Eating in Germany

So, pals. I'm back in the USA. Slightly less travel-delirious, grateful for coffee's adenosine receptor binding powers, and ready to tell you about some of the things I ate in Germany. We were there for just over a week, in Berlin and Bremen, for tourism and family (in-law) reunioning. I admit that we didn't try to eat with "authenticity" in mind--as if that's an easily locatable position in this modernity anyway. We tried to eat delicious foods, and to check out what vegetarianism looked like in Germany. Below are photos. I didn't manage to snap one of all the delicious things we ate. There were many, many. Overall, I was very impressed by the food we ate in Germany. The quality, in general, was high. Even the fast-food type places we grabbed a criossant from on the way to the train station were, on the whole, of better quality than analogous places in the US. The breadth of vegetarianism there, however, seemed a bit narrower than here though there was a vegetarian option (or several) on every menu we saw and they were always good. We saw some trends: potatoes appeared frequently. Chanterelles appeared several times. Burgers seemed popular in vegetarian and non-vegetarian eating alike. And at non-vegetarian restaurants, the vegetarian option was often Italianly rooted. Onward with some specifics:

Hans Wurst Vegan Cafe


This is a photo of the table at the first dinner we ate. Unfortunately, I was so starving and flight-weary when I got to the restaurant that it did not occur to me to photograph our food until I'd eaten it. But it was great, as was the place which was relaxed and welcoming, in a terrific neighborhood with lots of restaurants and a park which I think was the park I had previously spent one of the best days of my life in, the last time I was in Berlin when I was 20. For dinner, we ordered the tofu veggie burger and seitan steaks (not the ones currently on their online menu) that came with new potatoes and a tangy red currant sauce that I want to eat on everything, forever.

Sarah Wiener


The Sarah Wiener cafe is located in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in Berlin and is responsible for Monday's dream-town beet pasta. With that pasta, we ate this salad. Just a simple salad, but done perfectly. Lightly and wonderfully dressed. And in addition to the delicate strands of carrots and fresh greens you see, the salad contained pine nuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds! (An aside -- I recently had dinner with a friend who happens to be German and she dressed a salad with pumpkin seed oil, something I'd never had before. It was fantastic and surprising. Apparently it's quite popular in Germany, but can be found now in the US. The kind she had was made by the same people who make this grapeseed oil.) We went to this restaurant on the recommendation of a friend who's been living in Berlin, on and off, for about a year now. He suggested both the Hamburger Bahnhof and its restaurant and we loved them both. I always enjoy an art museum restaurant but this one took the cake (sorry Wolfgang). I mean, look at that pink sea salt, those multi-colored peppercorns, and that crusty bread. And look again at Monday's pasta. Yeah.

Manna Restaurant

Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of Manna Restaurant, but it was great. We had a kind and friendly waiter, a few good pilseners. (Another aside: apparently Germany had a long-standing beer purity law which said only 3 ingredients could be used to make beer. Possibly as a result of this, the beers we tried were all rather straightforward and not terribly varied. Weiss beer was of course popular, but unfortunately I'm not a huge fan. I find it too sweet.) And we ate a potato stew that my husband said tasted just like (a non-vegetarian) one his mother used to make for him as a child. Along with that, we had a really great veggie burger on a sesame seed bun that was both soft enough to work with the burger and crusty enough to be wildly satisfying. The restaurant was located in Prenzlauer Berg, a neighborhood that I get the feeling might be the Park Slope of Berlin. Another friend, who's also been living in Berlin for about a year, mentioned people were moving out of Prenzlauer Berg, fleeing its "birthing hips."

Cake


I have no specific restaurant associated with this cake heading because we ate fantastic cake everywhere we went. This particular piece was served in the home of one of my husband's relatives. And much of the cake we ate looked like this: fruit centered, gorgeous. And delicious, obviously. The cake was angel food or white, from what I tried, often with a custard or creamy layer, and/or a crisp sugary glaze on top. I don't know if this is true of all Germans, but my in-laws tend to eat cake with coffee around three or four in the afternoon. Can I incorporate this tradition? Begin now and eat perfect cakes every afternoon? Cake break, please.

Falafel


This falafel was from a little doner kebab place in Bremen. Very few things were open the Sunday we walked around the town, but this was. And I am so glad. This was the best falafel I've ever eaten, edging out the chickpea in my heart the city of Granada formerly held. It was made in a large, thin pita, and if I'm remembering correctly, contained the following: falafel, a salad mix, three kinds of pickled cabbage (!!!), tahini, yogurt sauce, and hot sauce.


Well, that's all the gastro-reminiscing I have for you now. We're moving in two weeks, so posting may be a bit spotty. But hang in there! I'll have lots of eating adventures to share once we get to Pennsylvania. I can't wait to begin our new CSA. Did I tell you a friend gave us a gift membership to this CSA as a going away gift? Best gift ever.