Berlin on a Platter

A Night Away at Hotel Am Steinplatz

Last week, my husband and I were invited to spend the night at Hotel am Steinplatz, a newly refurbished member of Marriott's Autograph Collection, a selection of boutique hotels that certainly don't feel like they belong to a sprawling worldwide chain, but rather retain a clear sense of place and individuality.

The Hotel am Steinplatz first opened a century ago. After the October Revolution, it became a haven for Russian intellectuals and aristocrats. Vladimir Nabokov was reportedly a regular. In the 1950's, it became a hangout for many literary Berliners like Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll, as well as movie stars like Brigitte Bardot and Romy Schneider.

The hotel fell into disuse for a while, but has now been splendidly restored. There is an elegant restaurant with Marcus Zimmer at the helm (who worked closely with Stefan Hartmann to conceive the hyper-local menu), a must-visit bar crafting really wonderful cocktails with many locally produced spirits, and a serene rooftop spa with two saunas.

We were lucky enough to be given a Grand Superior room, which was spacious and lovely, overlooking Steinplatz with big bay windows. The bathroom, almost as large as the room itself, had a separate shower, big warm tiles, and delicious-smelling Etro bath products. It felt so luxurious.

We checked in and got settled in our room, then my long-suffering husband watched Sportschau while I perused the gorgeous room service menu - have you ever seen anything like it? I love how unusual it is, how much it focuses on reinvented Berlin classics...and that there's no club sandwich.

After that, we headed down to the cozy dining room for dinner. The open kitchen faces the dining room, so you have a direct view into what the chefs are up to while you eat. The way the kitchen opening is framed by the dark wall makes it feel almost like you're looking at a painting. On the right in the shot below is Marcus Zimmer, the executive chef.

While we looked at the menu, we were given a bread plate with a selection of delicious breads from this Schöneberg bakery (a much wider selection of their breads and pastries are available at the breakfast buffet), as well as a little dish with salted Brandenburg butter and a little cup filled with freshly pressed linseed oil, rich and nutty. The bar sent over fantastic gin cocktails made with housemade bitters, served in cold metal cups.

Rather than choosing an entree, the kitchen brought out several things for us to taste. Standouts included two nuggets of Eisbein, - pigs' knuckle, a traditonal Berlin dish - that were crisply breaded and placed on a plate with a brightly dressed bit of salad, some pickled beets, gossamer slices of radish and little dollops of a creamy herb sauce...

...as well as a plump chunk of confited white fish served on top of a silky cauliflower purée and a tangle of thinly sliced, pickled cauliflower salad. So delicious. The wine list is predominantly German, with a few Austrian wines thrown in, keeping perfectly with the kitchen's emphasis on locally sourced food.

After dinner, we were so stuffed that we rolled our way back upstairs instead of heading to the bar for a drink, though we did poke our heads in to see a rollicking scene - every seat at the bar taken, every bar table occupied. A chef I know who works nearby has also sung the praises of the bar at Hotel am Steinplatz many times - it truly feels like a cozy neighborhood bar, but with excellently crafted drinks and a really nice, relaxed vibe.

We fell into a dreamless sleep in the indescribably comfortable bed (seriously, Marriott, I need to know more). The next morning, we headed up to the top floor spa to sit in the sauna for a bit - there are two to choose from, a classic Finnish one and a cooler "Bio-Sauna". The two are divided by a tiled shower area.

We had the whole place to ourselves, which was blissful, and after we'd sweated enough and soaked our feet in little white tubs, we hung out the open window and gazed at Charlottenburg's rooftops. Then we got dressed and headed down for breakfast, where the buffet is almost more impressive than the restaurant's offerings.

There's a vast array of bread to choose from - many different seeded, sour loaves as well as crisp Brötchen, tender Milchbrötchen and Mayer Bäckerei's own take on viennoiserie:

There's excellent tea, locally sourced smoked fish, the most amazing fruit salad made up of pomegranate seeds and teeny tiny pieces of diced pears and pineapple, locally made sweet-salty granola, a truly interesting selection of housemade jams (including black currant and gooseberry), stinky, oozy cheese and Tyrolean yogurt, as well as the actual cooked dishes, like this plate of scrambled eggs with wild boar sausage from Brandenburg.

