Wkiez

I found heaven for wireless seekers! a’right, I exaggerate a bit. The real heaven to wireless seekers is the indefatigable Sankt Oberholz in Rosenthaler Platz (especially if you own a mac). However, in Kreuzberg, Pfeiffers offers a very good option. Especially its back room: you got there lots of outlets, good music, quite environment of other people with laptop, and most importantly: you’re hidden from the staff suspicious eye. Let’s see them stop me occupy a sit for five hours with only one cup of (small) coffee! I dare them! :]

[This just might be the worst picture in the blog so far. The place is nicer than what this picture shows]

What is there else to say besides the wireless thing? No idea. I merely worked there. However, I still managed to scrap two comments: a. their cortado, espresso with sweet milk, is absolutely fantastic. I had two in a row and then suffered from two hours of caffeine buzz. And it was relatively cheap! Only 1.60 Euros. b. the music was on the line of contemporary updated indy sound. But beware: they play full cds from beginning to end. If you like the album it’s not a problem. But if the band is not to your taste? prepare for a long hour of headache and painful ears.

Business Card
Name: Pfeiffers.
Address: Oranienstraße 17 (U: Kottbusser Tor).
Opening Hours: 9-23 or, 10-23 on Sundays.
Remark: There’s some simple coffee place food. Muesli, cakes. sandwiches, soups etc.  The muesli was ok. Nothing much to say about it.

There’s a town in Israel named Or Yehuda. But don’t remember the name; it’s not very important. And there’s a place in that town, that did a daring did. They took the baguette, loved by all, and filled it by abundance of Thai noddles, chicken and hummus. The result? phreaking tasty. But they didn’t advertise it properly. Instead of offering an exotic oriental fusion dish, they boringly describe it as ‘Thai noddles, chicken and hummus in Baguette’. Very accura-zzzzzzz. People desire strange food only if it’s being wrapped by an exotic package. I bet that I’ll be able to sell an A4 page frosted with chocolate if I’ll advertise it as a tradition Cambodian dish.

Back to our topic: Berlin is under attack! A month ago I never heard of Bánh mì, and now it seems to be everywhere! Like – in two places! at least! The first of them, Cô Cô at Rosenthelar Platz, I discovered in Berlin on Platter (probably my favourite new food blog about Berlin. Too bad that she doesn’t write more often. <hint hint>). The second was heavily promoted in every German food and culture platform that I read. I speak, of course, about Babanbè at Oranienplatz. And that’s what we’re gonna speak about in the next two paragraph.

Bánh mì is basically a French baguette filled with Vietnamese spicy food. Simple and yet intriguing. The food inside consists of pickled carrots and fresh vegetables together with some other kind of substance.  What substance? meatballs, roasted beef or pork, Portobello mushrooms for vegetarians, and Tuna fish for semi-vegetarians. Like an upgraded sandwich with a twist. With big expectations in mind we ordered one Bánh mì with meatballs, and one with Portobello mushrooms.

It was quite… average. Not spicy at all, which wasn’t too shocking, since we’re in Berlin after all, but disappointing, as it’s a spicy dish by definition. Somehow the main ingredient, in both sandwiches, were the meatballs and the mushrooms, rather than the Vietnamese savors that I expected to find reigning the dish. The Bánh mì costed around 5 Euros, and for 9-10 Euros you’ll get a lunch offer with a small soup or salad plus a beverage. It was a decent meal, but not a special one. I’m gonna give Bánh mì another chance in a place where it’s served with the original taste. Anyone knows about one?

I imagine that once upon a time all of Kreuzberg was like this place.

Direct above Kottbusser Tor, maybe the most central station in Kreuzberg, hides this gem. Yeah, you heard me. Above. Cafe Kotti is located above the ground, next to a weakly bridge that connects both sides of the street. It’s not a back yard or a basement; but it’s still hidden. Perhaps no one expects to find nice cafes between the  Turkish eateries of the block? Or maybe people just don’t look up anymore since they superman died? who knows?

In Cafe Kotti you’ll find intellectual Turkish people, along with politic-savvy German population (oh, wait. Those you can find anywhere). Not only that the population is mixed, but also the design: half Berlin-second-hand furnitures. Half Tourkish culture pictures and merchandise. I’ve visited the place twice. One time the waitress was Turkish, the other he was German. Do you see where I’m going with it? A perfect symbiosis.

I didn’t like most of the coffees in Kottbusser Tor till now. They were either too trashy or too popular. So Cafe Kotti fits my hand like a glove. Expect some serious updates since I’ll probably go there again. and over.

