Best bread in Berlin

Our whole office has been abuzz about this for weeks now because a new bakery opened up just across the street, and they make the best bread in Berlin! In Germany you do get great bread: heavy, dark, ryes and wholegrains, packed with sunflower seeds. But soft breads and buns baked with yeast tend to be a disaster: airy and light and dry or heavy and dense and dry. At Zeit für Brot on Alte Schönhauser Straße the organic breads are just perfect: La Baguette (2.60€) is soft and chewy with a thick, crispy crust, the Zimtschnecken (cinnamon buns) are soft and juicy... And now I'm addicted to their Schokobrötchen, a fluffy little thing, resembling a flat scone, with big chunks of dark chocolate melted in it. Of course the more traditional, darker German breads like Bauerbrot are good, too, but a person just has to have a good baguette now and then! A part of the reason why the bread tastes so exceptional here is that the bakery itself is in the back of the shop, so everything is fresh, fresh, fresh. And what they don't sell by the end of the day, the donate to the homeless. Perfection.

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.

Sunshine, my only sunshine

Today has been a sunny and beautiful day. How we've missed those! I'm feeling a lot better, and although I wouldn't say I'm completely well yet, I felt well enough to not want to spend yet another day indoors. At two o'clock I packed my Fisherman's Friends, my ibuprofen and my magazine, dusted the spiders off my cycle saddle (literally) and hopped on the bike in search of brunch and sun.

I ended up on a sunny bench at Datscha, ordered a plate of mixed Russian starters (Kollektiv, €11), a tall glass of rhubarb schorle and waited for A to come join me after work. I didn't have to wait alone: the yucky wasps are flying about like crazy this time of year and they are HUNGRY.


(No real news about A's brother-in-law yet. He's trying to wake up now and the signs are all good, so we're keeping fingers and toes crossed that he wakes up soon, as himself.)

Trödeln und Strudel

 

After a lap around our favourite Berlin flea market, the RAW Flohmarkt in the yard of the former train repair yards along Revaler Strasse, and finding a set of five 70's tea cups, we sat down at Wiener Strudel Manufaktur. I noticed in May that a cosy looking terrace café had opened next to the flea market, and I recognized the logo from the Mauerpark market where my Austrian friend, S, always bought her strudels, explaining to me that these people sold the best strudels in Berlin.

The generous pieces of strudel come with a variety of sweet or savoury fillings, they are heated up and topped with vanilla sauce or Kräuterschmand, and cost €3.50. The drinks are pretty inexpensive at €2 for a cappuccino or €2.50 for a glass of Sekt on crushed ice – guess which one we chose?

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, sitting in the shade with my feet hot in the sun, sipping on a glass of cold sparkling wine and watching people come and go from the market.

Balcony battle

Today felt like a perfect summer day!

Without an alarm clock I got up at nine, which is a feat for me. The mission, after some shuffling around the apartment, amazed at how early it was, was to go shopping for plants. About a week ago I realized, that my dear forget-me-nots were infested with aphids. First I just thought it was disgusting. Then I realized they were harming the plant. Then I realized that they will probably spread to all of our balcony plants.

After trawling around the internet for advice, I decided on my first plan of aphid-attack: I combined 100ml vegetable oil and a teaspoon of dish washing liquid (organic) and added one teaspoon to every cup of water I filled my spray bottle with. When an aphid gets sprayed with this, he should be suffocated: the soap breaks up the oil, which then makes the water stick. This helped a little bit, when there were hoards of bugs and they were easy to see. Then I trimmed the forget-me-nots, in hopes of getting rid of the badly affected leaves. After a few days of hunting aphids with a spray bottle, I realized I was never going to get rid of them all like this. More googling suggested that there are herbs and flowers with scents that repel aphids: sage, spearmint, coriander, anise, chives, radishes, tagetes and petunias, for instance. I also found mentions of tomato plants repelling aphids, and then entries about aphid-infested tomatoes.