We breakfasted like kings, lingering in the quiet glassed-in courtyard for ages. We'd only been in the hotel for about 16 hours, but we felt so rested and cared for. The service was consistently excellent, discreet and friendly.

The hotel feels really special, with a very strong link to the past as well as a keen sense of the contemporary desires of travelers. I, of course, love its location, right in the heart of my beloved Charlottenburg, where you are close to the hustle and bustle of Kantstrasse, Ku'Damm and Zoo, but are still tucked away in a refined and quiet street and where the Art Nouveau facade of the building rises up and out elegantly from the turn-of-the-century apartments that line the block. I also love the rigorous focus that the kitchen and bar have towards featuring local foods and drink and that they support fellow local businesses with excellent products without pretentiousness. The hotel just gets it all right.

Disclosure: We were guests of the hotel and restaurant, but all opinions are my own.

Minh-Trang

A simple fact of life in Berlin is that finding a really good and authentic Vietnamese restaurant can be about as rare as a sunny day in winter. It's not that the days (restaurants) don't exist, but they're rare and precious. It's a little mysterious, what with Berlin's large Vietnamese community and all, but I've long learned not to get too worked up about these things. I accept my fate and resign myself to dreaming about the long lost buns and phos of my youth in New York and Massachusetts).

(N.b.: A recent trip to the Dong Xuan Center in Lichtenberg was balm for my hungry soul; we had a delicious meal there, but since we were in a group, we went for the family-style dishes, not the pho. Next time for sure.

And secondly, a commenter on Instagram gave me two restaurant tips for authentic Vietnamese food: Com Viet on Münzstrasse and Sen in the Viethaus on Leipziger Strasse. Have any of you tried them? What did you think?)

I kept hearing rumors that a Vietnamese restaurant on Kantstraße, Minh-Trang, harbored the best pho in Berlin. I didn't believe it for a long while, having been burned one too many times by pho broth that tasted like boiled onion water topped with gray curls of beef, by soup bowls slapped unceremoniously down in front of me without the traditional herb and bean sprout garnish, without the caddy of condiments that allow you to adjust the flavor of your pho just the way you like it. And from the outside, Minh-Trang looked like just like any of other depressingly mediocre and westernized Vietnamese restaurants in our fair city. I always passed it by. But yesterday I finally ventured inside Minh-Trang and lo, people were right and looks are deceiving, because the pho was good (for Berlin)!

The menu boasts several different kinds of pho, including at least four different ones with beef. I settled on a beef pho with charred ginger and onions. The broth was richly fragrant and deeply savory - the kind of thing you'd want to drink by the quart. Really, really good. The noodles were silky and plentiful. Sweet crescents of mild white onion and little rounds of sliced scallions floated in the broth. The plate of garnishes was fresh (though I would have liked basil and lime wedges) and the little caddy of condiments had everything we needed - fish sauce to dribble in the broth, hoisin sauce to dip the shreds of beef in and Sriracha (plus sliced chiles) to liven things up. The meat was the only real disappointment; it was just as gray and curly as everywhere else. I have yet to even see a pho in Berlin that has rare beef or brisket slices in the broth. Mystifying, but such is life in Berlin for an Asian-food lover. The rest of the soup was lovely. We dipped and slurped and drank and ate and it was delicious and satisfying. I'm thrilled that we live just a few short bus stops away.

(A bowl of beef pho at Minh-Trang costs €6.50. Thrillingly, the menu also boasts banh xeo, those delicious Vietnamese pancakes, but were out of them the night I was there.)

Minh-Trang
Kantstraße 67
Berlin 10627
Tel: (030) 318 01 117

Kochtail Kitchen Shop

True story: I used to own a Lodge cast-iron pan. I kept it in an overhead kitchen cabinet, sort of propped upright against some cutting boards. Space was at a premium, these were my New York days, what can I say. (My Queens days, to be specific, when I actually had more kitchen space than I used to, but still, things were tight.) Anyway, one day I opened up the kitchen cabinet to get down a cutting board and as I pulled out the board, the equilibrium in the stack shifted and before I could do anything besides move out of the way and duck, my cast-iron pan came hurtling out of the cabinet down onto the pink and gray linoleum floor. Where it broke into two pieces. Not even kidding. (Trust me, I didn't think it was possible, either.)

