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

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

 

Masala Dosai at Raamson

Not one but two Indian friends of mine have told me about Raamson in the past few months. It's a little Tamil restaurant on Kolonnenstrasse, right before you get to Julius-Leber-Brücke. (You Kreuzbergers may already be acquainted with Raamson's grocery store on Gneisenaustrasse, which apparently now also boasts a selection of takeaway food.) Naturally, I was intrigued, as really good South Asian food continues to be maddeningly elusive in our fair city.

We stopped by there a few Saturdays ago, just when they were opening up at midday. We'd clearly caught them off guard as it took nearly an hour to be served and we were the only customers in the joint, but maybe they do more of a weekday business? It didn't really matter, though - Hugo was napping and we were content to just sit there in companiable if stupefied silence (our son's early waking hours continue to throw us for a loop) until our food came.

The reason I was game to try Raamson is because they serve specialties from southern India. I adore thin, crisp dosa rolled around savory potato fillings, fresh coconut chutney, fiery sambar, steamed iddlies. (Ohhh, Madras Mahal, I miss you!) At Raamson, I ordered the standard dosa filled with spiced potatoes, which came with fresh coconut chutney and what I assume was their version of sambar (it was much thicker and less spicy than I expected - maybe it was something else)? The chutney was really great. And the dosa crêpe was nice enough, but the filling was a little wan - dumbed-down, it seemed, for the customers in Berlin. As usual. The dosa and chutney were good enough to scratch the itch I had and I'd certainly go back again if I didn't have to wait as long next time and Max thought his dish (something with chicken, I think) was good and Hugo plowed through almost an entire serving bowl of rice, but after we left, I do admit to once again feeling the need to howl up to the heavens the following questions:

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND RELIABLY GOOD INDIAN FOOD IN BERLIN? WHY IS IT NEVER EVER SPICY ENOUGH? AND WHO IS GOING TO FINALLY WAKE UP, TAP INTO THIS MARKET AND OPEN A GREAT INDIAN RESTAURANT HERE?

Until then, I'll keep cooking Indian food at home, of course. But I'm keeping the hope alive, folks. So feel free to leave me your tips below, in case you think I'm dead wrong and there's a great Indian place around the corner from you. (If, however, you have never eaten Indian food in either the UK or New York or suburban Boston, ahem, keep in mind that I may strongly disagree with you on what makes for good Indian food.)

Raamson
Kolonnenstraße 48/49
10829 Berlin
Tel: (030) 919 07 550

La Soupe Populaire at Bötzow Berlin

The former brewery Bötzow Berlin, on the border of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, lay fallow for 20 years before being purchased, in 2010, by Dr. Hans Georg Näder, the owner of Ottobock, a prosthetics manufacturing company. Dr. Näder plans a grand transformation of the sprawling complex, with space planned for a scientific research campus, art galleries, stores, offices and even a hotel.

The first inhabitants of the space are a team of cooks under Tim Raue who send out their high-end take on classic Berlin comfort food (Königsberger Klopse, Brathering, Sülze) from Thursday to Saturday every week at dinner as well as at lunchtime. The restaurant, called La Soupe Populaire, is located in a part of the brewery called the Atelierhaus. Each month, a new installation of art graces the gritty walls (this month, Andreas Gursky) and the cooks come up with special menus to pair with the changing pieces. But the regular menu holds fast.

The location is a distinctly weird place - cavernous and dark and spooky, you find yourself not really wanting to walk through the echoing hallways by yourself. But, improbably, a cozy, warm restaurant has successfully been crafted within the slightly forbidding walls of Bötzow Berlin. Mismatched china for bread dishes and cheerful, floral seat cushions mingle with the austere elegance of KPM Urbino porcelain plates. The charming, convivial atmosphere softens the harshness of the exposed pipes and brick.

Michael Jaeger, the chef de cuisine, sends out well-crafted German comfort food from a kitchen that clearly has a twinkle in its eye as well as serious cooking chops. Senfei, that old cafeteria classic of boiled eggs in mustard sauce, has been reimagined as a soft-cooked poached egg quivering on top of a silky mustard sauce. There are crisp homemade potato chips for some textural contrast and a bit of char caviar on top but to cut through the unctuous richness of it all, a layer of cool cubes of sour beet salad is hidden at the bottom of the bowl.

Another evening that I was there, I had the pleasure of eating a slice of Spanferkelsülze (not pictured) with a bit of sweet mustardy pickle alongside as an appetizer. Sülze (aspic) certainly has had its image challenges along the way, but Jaeger's take - the meat tender and savory, the aspic just barely there, and coins of spicy carrots studding each slice - gives this tired old dish a much-deserved new life.

Mains include this dish of nicely cooked cod served with Schmorgurken and a creamy, bright green tarragon sauce. I'm not sure I'll ever love Schmorgurken, but given the Soupe Populaire treatment, it's hard not to like them. And besides, it's wonderful to see a restaurant concept adhered to so rigorously and so successfully. Oma's Berliner Küche never had as good an ambassador as La Soupe Populaire.

Königsberger Klopse, served with shreds of sweet-sour beets and buttery puréed potatoes are clearly the kitchen's pride and joy. They are rich and porky, capped with a few crunchy breadcrumbs and just a bit too salty for my taste.