So today my mission was to go to the Boxhagener Platz farmer's market to shop for plants. I found mini-tomatoes for the balcony (€2 each) and I bought orange tagetes (€0,60/each) and something that looks like a nettle with white rimmed leaves, that the saleswoman said gets rid of aphids. After a gözleme at Boxi and a Milchkaffee at Intimes (Boxhagener Strasse 107) with A, I headed home to pot the plants and clean the balcony. I trimmed the forget-me-nots until they were practically bald. We also bought a bright yellow plastic cup at the Euro store, because aphids love yellow, and if I fill it with water there's apparently a chance they're stupid enough to just kill themselves.

I'm terribly excited to see if any of the tricks work. Finger's crossed the aphids don't eat all our sweet peas or kill our courgette plants by next week!

The shoestring budget

After a trip to London we decided to tighten our belts and spend less money. On Monday we went to our local Bio Company branch and bought ingredients for pita breads (with hummous, tomato, avocado and smoked tofu), a miso soup, a potato salad with salmon, and a bulgur salad. No more shopping needed this week, we decided. But what happened budget-wise? On Wednesday I went for a coffee, that turned into beers, with S. On Thursday I drank posh blueberry smoothies over a Sprachtandem in Prenzlauer Berg. On Friday we had invited friends over for dinner, and as the last two girls standing, M and I spontaneously decided to go clubbing at 4am! I suspect that it's not the occasional sushi from downstairs, or midnight pizzas that use up the money. But a good social life is worth paying for :)

Kaffee und Tee on Frankfurter Allee.

A shopping and beer drinking weekend

It was another rough weekend. Nice, too: my friend K was visiting Berlin and we got to catch up a bit: she's getting a divorce, is planning to move to Melbourne and has a new romance going on. I felt really dull in comparison.

Straight from the airport we headed for Kaufbar for coffee and breakfast that instead turned into four beers and a pack of cigarettes. Like I said, there was a lot of catching up to do! On our way to Kaufbar we took a detour to the lovely Broke & Schön shop on Krossener straße and did some unplanned shopping. I've wanted to go there for a while because I was told it's a great new shop where everything is really cheap and cute, which it was.

In the evening we attended the goodbye-dinner for the clever Dr. R, who had to head back to Finland after almost two weeks of celebrating getting her degree. Somehow she always ends up in Paule's Metal Eck and Rosi's, so it was only fitting that that's how her last night in Berlin ended, too. From Rosi's we walked her to the S-bahn: she was pretty drunk and we were seriously concerned that she wouldn't make it to the airport in time for her 7am flight – but she did. Yesterday she did confess to me on Facebook that it had been a bit tricky, since she was falling asleep everywhere!

After a night of very little sleep, we weren't able to do much on Saturday. We had breakfast/brunch at one of our Friedrichshain favourites, the book shop and organic café, Cafe Tasso, on Frankfurter Allee. That's pretty much it. In the evening we tried to go for drinks, but only got as far as to drink one "Bauernhochzeit" drink at Szimpla before feeling overwhelmingly tired.

I was almost glad when Sunday came along and we could just chill at Mauerpark in the sun, until it was time to take K back to the airport...

Making friends

Kaufbar, in Friedrichshain, where everything is for sale. Their breakfasts are fairly priced and their waffles home-made and delicious.

Yesterday I made a new friend.

I had a coffee at Kaufbar on Gärtnerstraße with bubbly A. We keep meeting at our mutual friends' occasional parties and have always gotten on really well. When she sent me a message on Facebook and we said we'd go for coffee I was really scared that it would be awkward and that we would sit in silence for an hour before thinking of polite excuses to leave. To my surprise we could have chatted away the whole day: films, food, friends-with-babies, jobs, gossip... I hope we get around to meeting up more often! Sometimes it's worth getting out of your comfort zone to make strangers into friends.

And then last night we celebrated K's visa. (She has had to cry, beg, jump through hoops and wait forever to get it. In a year she'll have to go through the same process again. It's difficult to remember how easy things in Germany are for us EU-citizens!) She'd invited the most random mix of people to her flat in Wedding, and we had a great time. I ate a half a bowl of guacamole with carrot sticks, and was overjoyed that K had invited the woman who makes cinnamon rolls again! I also got a lesson in not judging people by their looks: K's new flatmate-to-be was invited – he looks like the biggest, most annoying nerd ever. You know the type of arrogant nerd who is insecure and is rude to make himself feel smart and good? J comes from the former Soviet Union and speaks with a Russian accent and has a lisp. He wears big but un-hip glasses. His dancing was so bad, it wasn't even funny. And he's really nice and interesting and got along with everyone at the party. I can't wait to get to know him better. Slap on the wrists to me for judging people by how they look! Shame on me!

