My East Berlin Crow's Nest

Asian Tiger (Greifswalder Str 208)

If you find yourself wandering down Greifswalder Strasse on a Sunday, hungry and irritable due to the supermarket closing before your untimely arrival, don’t go to Asian Tiger. I ordered vegetable spring rolls and a tofu Phad Thai ('ve eaten too much chicken lately, I'm not turning into Moby).

When the spring rolls arrived, a realisation dawned that countless bad Asian restaurant experiences could have previously been avoided, if I'd used the spring roll starter as a litmus test to whether I should even bother ordering a main. Bad Asian restaurants create spring rolls like these I thought, as oil from the deep fat fryer slithered down my chin. I was relieved the sun had just disappeared, sitting at my kerb side table, the spring roll left me feeling vulnerable of being fried from the inside out - my innards spitting in hot grease, until they melted through my skin and dropped into daylight.

Unforyunately I had already ordered the main. The 'Pad Thai' arrived with me being typically British and nodding my approval at the departing half eaten spring rolls as the waitress removed my plate. The Pad Thai was limp, bland and did nothing to dispel my spring roll theory. The tofu, deep fried, overcooked, and almost as foul to the tastebuds as Moby is to the ears. Thoroughly depressing.

I've heard the Miso soup is good.

Cafe Maibach (Wörther Straße 28)

My first eating experience at Maibach was, well...cheesy. I ordered the 'Fromage antipasti' and during occasional breaks from swatting gingerly at wasps, I admired my surroundings. From the restaurants south-facing corner, I could see every cobble that lined the quintessential Prenzlauer Berg street, Rykestrasse. The window boxes look like statement-making colourful handkerchiefs in the pocket square of a suit, as they overflow from the wonderful townhouses that define this part of Berlin. The barrel chested, stoic, water tower announced the streets end; while the extra-terrestrial TV tower hovered in the blue sky of Berlin in the distance.

My 'Fromage Antipasti' arrived. It looked like someone had prepared a stockpile of cheese, but forgot to buy the mousetraps. Nothing, but cheese. Five mountains of inch sized cubes: A very mild cheddar - although, given that it was so mild it was nearly tasteless, it may well have been a deutsche bastard child of cheddar. Hellumi - unless its been grilled, I just don't see the attraction. A strong blue cheese - creamy and sharp, but I had eaten too much cheese before we encountered each other. Another mild yellow cheese and, finally, I think there was feta.

I was even more surprised when I realised I'd eaten everything, than by it's arrival. One-by-one I had soldiered through the cheese cubes, nearly to the point of having to check with the back of my hand that my mouth hadn't evolved into four corners.

Perfect location, strong cappuccino, smiley staff, wifi. And cheese.

*23/8 Returned and had an excellent late brunch. Pan mottled Scrambled eggs with crispy bacon. Interesting to learn the Germans follow the Turks with a salad side - an odd assortment of lettuce, tinned sweetcorn and olives.

Anyabella (Kirchstrasse)

Baked buckwheat Peirogi, wink at me from a bath of bubbling, Deutsche cheese. Topped with a sprinkling of chives.

I 'vill be back.

Broom Broom Go Boom Boom

Burnt-out cars and people on crutches - two of the more curious mysteries I see with a surprising frequency in Berlin. The reason for the numbers of crutches remains unsolved. However, I am now aware why burnt-out cars are scattered in the posh boulevards of town. I can separate the two. So, therefore, the broken limbs cannot be a result of German drivers being thrown by the blast as they scramble out of exploding vehicles.

Over the past six months, following violent clashes that erupted at a neo-Nazi rally held in Lichtenberg, Left-wing activists have blazed a trail across the more 'well to do' parts of town. Since January, 170 cars have been torched, close to a hundred of these has been attributed by the police to being politically motivated.

This anonymous website maps the car burnings

Mercedes, BMWs and Porsches have been set alight using barbeque Firelighters. This appears the method of choice, due to the Flame bearer being more in danger of getting a stitch during his flee from the scene, than being hit by a shower of shrapnel.

A motive for the arson attacks is believed to be the gentrification of Berlin. There is a brazenly evident disdain, not to mention fear, of the affect this will have on a city which proudly holds it's diverse, effervescent neighbourhoods up to be admired.