When I lived in New York, I had several favorite kitchen stores. There was the second floor of Zabar's, of course, my first love and my across-the-street neighbor for my first four years in New York, and then there was Broadway Panhandler, back when they were on Broadway and not on 8th Street. Later on, when 18th Street became the center of my universe, I started frequenting a random kitchen supply store on East 17th Street that was run by a Chinese man. But then I moved to Berlin and lost of all those sources in one fell swoop.

It's not as if there aren't kitchen supply stores in Berlin and certainly KaDeWe has a very nice fourth floor (in fact, we registered there for our wedding) and Galeries Lafayette's basement area is okay in a pinch. But none of these places made my heart sing the way my old NYC stores did. Until I found Kochtail.

Kochtail is a kitchen store on Invalidenstraße 150 (and, for a limited time, in Europa-Center, for you (us) Wessies) run by an American couple. It has pretty much everything you'd ever want or need (among many, many other things, Le Creuset pots and copper mixing bowls and those awesome flexible bench scrapers and Benriner mandolines and every kind of cookie cutter under the sun and French Duralex glasses and those super-chic trash cans from Wesco and LODGE CAST-IRON PANS, for goodness sakes). It has square cake pans and Silpat baking pads and pie beads and Keep Cups and a huge section for cocktail accessories, including those incredible molds for one round ball of ice. Also, Kochtail is a boon for expat cooks and bakers (or Germans who use American cookbooks) because they have a great stock of measuring cups and spoons, plus oven thermometers and electronic scales.

I love how thoughtfully laid out the store is and the fact that Joe, one of the owners who's in the store most days, is kind, helpful and very funny. To run a great kitchen store, you need to have a good sense of what matters to cooks and bakers. Joe and his partner are passionate about cooking and baking and you see that passion reflected in every detail of the store. It's a lovely place to get lost in. It's also a very difficult place to practice restraint in. Little wood-handled mushroom brushes! Madeleine pans! Weck jars in every shape and size! Those flat plastic thingies you use to comb texture into cake frosting! IRRESISTIBLE, I tell you.

Kochtail
Invalidenstraße 150
10115 Berlin
Tel: (030) 284 069 74

And, for a limited time at Europa-Center. Just to the left after you enter from Breitscheidplatz.

Fürst & Iven Café

My very favorite café at the moment is Fürst & Iven, tucked away under the Savignyplatz S-Bahn stop. It's attached to the lovely Autorenbuchhandlung, but merits a stop whether you're looking for books or not.

Despite its location in the little alley under the train tracks, the café manages to be both light-filled and airy. The tables are perfectly spaced, just far enough away for privacy without feeling totally lost. The music is never too loud, the service is always friendly. It's just a very peaceful place to be.

I like to order boiled eggs at Fürst & Iven because they always manage to arrive at the table perfectly cooked, if you like a set white with a fiery orange molten yolk. But the case of cakes and pastries should not be overlooked either, because they're very, very good.

The other day, I saw Gugelhupf on display and because I'm incapable of passing up something as old-fashioned and traditional as that, I had to have a slice. It was tight-crumbed and fragrant with butter. I didn't think I could finish the whole piece, but then, with my cup of tea, I did.

All the details at Fürst & Iven are just right. Their coffee comes from local roaster Andraschko and they use only organic milk and eggs. They make their own lemonades and ice teas. And their breakfast menu is just adorable, especially for those of us with literary inclinations.

Fürst & Iven
Else-Ury-Bogen 599-601
10623 Berlin
Tel: (030) 313-0151

Brasserie Lamazère

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! Drop whatever you're doing and call Brasserie Lamazère to get a dinner reservation as soon as possible. You have to call because they are booked out every night (every night!) and please be patient if you can't get in today or tomorrow. You will thank your patient self once you are ensconced in one of their cozy little tables, because holy frog legs, the food is good. I mean, seriously good. Like, better than Paris good. Oh, I said it! And I mean it!