Home alone

I have no camera and no boyfriend for almost a week. A is in Finland to play a gig with his old band at a festival in our home town. I wish I was there too, but alas, it's too busy at work right now.

The weather was pretty nice today, I cycled around a bit because I met S in P'berg for a Sprachtandem in our favourite café, Slörm. Unfortunately the weather forecast suggests a miserable, rainy weekend. I'm invited to a party on Saturday night, and I would finally like to go check out the monthly Homeless Veggie Dinners (terrible name!) in Kreuzberg: you receive a vegetarian meal for a small donation that goes towards helping the homeless in Berlin.

When will I have time for all the Grey's Anatomy marathons I planned? ;)

The best breakfast in Friedrichshain?

One of my absolute favourite things about Berlin are the breakfasts. You can get a decent breakfast almost any time of the day, almost anywhere. It should be enjoyed slowly and in good company. I never recommend that any of our visitors get the hotel breakfasts: go out, be adventorous, be Berliners! This time of year wasps ruin the joys of al fresco dining, but inside is warm and cosy, anyway. When A's parents were visiting Berlin they happened to walk into this amazing café on Voigtstraße, that has now become a regular spot for us. The bread and the pastries at Orange Coffee are homemade, the coffee is good and the portions are generous. I'd say it could be the best breakfast in Friedrichshain, at least for value for money (in photo: Meditarrenian breakfast plate €3,80, fresh mint tea €1,80.)

Austrian week

No Kangaroo, Austrian ski hut restaurant in Kreuzberg

By chance I have been into all things Austrian this week. On Wednesday I showed my (Austrian) tandem partner a very cute Austrian café, Marketta's Greisslerei, that has just opened up in Mitte, next to my work. And yesterday we finally got around to checking out the Austrian restaurant No Kangaroo in Kreuzberg.

Mohnweckerl with Bergkäse

S instantly fell in love with Marketta's Greisslerei. They have Holunderblütensaft (elder flower juice), Mohnweckerls (white braided bread with poppy seeds and salt on top), Liptauerkäse (paprika flavoured quark), Bergkäse (Austrian hard cheese) and Buchteln (a tray baked bun filled with plum jam) – all of which I tried and loved. All of which met S' high, Austrian standards. I'm now addicted to the Mohnweckerls with Bergkäse: they're so salty and so good! I had one of them, a Buchtel-bun and drank a latte-type coffee for €6,80. Not bad for Mitte. I'll be back (pun intended!)!

The Austrian ski hut that is No Kangaroo was a different story. I thought Austrians are quiet and cool types, who drink Almdudler and speak with a slightly funny accent. No. Apparently they are rowdy, loud and have questionable taste in music. As we waited outside the restaurant for S and D, the schlager music was turned louder and people started to yell along. We thought this was just a one-song-thing, but it went on for the whole night. S explained that it is typical after-ski behaviour. At least I think that's what she said: it was so loud that it was difficult to hear each other. I guess that's what you get for going to a themed restaurant: there's ski lift benches at the bar, skis nailed to the walls, the whole interior is built to look like an old, wooden ski hut and you go through a forest to get to the toilet. It's kind of fun, though, and if you're out to drink and be loud, No Kangaroo would certainly meet your needs. A and I drank beer and Almdudler and ordered knödel with fried egg and an aubergine schnitzel with potato salad for dinner. For dessert we drank strong fruit liquor and shared a Kaiserschmarrn. It all came to about €40 and S deemed it all very Austrian and good. We asked the waiter if it's always so loud and he said it only gets louder as the ski season gets closer. Maybe we'll go back next summer when it's quiet again...