It is believed the attacks are triggered by the very definition of gentrification - affluent middle classes displacing the residents of a traditionally working class neighbourhood. Having witnessed the Croc* wearing, wooden bike buying, baby shop breeding, eye stinging missiles to affordable living in London, Prenzlauer Berg is ripe with evidence it is following suit. With that, a simmering or should I say smouldering resentment will persist.

* Even the recession has a silver lining

Some early impressions of Berlin...

Berlin feels like a large shared apartment with both flatmates away; London can feel like a stag party in January, in a claustrophobic one-bed flat in Vauxhall.

It feels like a city waiting to be used, not a city that is manipulating you. It feels open and tangible, the fundamentals are in the correct places. Unlike London, which can sometimes feel like you've got the vision of a mole and turned off the light without leaving your spectacles on the bedside table.

The pace is slower, so much so, that in an attempt to tame the beeline movements that become instinctive in London throngs, I developed a stutter to my walk. Unable to quite standstill, to an onlooker this may well have looked like I was perpetually in search of somewhere to urinate.

There is no twilight hour in Hackney - never more than a minute passes without noise. The window rarely lasts beyond a drawn-out blood vesseled blink, thirty seconds at most. The last door shuts, the last fox emits, the last brown rat scuttles into the Thames, before the phlegm of the next day rises and splutters.

In Berlin it is silent, disregarding the occasional loose comment by the ancient water pipes in the corner. The city doesn’t feel empty or have the baying menace - the that bear could stand up any minute and then he’d be really fucking huge – that London can portray when it falls silent.

TBC...

Food in Berlin

Berlin's restaurants can occasionally deliver a delight, yet the city lacks the impetus and creativity of London's kitchens. I've had a few memorable experiences, but the variety, passion, expectation and interest in food, is not so apparent.

Let me start with the positives. The breads here are wonderful, notably, the infinite variety of rich rye breads . The street food is very good, everywhere and cheap. Highlights being of Turkish origin -who with their street markets and numbers, are often compared to the Indian influence in Britain.

Below, I've outlined a few reasons, which if an already disgruntled German Foodie or indeed anyone ever reads this blog, I do not adhere to be gospel.

Despite overflowing allotments suggesting otherwise, the soil that surrounds the city is apparently very poor. The couple of exceptions that thrive are conspicuous in their engulfing presence, the staples of a potatoes and sauerkraut.

The second reason is late immigration. In the 1950s and 1960s, London was blessed with the benefits of Indian, Pakistan and West Indian immigration, who brought with them a rich heritage of food. Berlin, at that time had many refugees who used the city as a base camp, before planning the expedition into western Europe. This quickly changed with the 'moving of the goal posts', well, actually that should read, the "obliteration of the goalposts, bringing with it utter disillusionment in humanity' - the building of the Berlin wall. The economic crisis that ensued meant that Berlin's biggest immigrant population, the Turkish, didn't arrive till the early seventies, when shortage of labour led to policies to integrate Greek, Yugoslavian and Turkish workers.

The third, fourth and fifth reason, is Currywurst. If smoking is detrimental to your palette, Currywurst must be like crude oil to the feathers of a seabird.

The sixth reason. the loosest of the half dozen arguments is Lidl. I haven’t got a problem with Lidl itself; it obviously has has its place in the market. My problem is that every Tom, Dick and Harry, or should I say, Klaus, Gunter and Dietmar of the German supermarket business, have opened supermarkets based on the notion Lidl is a universal brand of fod retailing excellence. Three examples being Netto, Aldi and PennyMarket, the latter being so horrendous, that in the throes of hunger I thought about smashing a glass jar containing grey Frankfurters and 'glassing' my own jugular.

Blu

The dilapidated walls of Berlin,  kindle the surreal work of Italian street artist Blu.  His art seems so perfectly in tune with the energy of the city, that I assumed his work was a tale from the very streets it illuminates. 

It was in typical Berlin fashion I learnt of his origins, in the circus tent at bar 25. Hunched on a wet sofa at a time in the morning when although full daylight is an unavoidable clue, you don't want to look at your watch for fear of witnessing the destruction you have caused the rest of your weekend.

Sat sandwiched  between an Aussie -  who we later embarassingly realised was called Alex, not Shane,  and a German dude. Shane proceeded to show me and my equally inebriated visiting friends a video on his IPhone,  of the animated work Muto by Blu. It was created on the walls of Buenos Aires and the somewhat less intriguing sounding, and not to mention less fun to pronounce, Baden,  South Germany. 