Lamazère opened six months ago in a small space on the section of Stuttgarter Platz that used to be a venue for strip clubs and other unsavories and is now slowly transforming into a gentrified street (can you even use that word in Charlottenburg?) with a tea shop (ejected from Mitte!), an upscale Italian deli (well, to be fair, that's been there for decades) and a passable pizza place called Foccaccino. But with Lamazère's opening, I think it's fair to say that Stuttgarter Platz can now call itself a dining destination.

The only printed menu you'll get at Lamazère is the wine menu (they work with Passion Vin); the daily menu is written on a communal chalkboard. You can opt, in true French style, for an appetizer and an entree for 24 euros or for three courses for 30. This is, to put it lightly, a steal.

I ordered the oeufs cocotte to start and something called Atlasfisch (I think?) as a main. The eggs came in a little cast-iron pot that was hot to the touch and a slice of nicely toasted bread. The eggs were still cooking as they were placed in front of me, and continued to cook in the hot pot, the yolks a deep, liquidy orange. There were tender slivers of artichokes on top and the faintest hint of cream around the edges. Just lovely.

But ohooo, the fish. The fish! This whole thing was a revelation. That smear on the left of the board was the silkiest, most ethereal celery root purée I've ever tasted. I almost wondered if they'd made it in a Pacojet. It practically levitated. The fish - delicious and substantial white flesh with nicely crisp skin - was balanced on two quenelles of duxelles, a little pile of artichokes both cooked and puréed, and a wedge of caramelized celery root. The duxelles, dear readers, were worth the price of the meal alone. The mushrooms were minced into impossibly small pieces and their flavor was so pure, so intense and so perfectly matched with the celery root and fish and the sweetness of the artichokes. Gah! I didn't want to stop eating any of it. It was just so good.

Desserts weren't as hugely successful - I ordered a fondant au chocolat, which was fine but not earth-shattering and my friend had rice pudding that was a little one-tone in flavor (it was served with salted caramel and candied almonds to add on top, though), but I think that a different order (the prunes in Armagnac, silly me!) might have made me happier. Still, though, it was a fabulous meal. The service was impeccable and friendly, the wine was good and fairly priced, the restaurant felt cozy and familial without being cramped.

My only quibble? I think serving food on wooden or slate boards and in cast-iron pots is a little fussy and unnecessary. Food this good can stand alone on a plain white plate just fine. But of course this means that food this good can be served on anything, even a wooden board, and still shine. 

So happy that Lamazère is in the neighborhood. Now get calling!

Brasserie Lamazère
Stuttgarter Platz 18
10627 Berlin
Tel: (030) 318 007 12

 

Schlesische Quarkpiroggen at Hutzelmann

When we first moved to this part of Charlottenburg, we were thrilled to discover two traditional bakeries around the corner from us. Sadly, one of them closed a few years ago, but the other one, Hutzelmann on Wilmersdorfer Strasse, is still going strong and is such a gem.

The walls are plastered with Urkunden for their Stollen and other specialties and the ladies working the counter are rightly very proud of the goods. Hutzelmann calls itself a Silesian bakery, though most of what they sell are pretty familiar albeit particularly delicious versions of Blechkuchen, Brötchen and fancy Torten, for example. Every so often, though, they'll have something special for sale that I've never seen anywhere else - like these schlesische Quarkpiroggen, which are the find of the century. Sweet yeasted dough spangled with sugar and split down the middle by a thick, sweetened stripe of Quark. Oh yes. They are beyond delicious and I find it especially lovely that they're only for sale every so often.

Hutzelmann also makes the best Kranzkuchen ever, hands down, thick and flaky and loaded with fat stripes of ground nuts and marzipan. It makes every other Kranzkuchen seem like a pale imitation (my husband is a Kranz freak - we have tried them everywhere). We love their white Kastenbrot for thick slices of weekend toast and go there on Martinstag for adorable geese made out of pearl-sugar-flecked yeast dough. Not only do they make rustic weekend cakes, but they also do a roaring trade in fancy Torten and other confections, though I've never tried a slice.

Hutzelmann is worth a visit from any part of town - get a slice of Kranzkuchen or a sublime Quarkpirogge and help a traditional bakery stay alive amid the onslaught of chain bakeries selling papery Brötchen and compromising this country's incredible culinary tradition (getting off my soap box now!).