Business Card:
Name: Cafe Kotti.
Address: Adalbertstr. 96, 10999 Berlin.
Opening Hours: I’ve got no phreaking green idea. Morning till evening would be my guess?
Wireless: They claim that they have. I haven’t checked it yet.
Buttom Line: The prices there are rather cheap. We had black tea and hot chocolate for 2.60. Together! Read a few more reviews here.

As the Israeli and Arab populations in Berlin enhances, it gets easier and easier – almost as easy as stealing a baby’s candy – to get good Hummus in Berlin. The latest addition is Ze’ev Avrahami’s home-made Hummus. Which he started to offer to the loud crowd of the sports bar Magent twice a week, approximately, with no regular hours whatsoever.  Kind of hard to find, isn’t it? He’s sure not making the Hummus hunters lives too easy.

Ze’ev, loaded with heavy Hummus and bread bags, sets up quickly the mobile stand in the back room. He offers about 200 grams of excellent, smooth, home-made Hummus, with delicate chickpeas, Tahini and olive oil spread on it. The dish comes with self-served bread – which is actually the weak point of the dish, and should be… improved. But besides that it was amazingly tasty. A piece of home for me.

Wanna get a taste of the real-thing before Ze’ev opens his own place? Drop a note to neiman.mail at gmail.com, and I’ll try to aid you finding the serving hours!

Why do people ignore Zum Nussbaum (’to the Nut tree’, directly translated) in the contemporary discussion of Berlin oldest best tradition restaurants? It’s small, charming, full of old Germans – which is exactly the crowd that you want in such a place – and most importantly, their dishes are absolutely amazingly delicious! I took there dozens of guests already. All of them, without exception, had nothing but compliments for the food.  So people talk about ‘Zur letzten Instanz’, which is the oldest restaurant in the city. Or ‘Max & Moritz’ or ‘Schwarzwald stuben’ – two modern interpretations on classical dishes. But they forget Zum Nussbaum. Which might not be the oldest – though it’s old, or very modern – though it’s tasty – but it’s highly recommendable. If you ask me.

And you do ask – since you’re here, right?

[The restaurant, from 1903. From Wikimedia]

Zum Nussbaum is a 500-years old restaurant (yeah, don’t run away to wash your eyes. You read it correctly. Five-Hundred(!) years). Which makes it older than some countries. It used to be in the Fisher island (Fischer Strasse 21 to be exact), and got its name from a garden of nut trees standing in front of it. The restaurant was popular among carriage drivers (the fore-fathers of cab-drivers), and was famous for handing free beers for drivers who took guests home safely. There isn’t a better incentive for Germans than free beer. Then the house was destroyed. and then reconstructed. Along with a nut tree at the front, at the beautiful historial Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai quarter), where it stands today.

The place opens daily from noon till late at night. During lunch it’s hard to get a place there, as the old Germans jumps on them like cats on milk. They dine long lunch, get their daily-unhealthy fat dish with a big seasonal beer (the beers in the place changes according to the season and tradition). They usually down it all with a few bitter liqueurs in the end, and chat with pleasure with foreigners. Like myself.

The menu is short but to the point. It got all the pantheon of classical Berlin dishes: huge wursts with sour cabbage salad, a pig’s knuckle or a blood pudding thingy. But I never take those. I take my dish: Boulette. It’s a huge berlin-meatball (Boulette) with a fried egg on it, some salty fried potatoes on the side – and of course, soured-pickles. The changing menu include some heavy dishes like Schnitzel with an egg, or, at the right season – a variety of asparagus dishes. All of those being accompanied by excellent German beer (don’t ignore the bock beer if you visit the place in November-December), and a nice old environment.

Business Card:
Name: Zum Nussbaum.
Address: Am Nussbaum 3. Can it be that the name of the street came from the name of the place?
Opening Hours: 12:00-2:00. I ask myself who are the people who go there after midnight?
Buttom Line: A piece of a taste of old Berlin. Food and culture both.

The time was 21:30 on a cold Thursday night. We just left the Colosseum cinema next to Schönhauser allee station, where they screened turtles can fly as part of the Bewegende Bilder event.  A poetic scenery piece about mutilated kids in a refugee camp in the Iraqi-Turkish border. The movie is like a punch to your stomach that leaves you hollow inside. Pun totally intended, as we were starving. So we went to Prenzlauer Berg’s famous Dirty Harry’s pizza.

There are two kinds of fame to acquire in Berlin: cheap-fame or quality-fame. And at first sight you think that Dirty Harry’s must belong to the first kind. You’d pay 2 Eur for a 23-diameter box, which is sufficient for dinner, 5.5 Eur for a share-with-your-friend 40-diameter – and an 11.5 for 60-diameter mega-huge-pizza. On each of those you choose three toppings to add, which makes it a fairly cheap deal. Not as cheap as the one-Eur (horrible) pizza next to Schlesisches Tor, but hopefully a bit better.

