,  Siberian winds have forced us to find flattering ways to wear six layers at a time.

Already before Christmas we realised that we had a lot of warm clothes that we could donate to the homeless for winter: A's old winter jacket, big cotton sweaters and countless mittens and woollen socks. Altogether it was two full, big, bags that we lugged to the Motz Kiez Café on Wühlischstraße, near Boxhagener Platz yesterday – finally.

"Das Leben ist Kein U-Bahnhof" is a campaign aimed at collecting winter jackets and donations for the homeless here in Berlin through the website onewarmwinter.org. I also recommend reading Exberliner magazine's article on what a scam the clothes collection bins are!

It's colder out there for some than for others.

French vegan brunch in Friedrichshain

Friedrichshain has finally gotten a vegan brunch option – to my knowledge its first one! French café Ohlàlà on Mainzer Straße began serving a weekly Saturday vegan brunch today: think croissants, crepes and mini quiches (€9.90). I emailed for a reservation and was lucky to get a cancellation spot for the one o'clock seating, and so L and I got the opportunity to try the novelty of French vegan cuisine ahead of the curve.

The difference to the typical Berliner breakfast is the multitude of sweet things and the lack of fresh greens – in one end of the counter I spotted a salad of fresh fruit and in the other end a bowl of carrots julienne. Our favourites were the mini crêpes, the cup cakes (the pink ones and the peanut butter ones) and the Pain Perdu (french toast). On the savoury side the seductive mini quiches in four different flavours stole my heart – no wonder that they kept running out! I pigged out on croissants, pain au chocolat, bread, crêpes and cup cakes, so by the time I made it to the other end of the counter I had very little appetite left for main courses. Maybe that's why I found the garlicky and vinegary bean salad the tastiest? For the shepherd's pie-like hachis parmentier and the two stews (ratatouille and creamy mushroom ragout, blanquette de "veax") were less interesting than any of the breakfast items.

With a bowl of café au lait (of soy milk), a big apfelschorle the brunch cost €14.10 – a reasonable price.

Happy New Year

2012 was welcomed from our friends' balcony, watching the ceaseless fireworks around Frankfurter Tor.

We flew back to Berlin earlier on New Year's Eve, carrying overweight luggage and dodging fire crackers thrown carelessly to the street from balconies or passersby. We were welcomed home by R and E, who we staid at our's for a few days while we were away. They made us warm minttukaakaos (hot chocolate with mint liqueur). Risking our lives, it felt like, we ventured out to the streets of Friedrichshain to have pizza at S' flat before going to the New Year's party. Tired and happy to be home and see all of our friends, we didn't last longer than 3am before we walked home, feeling sorry for R and E who had a transatlantic flight to catch at 10 the next morning...

Tips for buying presents in Berlin

Buying heaps of presents at once, like at Christmas, isn't always easy or fun. We got really excited to bring home carefully selected organic, fair trade and even raw chocolates from Bitterveld in Prenzlauer Berg. The most interesting – and delicious – chocolate we bought was their self manufactured goat's milk chocolate, flavoured with blood orange.

At Vom Fass you can buy oils, vinegars, wines and spirits "vom Fass", i.e. on tap. We chose cool, old fashioned looking bottles and wrapped up Scottish and Irish single malt whiskies as Christmas presents – they were a hit!

New: Raw food in Berlin!

As the weather is getting colder (only +5C now), it's natural to think of nothing but eating. I got the opportunity to write an article about new vegetarian restaurants in Berlin, so the past week and a half my life has revolved around food. 2011 has been a great year for vegetarians and vegans in the city: NINE veggie restaurants have opened since February. When my mom was here, I dragged her along to Lucky Leek and Kopps, and since then I've been exploring raw food with A. There are two new raw food restaurants in Berlin: Gesund & sündig in Wilmersdorf and café style LebensfRoh in Kreuzberg.