Hutzelmann
Wilmersdorfer Strasse 1910585 Berlin
Tel: (030) 383 777 67

Thai Noodle Soup at Preussenpark

This is neither here nor there since it's January and I don't think anyone even goes to the Thaiwiese in Preußen Park in January, but I found this photo the other day while cleaning up my computer and it jogged my memory and I thought it best to share it with you before it gets lost in another rat's nest here.

What you're looking at right there is a bowl of Thai pork noodle soup, eaten last fall on a very blustery day. Hugo was asleep in his stroller and my mother and Max and I were having lunch sur l'herbe and it was lovely, as usual. We've been there several times now and have sampled our way through quite a few stands. The whole fried fish with chili sauce is incendiary, delicious and slightly stomach-rumpling. The papaya salads are lovely, the crosshatched mangoes with chili salt (if you can find them) a very nice dessert indeed. But on this particular day, I found my favorite thing that the Thaiwiese has to offer and that would be this noodle soup.

Now there aren't that many people selling noodle soup there. In fact, I have a feeling the vendor we bought from might be the only noodle soup vendor? The only one I've ever seen, in any case. There are two choices, beef or pork, and watching the soup get made is almost as good as eating the soup. The raw meat is delicately plucked from its metal container and cooked in searingly hot broth while little pork or beef balls wait their turn. Softened noodles are placed in a serving bowl and then the cooked meat and balls and broth (the broth!!) are ladled on top.

The broth is a work of art - full of punchy, clear, meaty flavor that isn't muddied at all. The noodles are delectably chewy while the meat is tender and flavorful. There are all kinds of condiments you can add to your bowl, but the soup is perfect as is - I wouldn't change a thing. This is street food of the very best kind.

Thaiwiese im Preußenpark
between Fehrbelliner and Konstanzer Straße U-Bahn stops
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf

A Gift Guide for Berlin and a Giveaway

When I did my holiday gift guide over at TWC, I realized it was only fair to do a Berlin-specific gift guide for those of you who are local or on the hunt for delicious and pretty discoveries right here in town. Without further ado, here it is:

1. Sironi, a Milanese baker plying his goods in Kreuzberg's Markthalle Neun, makes a lovely panettone (€11), all wrapped up in cellphone and tied with a bow, that makes for a delicious gift. My mother, a panettone devotee, ate half of hers in about as many days and couldn't stop raving.

2. Paper & Tea, the loveliest tea store I've ever been to, already got a mention in my other gift guide, but I can't help but mention it again. Their teas are pretty great and the tea cups and pots sourced from all over Asia are astonishingly beautiful. We're hoping to take one of their tea seminars in the new year. Lately, I've been drinking their Harijan classic chai daily, with a splash of milk and a spoonful of honey. I highly recommend it - it's nicely balanced, with just the right amounts of warming spices.

3. If you've never been to the Hamann-Haus on the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf border, it's worth a visit. While the factory is strictly off-limits to visitors, the shop is stocked with every single chocolate item Hamann makes. I'm obsessed with their chocolate St. Nikolauses, which I first spied at Andreas Murkudis. They are gothically stern, simple and mesmerizing and their size packs an amazing punch. They come in both dark and milk chocolate and in a whole variety of sizes. But my advice? Go big (see photo above).

4. Another place to visit, if you haven't already been, is the tiny Wald shop at the very western end of Pestalozzistrasse in Charlottenburg (stop in at Café Manstein afterwards for a reviving cup of tea). Wald, which has devoted fans all over the world, specializes in Königsberger Marzipan. Their painstakingly made and delicious marzipan confections come in little wooden boxes or simple cellphone bags and would please any of your sweet-toothed loves who prize artisanal craftsmanship and supporting a family business.

5. Any object from Hedwig Bollhagen, the iconic Bauhaus-influenced potter from Marwitz in Brandenburg, makes for a pretty fantastic gift - from stark black-and-white vases to the cozier striped tea sets or nesting bowls. You can buy Bollhagen ceramics at KaDeWe these days, but instead I suggest you make a little pilgrimage to the wonderful Bollhagen shop on Wilmersdorfer Strasse, which also sells vintage originals made by the woman herself.