P.S. S explained why the restaurant is called "No Kangaroo": apparently Austria gets mixed up with Australia a LOT :D

Aubergine schnitzel, €7,50

Kaiserschmarrn, €8,50 – it's HUGE

Slow Berlin breakfasts

I don't really eat breakfast, I never have. In Berlin breakfast has become one of my favourite meals: almost every café and bakery serves wonderful breakfast platters that I love to take my time over on a day off. Yesterday we tried breakfast at our long-time-Friedrichshainer friend's favourite bar, Sando (Proskauer Straße 10). We shared the salmon breakfast plate and a portion of fried eggs with fried potatoes, and had coffee and tea, all for just under €13. The portions were generous, everything was fresh and well made – even perfectly salted, which never happens. The dinner menu wasn't half bad, either. Sando just might become our favourite bar, too.

Today there's no breakfast, no slow start to the day. A is at work and I'm supposed to be working too. I got this little design project thrown my way by an overworked friend (clearly not a Berliner!), and I promised to send the client in Finland stuff by Monday. It's actually pretty great: what should be about 2-3 days work will pay more than my part-time job here pays in a month. That's the dream: live in Berlin and get your job assignments from abroad, where they pay you more...

Eis eis baby

For this issue of the magazine we compiled a list of our favourite ice cream places in Berlin. I didn't have one, I just usually grab a spontaneous Eis from Eisbar on Kastanienallee 10, who serve a decent scoop for 80 cents.

Caramello

I happened to read about Caramello, an organic ice cream manufacturer in Prenzlauer Berg, and decided that I found my new favourites then and there. Caramello has a second location in Friedrichshain. Amid the frenzy of looking for apartments, we made a point of making a stop-over on Rykestraße 7. The Caramello café is cute, and they have a mind-boggling selection of flavours (at least six variations on chocolate alone). I went for a Yogi Indigo (blueberry yoghurt) and A had a Going Nuts (nuts and nougat). One scoop costs €1,20, but it's worth it when you can pretend it's healthy.

Eisfabrik

When we went to see an apartment on Frankfurter Allee in Friedrichshain, we turned the corner and found ourselves on Samariterstraße, where we had never been before. With ice cream on my mind, I straight away spotted the jungle-themed facade of Eisfabrik (Samariterstr. 34a). When we found ourselves on on the same street again the next week, it was a sign: eat more ice cream! It is now my absolute favourite ice cream in Berlin, maybe the world; it's home made, the texture is soft, the scoops are big (cost 80 cent) and the "Grün Apfel" was everything I hoped it would be (although not green in colour). I hope to try all the flavours before the end of summer :)

The weather forecast bodes well for an ice cream weekend!

A poor addict

We have realised that since neither one of us has gotten paid yet, we are on the path to poverty. That's a pity, because I have just found myself a new favourite café, and all I want to do every day is to go to Slörm, drink their amazing coffee and feed my addiction to their cream cheese, carrot, tomato and rucola toasts... I also love any place of business that houses pets, and two cute parakeets live at the back of the café. It's so Berlin: I think keeping animals in places that serve food is a strict no-no everywhere else!



I will have to have a chat at the office about not being a freelancer, but getting on the pay roll instead. That way all my health insurance, taxes and social benefit payments would all be a lot easier to understand, at least everything was smooth sailing for A. I'm not sure my bosses will be over the moon about it – not to mention that it has seemed a bit tense around the office. I hope the long Easter break has made everyone more mellow

We went to see our friend dj last night, so today is a "mini-hangover day". I will now return to the American television shows and candy, while taking huge pleasure in knowing that tomorrow is yet another Sunday ;)

Two days of summer

Not only did we get spring to Berlin, we already had two days of summer! Thursday and Friday were both +20°C and we were out, out, out! I had my first ice cream, my first dinner outside, my first picnic, my first beer garden beer and got my first sun burn of the year... Now it's back to reality with +10°C and rain :)

Yesterday A had to work all day and didn't get to enjoy the weather, so I made us a salmon and potato salad to go and we had a dinner picnic in Mauerpark, with wine and all. Our friends then joined us and we had a few drinks while looking in amazement at the hoards of teenagers and blasts of bonfires, music, shouting and fireworks. We were expecting the police to come at any minute, but they never did. Something was definitively going on last night, we just didn't know what and why!