Gesund & sündig
Germany's first raw food restaurant opened in June. The location and the opening hours reveal that most of the diners at Gesund und sündig come from the sports centre that the restaurant is connected to. Luckily it's along the Ringbahn and thus within reach even for a Friedrichshainer. A more central location is under consideration for the new year, we were told. Everything on the menu here is raw and vegan. As a starter we share a plate of delicious "Sweet and sour sushi" (€7.90): a mixture of sunflower seeds and sauerkraut replace the rice, and the centre is carrot, zucchini and pineapple sticks – because of the seaweed, it still clearly tastes like sushi. In Pizza Crudo del la Casa (€7.90) the base is made with dried seeds and has a slightly bitter, nutty flavour which the tomato sauce and roasted vegetables balance with their mild and sweet taste. The "ricotta" on top is made of cashews. Pasta is replaced with sliced courgette in the "lasagna" (€8.50), and the side salad is instantly a new favourite: rucola and pear with a garlic dressing. Everything is as bright and colourful on the palate as on the plate. I tried a super healthy green smoothie (€2.80) while A played it safe with a fresh apple juice (€3) – we pretended to be health nuts and skipped beer and wine. Gesund & sündig is definitively not just for hippies, but dinner there was delicious, interesting and filling. If only it was a little closer to home: I'm certain we'd visit again and bring tons of adventurous friends with us!

LebensfRoh 

This homely café opened next to Görlizer Park in August. They're not very busy on the Tuesday morning when we've decided to have breakfast there. The café is filled with sunlight and the lonely voice of Kurt Cobain singing from the Unplugged album – I had the song "Jesus don't want me for a Sunbeam" stuck in my head all day afterwards. For breakfast the choice is between raw müsli (€4) and chestnut porridge (€3), but a plate of raw food crackers with assorted spreads, olives and veggies sounds like Berlin breakfast to me (small plate, €5). The porridge is nice: slightly sweet, sticky and a little grainy. For another euro it comes with fresh fruit or warm fruit puree. The Hertzhafter Teller is simple: two crackers piled with different spreads, a salad, olives and some grapes. They're out of many items, and so I'm asked if it's ok to use a milk-based spread, too, rather than vegan. The plate is nice, but not exactly as filling as a Berliner might expect after having paid €5. If I'm around the area, I might want to pop by again to try their raw courgette pasta or one of their daily dinner specials to really make up my mind about LebensfRoh.

Sunday at Stroke.Artfair 2011

Today we had to admit that we need to turn on the heating in the apartment. Even for just a few hours per day. It's cold. I'm wearing mittens when I cycle to work. But the sun has been shining a lot and the trees still have most of their leaves, so it's not feeling too grim.

Today we slept in – it feels like we haven't seen each other for ages – so we just laid there and chatted and laughed until it was already well into the afternoon. A made us breakfast sandwiches from the insanely good carrot and walnut bread we ordered with our organic veggies.

The only goal of the day was to make it to the urban art fair, Stroke.Artfair 2011, at Postbahnhof. It was on the whole weekend, but since A is building a new studio space with T, he's been busy playing Bob the Builder. Probably because it was the last hours of the art fair, it was packed. I found it impossible to concentrate on any of the graffiti, illustrations, comics or graphic design pieces on display because of the bustle: people kept scurrying past between the paintings and me, and there was no space to step back and really look at anything. It was a pity, because there was a lot to look at. Maybe next year we should try to get out of bed a little earlier...

African food at Yaam

Even if it's now apparent that the last days of indian summer are over, I hope we get another chance to go to Yaam and eat domoda again, the Gambian peanut stew we had there when A came to Berlin a week ago. Our friends tipped us off already ages ago that the food alone at Yaam is wort the visit, and especially this peanut sauce. I was very disappointed to not get to try any deep fried plantain, though, because they were out. But that alone is a good reason to eat there again!

Vegan weekend in Berlin

Last weekend our mutual friend K was visiting E here in Berlin and since she's pretty much vegan, it turned into a vegetarian delight.

One of the best breakfasts Berlin has to offer is the Sunday vegan/vegetarian brunch at Morgenrot in Prenzlauer Berg. We sat down there at just after 11.30 – exactly the same time as everyone else seemed to have arrived. And by 1pm, when we were done, the place was all quiet again. Lesson learned!