6. Strictly speaking, Monkey 47's spirits aren't made in Berlin, but in the Black Forest. But let's stretch the rules a little here. Their gin, made with 47 botanical extracts, is too good to pass by. You can buy it in various other stores in Berlin, but if you go to Andreas Murkudis, you'll also get to ogle about a hundred other things to covet as well (Nymphenburg vases! Céline bags! This place is a wonderland for high rollers and a pretty museum for the rest of us, sigh.)

7. I know I already mentioned marzipan and chocolate, but I can't make a gift guide without also including Sawade's Marzipanbrot, which is the very best the city (the world?) has to offer. It comes in different sizes (the bigger, the better, in my opinion - their marzipan is really the best I've ever tasted) and is just so iconic. I've always been amazed that Sawade isn't better known outside of Berlin or Germany. But maybe it's best that it stays our little secret. They also make lovely chocolate Christmas ornaments, to be purchased in their three bricks-and-mortar stores or Karstadt.

8. While I love my little corner of Berlin, I would give at least one pinky finger to live closer to the wonderful food emporium that is Goldhahn & Sampson. Head there for any number of wondrous gifts: spectacular olive oils, vinegars, chocolates, great cookbooks, or the gift certificate to a cooking class (I want to attend at least - Mar y Seoul, anyone?). I'm so happy to have a place like G&S in our lovely city and only wish they could open an outpost for those of us in the west.

9. And finally, Paul Sullivan and his crew at Slow Travel Berlin have just published their guide to Berlin, 100 Favourite Places. With handdrawn maps and a thoughtful approach to showcasing all this city has to offer, this is a great gift for any Berlin lover, new or old. And today, Slow Travel Berlin is generous enough to give away one e-book to a Berlin on a Platter reader. So tell me, dear readers, what is on your wish list from Berlin this year? Leave me a comment below and I'll choose a winner at random tomorrow.

UPDATE: Wendy (ww1614) is the winner! Thanks for participating; the giveaway is now closed.

Happy holidays!

Pierre Gagnaire's Les Solistes

We were invited to have dinner at Pierre Gagnaire's restaurant in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel last weekend and jumped at the chance, not only to see what the celebrated chef had in store for Berlin but, more prosaically, to have the opportunity to get dressed up and leave the house, not something we parents of a toddler do a lot these days.

The hotel is one of several buildings that have gone and are still in the process of going up in and around Zoo in an effort to change the area from a rather unlovely transitional neighborhood into a destination in what is now known (teeth-grindingly to, er, some of us) as City-West. Having grown up just a few subway stops away, I welcome the initiative, but it keeps catching me off-guard, too. To see gleaming new buildings and spit-shined sidewalks where junkies and shifty characters used to congregate. Such is life in Berlin.

Les Solistes is on the first floor of the hotel, just at the top of a winding staircase, tucked behind a wall of dark panels of wood and thick strips of glass. We were welcomed and ushered into the dining room by staff who was solicitous and ever-present without hovering or overdoing it. Our table was at the far end of the room, flanked by a chair (for Max) and a banquette (for me). Just as we were sitting down, the sommelier came around pushing a wheeled cart stocked with open bottles of Champagne. We opted for a glass of rosé Ruinart (so, so, so good) to whet our appetites and were served a small plate of amuse-bouches (a little too much on the sweet side for my taste) and other nibbles to start. A standout was a small bowl filled with a silky eggplant purée flavored with ras-el-hanout and served with whisper-thin crackers. The crackers were, in fact, so thin that they kept snapping off when we attemped to scoop up the eggplant purée, but it was a delicious pairing and a textural delight.

After that, we were given a basket of bread (from a Meisterbäcker in Hannover named Jochen Gaues - parbaked in Hannover and then finished off in the Les Solistes kitchen) and two dishes of butter, one plain and unsalted and the other salted and blended with algae. The bread was very good, though I do wonder why they aren't able to source bread here in Berlin (Brot & Butter's bread comes to mind, after all, it's equally good and just up the street from the hotel) and the butters were wonderful. The salted algae butter was more interesting, of course, but the plain one was excellent, too, tasting fresh and pure and clean, not always a given, even in high-end restaurants.