We made a really happy discovery last weekend when we finally tried St. Gaudy Café that opened on our street already in December: it's all vegetarian! It was the easiest thing to pick something to eat, such luxury. My continental breakfast cost €3,50 and it included a glass of orange juice. Besides being so affordable, the coffee is good – so we'll be going back to St. Gaudy's again!

Coffee substitute

I learned something new (again) last week. Many cafés in Berlin sell something called getreidekaffee; a coffee substitute made of roasted cereals such as wheat, malt or rye (Wikipedia article in German). It has no caffeine, but tastes like ordinary coffee without that bitterness, that many so dislike. I have tried getreidekaffee in three different cafés now, and the best experience so far was the getreidemilchkaffee in Morgenrot on Kastanienallee.

Spring, glorious spring!

Wow, what weather we had in Berlin today! +11°C and full on sunshine! To our misfortune we slept in (partly because A was up at 4am to watch Finland beat the Czech Republic in hockey) and only realised in the afternoon how nice the weather was. We ran out to get breakfast, or lunch, and a lot of sun. We found a perfect spot on Fehrbelliner straße, where we could sit outside in the sun at La Focacceria. I love the focaccias at the focacceria on Kastanienallee, and these were just as good! Three big pieces cost 4,20€, a cappuccino 2€ and tea 1,20€ – a very reasonable price for lunch for two. Not to mention a seat facing the sun!

We popped in to Lidl on Choriner straße and found that they have again had a Nordic week with nordic products on sale. They still had Danish akvavit, Finnish lingonberry jam and Swedish punschrullar, chokladbollar and mazariner left, and we stocked up on "dammsugare", my favourites!

Breakfast club

Since November we have met with some of the lovely people we met at our language classes for breakfast once a week to practice our German. We speak bad German, try to help each other with words and expressions, while we share news, mostly on how our job searches are going. Unfortunately, our breakfast club might be history; our Swedish member will start his new full-time job next week, and there will only be four of us left. Our Spanish member works often and randomly and can only join us now and then. Our French member started a new German course and can only have brekkie one day of the week. Sigh.


All the same, I can really recommend the amazingly cheap breakfast/brunch at An einem Sonntag im August on Kastanienallee; the buffet is €2,95 (plus drinks). It's very basic; fresh bread rolls, cheese, meats, jams, cereals, fried eggs and pasta salads, but it does the job and it's a really cosy surrounding – with a separate smoking room, which makes everyone happy! The brunch is served between 9-14.

Prenzlberg treats

We have a friend borrowing our living room at the moment, so my leisure time is all out of whack :) We've kept busy, anyway: I discovered a great tea salon, a great bar for watching Tatort, an amazing restaurant, a white wine I actually liked and I ate ratatouille made with the recipe from the film Ratatouille!

The T Room close to Senefelderplatz is a very nice place for a pot of tea and cakes, English style. I would go back just for the café's own smoky tea blend – yum!

I will return to Volksbar on Schönhauser Allee for a dose of Tatort or maybe just a frothy chai latte...

We were lucky enough to be treated to lunch on Saturday and happened to pick an excellent restaurant on Kollwitzplatz for our three course meal. We will find more excuses to go back to Gugelhof, for sure! One of them will be to drink this fantastic, organic Janson Bernhard white Riesling our waitress recommended.

I am still looking for work, but oh, that's so dull. I am also working myself up to a frenzy about health insurance: in Germany it's mandatory to have it – but we don't. I have heard of people being demanded to pay insurance fees retrospectively if they can't prove they have been insured from the moment they moved to Germany. Ouch.

Bilingual breakfast

My tandem language exchange is going really well; we have become good friends with S and our meet-ups always take at least three hours. Today we met for breakfast in Malzcafé on Danziger staße. S tells me that on weekends they have an amazing brunch buffet for just under €7 and that it's so popular that a table reservation is useful. We ordered our breakfast from a versatile list, and both opted for the Vegetarischer Frühstück platters, €5,50 each. Pretty yummy, huh?