Berlin on a Platter

Pasam Baklava

On a grim strip of Goebenstraße, straddling the gritty border of Schöneberg and Kreuzberg, is a little jewel box of a bakery selling nothing but baklava. I ducked in there yesterday after a day spent criss-crossing town on my bike to finalize the transfer of my driver's license once and for all. After hours on trafficky streets, Pasam Baklava was a silent oasis of calm. It's family-run and all the baklava is made fresh in the back room.

There were eight different kinds of baklava to choose from, filled either with walnuts or pistachios and then varied by whether there was also semolina cooked into the filling, or semolina with milk. Some baklava were made with with kataifi dough instead of phyllo, rolled into little cigars or tiny crescents. I had visions of hosting a Middle Eastern dinner party, with trays and trays of baklava served for dessert.

My favorite was the classic Fistikli baklava, with a simple pistachio filling (seen on the left). Söbiyet, with semolina and pistachios, and the eponymous Pasam Baklava, with a pistachio-semolina-milk filling were pretty good, too, though. The pastry was crisp and fresh, the honey syrup was cool and sweet, the pistachio flavor true and clear.

I especially liked seeing who came in to buy boxes of baklava to take away: a burly piano mover, a construction worker with dirty pants, and then a young man who ordered six pieces, sat down next to me, ate quickly and left again.

Pasam Baklava
Goebenstraße 12a
10783 Berlin
(030) 219 62 383

Lunch at Sasaya

I'm currently obsessed with the wakame salad at Sasaya in Prenzlauer Berg. It's perfect: slippery and chewy, with just the right balance of sweet and sour. There are even a few tiny shreds of hot pepper mixed in to hit the spot.

I had a quiet lunch there today, eavesdropping on a pair of middle-aged hipsters in hoodies and expensive jeans discussing apartment rents in Prenzlauer Berg and Pankow. "1500 for 120 square meters, that seems about right", one of them said. I wondered if they'd ever set foot in Steglitz or Spandau, or Charlottenburg for that matter.

The sushi was fine - the maki a little sloppily rolled - and just the right amount for lunch, though I forgot to ask them to replace the tamago with something else. I've basically decided that until I find another Japanese-run sushi restaurant, Sasaya's the only place I'll eat sushi at in Berlin. I just can't handle another Viet-Thai sushi joint where the shrimp taste like chlorine, among other indignities.

To remember for next time, the lunch menu had grilled mackerel with tsukemono and rice that sounded delicious.

Sasaya
Lychener Strasse 50
10437 Berlin
(030) 447 17 721

Habibi on Winterfeldtplatz

Habibi, the falafel and shawarma place on Winterfeldtplatz, is a neighborhood fixture that's been around for decades (some people say it was the first place in Berlin to sell shawarma). It's gotten nicer as the years have passed; I remember a distinctly shabbier room when I used to come here in high school with my friends over 15 years ago. It's still a hole in the wall with four bar tables and a smattering of bar stools, but now there are customer toilets, a shiny new vitrine, and elegantly laid-out platters of roasted vegetables, swirls of hummus, and tomatoes and cucumbers and onions, cut just so.

I don't think I've ever been to Habibi when I didn't have to stand in line, and today was no exception. A whole string of people in front of me ordered sandwiches, but I needed something more steadying than a tahini-soaked pita. So I ordered a "pastille" plate, a thin phyllo cigar of herbed spinach mixed with feta cheese served with tabbouleh (though the guy called it  Petersiliensalat, which made me smile) and some cucumber and tomato wedges. The pastille was wrapped in clingfilm, which he unwrapped before tossing it into hot oil. A few minutes later, it was on my plate, crisp and hot and not greasy in the least.

How do they do that?

Instead of tahini, I asked for a dollop of hot sauce, which was fantastic. Sharp and tomatoey, it left my mouth glowing. The crunch of the freshly fried phyllo against the soft interior was wonderful. The tabbouleh had barely any bulgur in it, but I liked it like that, bright and lemony. I wiped my plate clean.

Habibi
Goltzstrasse 24
10781 Berlin
(030) 215-3332

Quality Wine at Aldi

I was about to start explaining Aldi to people who don't live in Germany, but then I checked their website and it turns out Aldi has invaded every corner of the globe! For those of you who still might be wondering what I'm talking about, Aldi is a deep-discount, no-frills grocery store that sells everything from wild salmon to potted meat, cold-pressed canola oil to instant coffee. It prides itself on selling more than just bottom-of-the-barrel goods, so they'll stock good-quality dark chocolate and smoked trout alongside no-name mustard and egg noodles. All for crazy low prices.

I'll admit that I'm a snob about where I shop, but I go to Aldi for things like toilet paper, unsalted butter, Trader Joe's nuts, fresh blood orange juice and the occasional Kinder Schokolade rip-off (that dares to be better than the original), Milch Mäuse. I avoid the produce, the milk, the cold cuts. And it's certainly never occurred to me to buy wine there before.

But the other day, when I stopped in for some OJ, I noticed a bunch of wine bottles in the section of the store reserved for special, even more discounted sales.

Um, Pouilly-Fumé, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Barolo and Crémant de Loire, for €7.99, €8.99, €6.99, and €5.99 respectively.

Run, don't walk, to stock up.

Tuscan Kale in the Britzer Garten

Tuscan kale, also known as lacinato kale, dinosaur kale or, simply, black kale. I love it deeply, as much as you can love cruciferous vegetables. Which, I've found, is actually quite a lot. It's one of those things I left behind in New York, along with a lot of other dark leafy greens, that seems impossible to find in Berlin. (Wherefore art thou, mustard greens?)

But then I went to the Britzer Garten the other day to see the dahlia show and it turns out the Germans use Tuscan kale for landscaping!

Trust me when I say I seriously contemplated ripping it out at the root.