Next up was a plate of herbed, poached cod laid out on a bed of fennel salad surrounded by a smaller pool of Comté sauce and a larger pool of green herb sauce. On top was a perfect orb of hake mousse. (Pardon the color imbalance in some of my photos - the restaurant was on the dark side and my little lens could go only go so far.) The pairing of cheese with fish, though unusual, really worked. I loved the juxtaposition of the cool flakes of fish with the silky-smooth sauces and the creamy-velvety mousse on top. If this was how the meal was starting off, we were in for quite a treat indeed.

In fact, the next course, turbot poached in haddock-flavored milk, served on top of a tomato concassé and cloaked in an ethereal citrus hollandaise, was one of the best dishes I've had in memory. My husband and I, feeling both gauche and greedy, scraped our plates clean. I loved the combination of flavors, the sweetness of the tomatoes playing beautifully off the high citrus notes in the sauce, with the single grilled scallion on top of the perfectly cooked turbot anchoring it all in the here and now. This is one crowd-pleaser of a dish, both sophisticated and eminently edible.

To cleanse our palates between the fish and the main meat course, we were given a little entremet: foie gras mousse served with ever-so-tender calamari, bits of olives and chili served in a puddle of rich, dark broth, studded with a few chewy grains of barley (or farro?). It was salty and savory and very good. (Though at this point, I started to worry about how I was going to manage to eat even one bite more. I think I have may have mentioned my wussy little appetite over here the other day.)

Our meat course came plated separately. On the larger plate was a rich, gamy breast of pigeon from Poitou-Charentes served with a fantastically fruity-acidic sauce made with cherries, redcurrants and eggplant, of all things. Complex and delicious. On the smaller plate was the delicate pigeon leg, deboned and crisp-skinned, served with a little cluster of that old standby, green beans almondine, and a tiny orb of gelée made with the heart and kidneys of the bird. It was all rather spectacular, even though I could barely manage more than a few bites at this point.

But we were nowhere near the end. After all, there was still dessert.

It was forwarded by a little footed plate filled with petit fours: tiny raspberry tarts, green apple gelée, red-currant filled chocolates and (my favorites), brightly flavored lemon candy chips with strawberry "crunch". There was also a bowl filled with tiny, expertly made rose-flavored marshmallows.

The multi-course dessert started with the delivery of three dishes: the first, a tall martini glass filled with tiny pink and green meringues (rose and green-tea flavored) atop poached peaches, green tea cream and rose cream; the second, a bowl of quivering cubes of sesame parfait served with a gelée of red fruits and flavored with Indian spices (photo above); the third, a dish of citrus-poached apricots topped with julienned zucchini, a paper-thin slice zucchini encasing a grapefruit confit and a spoon of quivering Sauternes gelée.

I confess that I didn't love the martini glass concoction, though I suspect that has more to do with my feelings about rosewater than anything else. The second dish, the sesame parfait, was unusual and thought-provoking (the whisper of Indian spices against the bright, fruity berry flavor...) and very good, but the third dish, pictured above, was my absolute favorite. It was light and palate-cleansing and just what I wanted to eat after all those rich dishes. At first bite, I couldn't quite figure out what that orange tangle was. It had the silken quality of poached stone fruit, but the subtly bitter flavor of citrus. An inspired combination.

The next stage of the dessert course was two-fold. The first plate held a small narrow shot glass filled with white rum sorbet, melted rhubarb, some sugarcane syrup and hidden beneath the fruit, a single mint leaf and next to it was a large porcelain spoon holding a fine dice of browned and caramelized pear. The second plate was actually a bowl of a fanciful mixture of chocolate water, chocolate ice cream, yogurt (flavored with Gewürztraminer, unless I misremember), chocolate sorbet and caramelized nuts. I didn't expect to like the rum sorbet, but it was absolutely stunning. Somehow, the nose-wrinkling bite of the alcohol was entirely gone and all that was left behind was the fruited, complex flavor of the rum. Paired with that hidden mint leaf and the sweet-sour rhubarb, it was refreshing and interesting and just so delicious.