We continued to Mauerpark, where I found a really pretty but useless hand made glass bowl for two euro. Unfortunately the park is so popular now that it's not a very relaxing Sunday afternoon spot – but you can always skip the market and just enjoy the sun on the grassy slopes.

Thanks to K I also tried a few new things this weekend. Since we were already in P'Berg, we walked a bit further up north and checked out the vegan supermarket Veganz that's opened on Schivelbeiner Straße – one of the first ones in Europe! It turned out that the shop actually isn't open on Sundays, only their café is, but the girls there were nice enough to let us shop a little anyway. I was happy to find gluten flour because we've been searching for it around Berlin's organic shops in order to attempt to make home made seitan.

For dinner we ended up at Yoyo in Friedrichshain, where we decided to finally try the vegan pizzas – we always say we will, but end up getting one of their amazing burgers instead. To get the full experience we all ordered different pizzas: one salami, one tuna and one with rucola. They were all ok, but the pizza without any processed fake meat was the best one (of course). Also, the tomato sauce was in need of some more love. Next time I'll order a burger.

After a late night with white wine yesterday, today we hung out for one last coffee before K had to fly back to Finland and managed to make that a vegan affair at Cupcake, the American cupcake café on Krossenerstraße in Friedrichshain. I must say that this pink raspberry cupcake was the best one I've ever had and the fact that it was vegan was just unbelievable! It was fluffy, moist, creamy... delicious. The frosting was on the hyper sweet side for us non-Americans and so the cupcake was perfect for sharing.

"The girls" are coming for a visit to Berlin next week and I'm hoping we'll get to try out a few other new veggie haunts then, like the newly opened Lucky Leek in Prenzlauer Berg, Vegikreuz near Ostkreuz, the legendary Cookies Cream restaurant/club and the much applauded Café Vux cake café in Neukölln... And, and, and... :)

Vote!

 

Today I woke up to the sound of rain pattering outside the window. We were supposed to go to our friend's house for a leaving-Berlin-sale at 11.30, but there was no way we could muster up strength to hurry to Rosenthaler Platz. Instead we gave ourselves more time to go voting in the local elections. I'm so impressed that we foreigners get to vote here, even if limitedly: just for the party and only for the district we live in – and it didn't require any special effort besides showing up. This probably only applies to us lucky EU citizens, I think. After proudly registering our vote, we strolled over to pick out breakfast supplies at the bakery.

Now A and S are in the bedroom/studio working on a pitch for a coffee commercial tune and I'm on my way to have election day cake at S and L's. A perfect Sunday will be topped off at the Indian vegetarian/vegan restaurant Satyam in Charlottenburg, where the brunch buffet is available until 8pm and we get to enjoy the ever so interesting company of K, with whom the conversation is always on a pretty intelligent level, but the laughs are constant.

Betahaus

Two weeks ago, at the Screen Print Festival 2011 in Stattbad Wedding, our new friend R told E and me about Open Design City, a space in Kreuzberg where you can rent tools and appliances and get help for your more ambitious design projects. We were particularly interested in screen printing possibilities, but also curious to know what other things can be made there, like with laser cutters or soldering equipment.

The ODC is a part of Betahaus, so to familiarise with ODC you have to go on a tour of Betahaus, a shared office space where you can rent a desk by the day or by the month. Tours are available twice a week and are free of charge. I now know three people who work there, so I was curious to see what it's like.

E and I were on time like proper Finns tend to be – R was nowhere to be seen. Later I saw her message on Facebook, saying she'd been held back at the office.

Betahaus is very impressive: it's big, it's airy, it's light. If it wouldn't sound so corny, I'd describe it as an inspiring environment. The Open Design City space, on the other hand, seemed small. There was no one there to explain precisely what tools are available and what the possibilities there are, so that part of the tour was very disappointing.

As we sat down in the downstairs café afterwards, an American girl who'd also been on the tour asked to join us. We had a nice chat among graphic designers and as we were leaving AS wanted us to reveal which guy from the guided tour we would date if we HAD to. She was quite taken with the amount of cute guys she spotted at the premises. We made diffuse plans to meet up at an art gallery later in the week – so if nothing else, I made another friend today!