Halfway through the video, which was drawing appreciative gurgles from its British viewers, the German dude piped in that he knew Blu. He then told us he would tell his "Blu Italiano friend," we watched the video for the first time "right herr' in zee circus tent baaa tventy five!"

That was the only funny thing the German dude said. I spent the next tventy minutes trying to get away as he discharged wank stories about his own art career and how he was also a DJ and really into "mixing African drums and crazy shits over Balkan beats." 

Now, enjoy the genius of Moto.

Both these clips are fantastic keyhole insights into a fervent, relentless imagination, that appears unquenchable until exhaustion.  Below are his creations scattered across the globe.

Sao Paulo,Brazil    

Kreuzberg, Berlin

Wroclaw, Poland

Tate Modern, London

Arhus, Denmark

Wroclaw, Poland

flickr/JackTwo

flickr/MichaelFromm

flickr/coincidentalimages

flickr/chrisjohnbeckett

flickr/iconsfornow

flickr/coincidentalimages

Where do I sign?

A room advertised on Craigslist.de. I have a feeling he won't be inundated with offers...

__________________________________________

EUR150 living room to rent out (trendiest part of berlin)

---

Reply to: hous-2bwqq ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}
Date: 2009-07-16, 2:12PM CEST

fold out couch available for E20 a night or E150 a month, no worries mates! There is a baby chihuahua that needs to be taken care of and basically there is a ton of other stuff but first come and check it out! 

• Location: trendiest part of berlin
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

__________________________________________

...stomp, window, or toilet?

Fifteen-topping Spud in Turkish Berlin

A fifteen topping house speciality baked potato.  I knew on ordering it was going to be disgusting. But who could turn down a potato carrying tikka massala, raw mushrooms, jalapenos, coronation chicken, sweetcorn, tuna, red cabbage, sourcream, sauerkraut, olives, couscous,  aubergines.....three short. "Didn't he do well?"

Snippets from a trip back back home

Pleased to see my parent's Indian Bean tree has a) recovered b) not been nicked

A couple of amusing newspaper boards discovered on a mid-wedding walk in Ditchling. A wedding so perfect incidentally, that it should be the focus of this post and not the irrelevancies of these pics.

 

Deutsche Dogs

Europe plundering Vikings, the muddy yards of pig farms in the Bavarian highlands and the Grand Duke of Weimar have all contributed to an eclectic array of canines pawing the broken bottle confetti strewn streets of Berlin.

Boxer, Rottweiller, German Shepherd, Great Dane, Weimaraner, Doberman, Leonberger, Poodle (dubious, it HAS to be French), Schnauser, Pinscher, even the Hot Dog - all Germanic inventions. The mongrels here are equally impressive. I’m partial to the fact that with many you can distinguish a Leonberger as their long lost, great grandfather - it’s just detectable, like Ben Stiller’s Jewish ancestry.

Below you can find some of the aforementioned and additionally some dogs that have caught my eye during my time in the city so far. All these were captured on the somewhat inept - almost souvenir like rarity of Apple stepping a foot wrong - IPhone camera. 

The Great Dane of Gorlitzer Park

 A mongrel looking less than impressed with the seating arrangements on the U8

The "about-to-kick-off" dogs(Ha. I meant "Kick-off" as in  go loopy at a passing, just after I took the photo, at a heel-dragging Spanial. Now you, no I mention it, they do also look like they are about to kick off, and are waiting for the referee's whistle)

So, is it Francois or Franz? Either way, I'm liking his style, liking his style... 

A well attired U-bahn pooch enjoying the cold floor of Berlinerstrasse

                                   A wee Weimaraner dealing with an itch in the distance

      A Paul Scholes - Leonberger. Beautiful dog. Wish I'd got a 

better pic as it passed me on a rare jaunt to Mitte

A Dulux dog at the Brewbaker micro-brewery. Which is perfectly located just over the river Spree, a short walk - that includes the Bear bridge - from my offices

A funny, little greedy dog that hangs out at an excellent Cafe near my work.

U-Bahn Heroes

 

Sat opposite this fella' on the U-bahn last night. When he first sat down he looked at me and did a strange two hand finger waggle, as if trying to conjure the beer I was sipping from my grasp. He then stared at various fellow passengers,  before releasing a loud puckered kiss into the air,  as a Japanese girl rose, as  we pulled into her stop. He then promptly fell asleep, briefly awaking,  tried to wake himself with cartoon like face slaps, before swiftly resuming a deep nasal slumber.

lifetime (Kopernikusstr.8 10245)

 
Fantastic shop in Friedrichstein. Very well laid out and stocked with threads fresher than F-r-eshhh. The T-shirts quickly caught my attention, as did a truly beautiful shirt - mentioned above by a fly swatting Charlotte. The link to the website can be found here.