To cap things off, our waiter wheeled over a cart filled with metal canisters of tea and several pots of lush herbs to our table. We opted for a tisane and so, using little silver scissors, he made a mixture of sage, basil and lemon verbena for us. It was a fantastic combination (the basil adding a welcome savory note) and just the thing after our long meal.

It was truly a world-class meal - well-paced, modern, inventive, delicious - paired with excellent service that was, as I mentioned above, ever-present without hovering, solicitous without intruding. Certainly the finest restaurant I've had the pleasure of eating in in Berlin, the city is lucky to have Les Solistes join its stable. I can only hope it succeeds in luring diners from around the city to make their way over to our unlovely Zoo, to settle in and be whisked away.

Les Solistes
Waldorf Astoria Berlin
Hardenbergstrasse 28
10623 Berlin
Tel: (030) 814-0000

Samakki Talad Thai

On a slightly desolate stretch of the already charmless Kaiser-Friedrich Strasse, there is a Thai restaurant that I've driven by, oh, let's say hundreds of times. Although it's quite close to where we live, we never go past there on foot and somehow it's never occurred to me to stop in. When I pass it, I'm usually in the car and in a hurry to get where I'm going: doctor's office, my mother's place, the gym, errand-running.

But on Sunday we were on our way to Tiergarten to let Hugo practice walking (he wants nothing more these days than to push his stroller around until he's glassy-eyed and catatonic) and Max was hungry. He wanted to grab something quick. I rattled off the usual suspects, but nothing piqued his interest. Just then we drove past Samakki Talad Thai. "Let me run in there," he said. "I'll grab something to go." I double-parked, he ran in and a few minutes later emerged with a takeaway pot of steamed rice and chicken red curry in a knotted plastic bag. I kept expecting to see a goldfish swim up to the surface.

It was pretty delicious stuff and seriously spicy. Far more so than what I was used to. Max paid €5 for the meal and kept raving about what he'd seen inside the restaurant - chafing dishes set out with lots of interesting looking things, all the cooks speaking Thai. He was sure they were regulars at the Thai Park.

So yesterday, I went to have lunch there myself.

The place is pretty bare bones and ordering is a little confusing. There's a counter with the aforementioned chafing dishes and a few platters of fried things, a second counter with fresh vegetables laid out (the salad counter?), plus a third counter in the back that I didn't even dare approach. There's also a man (the owner?) who simply came up to me while I looked at the offerings and asked me what I wanted. I ordered a Thai fish cake and a papaya salad. "Scharf oder nicht scharf?" came the question, so of course I said "scharf". I only started getting nervous when it was repeated back to me incredulously two more times, as if to say, are you sure, you wimpy-looking lady?

The fish cake (served cold) came doused in Thai chili sauce and was...sort of chewy. I couldn't really discern the fish, but eaten with the cooling cucumbers it was nice enough.

Then came the papaya salad. And holy capsaicin, it was really, really, really spicy. It was also delicious. It hurt so bad! And tasted so good. Best of all, I got to see the cook pounding the ingredients for it together behind the counter while I waited. Somehow I managed to eat the entire thing (my method was to save the tomatoes for whenever I felt I couldn't go on anymore) and then, incredibly, was sad that it was gone. I'd say it was one of the best papaya salads I'd ever eaten.

At that point, I was full enough. But my curiousity was bigger. In the meantime, other customers had come in and ordered hot meals and everything smelled so good. So I went back to the counter and asked for a plate of ground pork and peppers spiked with chiles (there are no labels on anything, so I don't know the name for this dish, but I think it was Pad Krapow Moo - see here and here). I was warned that it was going to be spicy, but I'd survived the papaya salad, hadn't I? Nothing was going to stop me now. The ground pork was piled on top of a big plate of white rice.

And it was just fantastic. Spicy, indeed, but the rice helped me out there, and also faintly sweet and savory and saucy and aromatic (holy basil completes me) and addictively good. (Though I still only managed half of the plate and took the rest home for dinner.) It tasted like home cooking heaven.

Every dish is €5 at lunch. (The fish cake was another euro.) It's definitely going to be my new canteen.

Samakki Talad Thai
Kaiser-Friedrich Strasse 41
10627 Berlin