Actually – if you got only a Euro in your pocket, then you can get one-Eur slices of already-prepared pizzas that wait on the counter for the lucky customer. They looked quite stale, but tempted by the price we took two of these. We shouldn’t have; they were indeed stale and not by any mean worth more than -1 Euro (which means that someone should pay us for eating it).

The other two members of the group were smarter, and choose to wait five minutes for their fresh 23-centimeter diameter. One with salami, mushrooms and tomatoes. The other with champignon, pikante salami, rucola & parmesan. They were fresh with crispy tasty thin dough. They were also surprisingly tasty, which is why I kept stealing pieces of it when my friends turned their head. A very nice pizza indeed!

We got to the place half an hour before closing, and were the last and only customers there. But rumors claims that on peak-hours it’s hard to get a sit there, and people wait as long as half an hour for their piece of cheesy-dough. I wouldn’t get on a subway to prenzelauer berg especially for that place, but if you happen to already be the area, and you look for a tasty cheap pizza, then it’s highly recommended. Guaranteed.

Business Card
Name: Dirty Harry’s – Another Kind of Pizza.
Address: schivelbeinerstrasse 43, 10439 Berlin (schönhauser allee u-  and s- bahn)
Opening Hours: 11:00-22:00. Closed on Sundays.
Tip: old Hollywood movies are mentioned not only in the name, but also on the walls. Which are crowdedly covered by black-white photos of famous past movie stars. Not to mention the drawing that you see in the image above you.

Bad! I’m a bad Israeli! Why? because I’ve never been to a Meschugge Party. What’s Meschugge party you ask? Well, it’s kind of an Israeli party – though you’ll never find anything like that in Israel – that brings the people of the community to one place. Together with lots of other people from many other communities who wants to just have good fun. I heard, from people who did visited one of those parties, that it’s supposed to be a crazy night, fulled of good Israeli fun kitsch party music.

[If you'll press on me, I'll grow bigger. And no. It's not a sex joke]

In case that you’re blind, don’t speak any English (what the hell do you do here then?) or just can’t take a thick hint: there’s such a party tomorrow. See the invitation for the rest of the details. Will I go there? God knows. But a good amount of my Facebook friends list go there. So in any case, send them my best regards.

When Israelis first move to Berlin, they face a shocking realization. There is no Hummus (chick pea dip) here. Nothing! Nada! and this is one of Europe’s culinary capitals. Yes, there are those disgusting white-dips in the Turkish restaurants. But calling them Hummus is as fair as stating that a Yacht is a boat. It’s true, but it’s a bit insulting. And this is a disaster for the average Israeli! A person who would usually devour good hummus at least 3 times. an hour. We are funny that way.

[Somehow I always forget my camera when I get to Azzam. So the above picture is composed from stuff on Azzam's website. I'm sure that they'll forgive me. It's free advertising after all - right?]

After a long search, the greenhorn discovers two important places. One is the Israeli grocery store in Charlottenburg, which will be discussed at another post. The other – and the more important, is the Azzam restaurant. A Lebanese oasis in the middle of Berlin. And they have Hummus! And Labane! and Pita with Za’atar!*

Yes. They’re lebanese and not Israeli. But who cares, right When it comes to food, we put all our disagreements a side. A friend of mine truly believes that every conflict in the middle east could be solved with a mutual wiping** of Hummus.  Including ancient misunderstandings, like that David and Goliath one.

Azzam opens its doors early morning (dunno exactly when), and keep on going till late evening. But do not dare going there after 19:00! That’s the threshold in which they stop preparing fresh hummus, and serve day-old dishes. Which are just not the same. In addition to Hummus they also go Masabaha (chick peas with Tahini, olive oil and spices) – and an amazing fata: a deep plate of chick peas, yogurt and cashew nuts. it sounds awful, but it’s totally yummy. Every meal comes with a modest salad plate, and all-you-can-drink strong Arabian black tea. In the winter I go through 4 of those in a meal, and then become hyperactive for the rest of the day.

But do me a favor. and in your first visit, go for the hummus. That is what it’s all about.

Business pseudo-card
Name: Azzam (website)
Address: Sonnenallee 54, 12045 Berlin
Prices: 3-4 EUR for almost all dishes. Totally cheap.
Tip: do *not* go there for Sunday brunch! It’s crowded with large families, and the result is a lovely chaotic feeling.

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* never heard about those? Wikipedia is your friend then. At least till I’ll write my Israeli cuisine dictionary. Somewhen in the next millenium.
** one doesn’t eat hummus. One “wipes” hummus. That’s because the way to eat hummus is to take the pita (Israeli bread) in one head, and use it to “wipe” the hummus of the plate. It’s barbaric, true, but also tastier.