Cafe Buchwald

This traditional German tearoom has thrived on the leafy neighbourhood corner, since 1852. Located north of the Tiergarten, just over Moabit bridge, Cafe Buchwald earned its reputation from delivering cakes to the courthouse.

The conventional feel of the tearoom is maintained both by the furniture and the cafe's loyal regulars. The number of blue rinses (although, in Berlin the popular rinse choice appears to be more akin to the shade of tan leather car seat) on show was staggering. When I walked in to order, it looked like the queue I joined had been waiting in line since the cafe first opened its doors.

A work of art

The cafe is famous for it's Baumkuchen, which due to my poor German we failed to order, instead a chocolate encrusted, wafer cake and a light, spongy, strawberry slice came our way.

Both were delicious, however the chocolate cake - despite it's wonderful appearence - had that slightly tired, lingering cardboard-wafer after taste. A sensation that reminds me of long boring afternoons listening to uncomprehensible Polish , eating chocolate cake that to a seven year old tasted like it was in disguise, while visiting relatives in towerblocks in Warsaw or Sopot.

However, as we made our departure, the beaked locals seemed unanimous in their choice for best cake. They obviously didn't have Polish relatives.

Berlin Zoological Garden

Berlin Zoo is the biggest and most visited zoo in Europe. With more than 14,000 species, set over 35 hectares, three million visitors meander through the leafy Tiergarten setting each year. Half the price of London zoo, and being confronted with a map of the park on entering, which ticks off the plethora of animals you hope and expect to see, one by one, is a feat rarely achieved on previous zoo visits. 

To be welcomed by five Asian elephants at the first enclosure was fantastic. Having already lost my heart to these incredible animals in India, it was wonderful to be reacquainted in such close proximity. There is such serenity about them, and it always delights me how quietly they move for their immense size and flat-footed approach. 

 

Next up was the Great Panda. Bao Bao, lay on his back, content soles of his pads facing skywards, munching bamboo- the Panda's signature move on television- made him feel familiar, like the habits of an old friend. Bao Bao is the oldest Giant Panda in captivity, and is on a permanant visa from China for breeding reasons. 

Our eyes brimming with open jawed wonder at seeing a panda within three feet of us, perhaps inexplicably led to us not taking any photos. That, and perhaps the number of perma-tanned Germans, chainsmoking, flashing their cameras through the glass within a foot of Bao Bao's patch framed eyes.

We reached the lions mid-game. One mischievously looking round the corner of his leafy cover, like an excited kid waiting to scare his sister. Seeing lions move is vaguely similar to when you first saw the moonwalk. It looks impossible to move that gracefully, but then you start to see the different stages play out, before being flummoxed all over once more at how it is achieved.

 

Panthers, leopards, tigers and the sand cats were other highlights of the big cat area. The warthogs were an unexpected surprise. I loved how they walked quickly in packs; some had the crazed look of an agoraphobic trying to escape from a throng of people, while others looked like they were reveling in the numbers.

Bears were our next prority. A pair of black bears looking like they were searching for ants greeted us. On seeing black bears I have an almost twitch like tendency to extoil my favourite and perhaps, only fact about them. Although very friendly in comparason to a grizzly, if they do look a little perplexed to see you on a narrow mountain path, just spark your lighter. They are terrified of fire due to the sap from the trees making them exstremely flammable. For some reason they are fully aware of this fact...now you are also.

We also admired a muddy polar bear, and a patrolling brown bear. We saw seals- who really dont look like they are meant to go on land given how awkward it seems for them.  They look a little like grandparents who stubbornly refuse to use a chair lift.

After seeing the Flamingos looking as poncy as ever, the anotherl highlight was seeing Pedro the Chimp, who within 48 hours after  our visit chomped off a Zoo directors finger. We also watched a very grumpy silver back Gorilla glower at his admirers through the glass, before sending us all skittling back on our heels as he thumped the glass menacingly.

After finishing with a quick gaze at the elephants we left the zoo, satisfied and excited by the day we'd had. The zoo is a must visit in Berlin and a place I hope to return to in the near future.

John

Imagine my surprise to see John on the S-Bahn...

 

The land of wooden bikes