Sweet was yesterday, sweet is the weekend

On Tuesday we made beetroot soup and apple pie for E, who's still waiting for her Prince A to arrive in Berlin (tomorrow!). Yesterday I shared a cheese platter and later a glass of red wine at Süß war Gestern (photo) with AK, a Polish girl I've been introduced to by a mutual friend in Dublin. Today, I'm staying at home, wearing woollen socks and drinking tea. I need to rest up for a busy weekend: on Friday a new club, Der Geheime Garten, is opening in Friedrichshain, on Saturday it's Torstrassenfestival (I'm very excited to see Hush Hush perform in KaffeeBurger at 15.30) on Sunday it's an open doors day at the Nordische Botschaften, the Nordic Embassies (I interpret that as an opportunity to buy Finnish bread and cinnamon rolls). No rest then!

Suppe & Mucke 2011

It's Suppe & Mucke today – soup stands and live music on five different stages around Sonntagstrasse, Holteistrasse and Gryphiusstrasse. Last years event was in our Kiez and we sampled a lot of free soup, but the weather was rainy so we heard less music. Let's see how it works out today, we're off to pick up E in an hour or so!

Familiarising with the Ostkreuz Kiez

Yesterday we helped move E into her new, big, empty apartment. It took us seven minutes to move her stuff and the furniture we donated downstairs, after another half hour it was all in the hallway of her building. Pretty efficient. We found Will, a man with a van, on Craigslist Berlin who charged €25 per hour for driving and a little lifting. He is from Wales, drives and old fire engine and seemed very sweet.

After inaugurating the apartment with a few post-move beers, we met S and L for delicious Asian tapas at Transit on Sonntagstrasse. When we changed locations to next door bar So Frosch – a slightly creepy, frog-themed, whiskey bar – R and I joined us after a day of touristing. Despite the over-the-top theme it's a nice bar: the service was great, the whiskey list very impressive, the cocktails delicious and the prices fair. I got a bit envious of R and I's smoked salmon sandwiches (€2.10 each) that looked properly English and very fresh. Maybe this will become E's local pub and I'll get another go at a So Frosch cocktail (Bushmills, lime syrup and apple juice; €5) and a sandwich.

We ended up for one more drink at the nearby Tussi Lounge – the corner of Sonntagstrasse and Holteistrasse. If ever a bar could be described as retro style, then this is it. It's very cute, and the funny thing is that it's a hair salon, too, so you can get a blow dry while you sip on your cocktail. We didn't, though!

E sent me a text message this morning saying she survived her first night in her new home, even if it was pretty exciting. I'm glad, but not surprised.

So Frosch

Tussi Lounge

The Bermuda triangle & Pop shopping

Summer.Pop.Shopping.

E returned to Berlin on Wednesday and I'm feeling a lot stronger, if not completely cured from my cough, so we've been wining and dining around Friedrichshain for the past few days. Also, the very entertaining R and I are visiting Berlin this week, so with them we drank even more.

Like in the Bermuda triangle, we seem to gravitate towards the same little area in Friedrichshain: we end up on Gärtnerstrasse because of Yoyo Foodworld (amazing vegan burgers!), Kaufbar (like having coffee and waffles at your grandmother's) and Szimpla (cheap drinks). We find ourselves on Wühlischstrasse because we eating at Spätzle & Knödel (delicious, heavy German fare) and Datscha (Russian cuisine, vodka and an amazing Sunday brunch) or bringing our guests to Hops & Barley (micro brewery for the beer-geeky tourists). Often we head down Simon-Dach-Strasse to have a vodka with rhubarb juice at Kpnt A.Müller (cosy, cheap drinks), and if Kapten is full the backup plan is that we continue walking south to the RAW Tempel area. This is where we have been bouncing around for the last few days.

Yesterday we broke the pattern by visiting Summer.Pop.Shopping at the Alte Münze in Mitte – a designer shopping event by the same people who organise the Holy.Shit.Shopping Christmas market. My biggest criticism is that the entry is three euro; I find it crazy to charge people to enter a market! Other than that, it was good fun – I came home one cool t-shirt richer, 15 euro poorer.