The wines on the menu are almost entirely German and quite excellent in addition to being good value. I'm particularly partial to the Dreissigacker bottles.

The first night I was at La Soupe Populaire, dessert was a modernist take on Bienenstich - two layers of plain yellow cake filled with cream, apricot ice cream and topped with a crunchy disc of caramelized almonds. Though I loved the attempt at reimagining this old stalwart, I found the cake a flavorless disappointment and the other elements, while delicious, couldn't redeem it.

But the second time I went, dessert was a raging success: a scoop of lusty cherry sorbet atop a silky poppyseed mousse with little cubes of toasted brioche scattered throughout. I scraped my bowl clean and realized I loved this version even more than the original, ribsticking dessert. Which is how it should be.

La Soupe Populaire is a lovely addition to Berlin's restaurant scene and I've already recommended it to many people. Go if you're a tourist, go if you're a longtime resident - it holds something for both, an introduction to Berlin as well as a reminder of how fun, creative and wonderful this city can be. I'll brave the scary halls of Bötzow anytime to go back.

PS: A nice little bonus: there's free parking on the grounds.

La Soupe Populaire
Bötzow Berlin - Atelierhaus
Prenzlauer Allee 242
10405 Berlin
Tel: (030) 44 319 680

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

Chicago Williams BBQ

Forgive the hideous photo which in no way reflects the quality of our meal at Chicago Williams. It's just, the place was dark, my phone is a little old, you get the picture. Right?

The scene: Saturday afternoon, a few weeks ago. My husband and I had unexpectedly come into some unplanned babysitting hours. Suddenly, a thought. Dinner out! A date! It didn't take long to decide on where to go. Marguerite had, weeks earlier, said that Chicago Williams was among the best BBQ she'd ever had. (!) Visions of cold drinks and smoky meat danced in our heads. The last good BBQ we'd eaten was on the book tour, at Hill Country in DC. We called up, reserved a table and headed east.

At Chicago Williams, you order at the bar from a blackboard. There are platters and sandwiches and sides to choose from and the bartender will, in a pinch, help you decide. (The ribs are non-negotiable, he said, and he was right. He nudged us towards mashed potatoes, we settled on cole slaw instead.)

We ordered a platter that included three meats (pulled pork, ribs and chicken) and two sides (baked beans - our Kryptonite - and cole slaw). We'd reserved far too last-minute to get a coveted table outside and instead were seated together with a few other people at a communal table. As we waited, deafening music played. I know I sound like an old lady, but it sort of drove me nuts. I could barely hear my husband talk. Just a few decibels lower would have helped, but Chicago Williams is not the kind of place where you ask them to turn down the music. You just think to yourself: next time I'm sitting outside.

Our food came served on a plastic tray lined with a sheet of wax paper. The ribs were, in fact, delicious. The chicken was really good (even better the next day!). The pulled pork was good, too, though a little on the dry side. I like a saucy pulled pork myself. The cole slaw was heavy on the mayo, but suitably refreshing. The only miss were the baked beans - semi-crunchy and missing that oozing, melty, sticky quality that makes baked beans one of the best things on earth to eat.

Still, the BBQ was really solid. We both so enjoyed our meal. And the atmosphere, loud music notwithstanding, was fun. I'd say it's a particularly great place to go with a group.

Chicago Williams BBQ
Hannoversche Strasse 2
10115 Berlin
Tel: (030) 280 42 422

Casalot

On Mother's Day morning, my husband and I were trying to think of a place to go for brunch. We didn't feel like going to our usual haunts and were stumped on what to try. "I know," he said. "Search for an Arab restaurant serving brunch."

So I, uh, did just that: googled "Arab restaurant", "brunch" and "Berlin". The first result that popped up was Casalot, in Mitte, just around the corner from Friedrichstrasse. Whatever, I thought to myself. This is going to end badly. Who googles what I did and actually gets a winner?

Last laugh is on me, because, oh my goodness, Casalot was a total revelation.

It's a pretty spacious place, with both indoor and outdoor seating. When we arrived, the seats outdoors were all empty. Gah, I thought, figuring this was proof that we'd made a bad choice. But inside, the tables were packed. We got the last table (that we had reserved, which I recommend you do, too).

The buffet was set up in the front room where the bar is. There was a long table filled with big platters of cold salads, a table of hot chafing dishes and a dessert table. The selection of cold salads alone was wonderful - there were the usual suspects like hummus, labneh and baba ghannoush, but also many other things like fennel and tomato salad, a cooked tomato salad that was spicy and bright, flash-fried vegetable salad, artichokes, olives, and on and on. As our meal progressed, I realized that cooks were bringing out new salads to the serving table all the time, not just replenishing what was already there. Everything was impeccably fresh and perfectly seasoned. This was really, really good food. (The price per head is €12,90, which is a lot more than other Berlin brunch spots, but the excellent food more than justifies the cost.)

After we'd eaten our fill of the cold salads, we moved on to the chafing dishes, which held, among other things, lovely little mint-flecked lamb meatballs and roast chicken that was incredibly moist and flavorful. (Actually, I'm not really sure how it was prepared - but it was out-of-this-world. Even Hugo couldn't stop eating it).

The dessert table was full of fruit and little Arab pastries - date-stuffed, sesame-studded, rose-water flavored, you get the drill. I can't speak to any of those, because of this, but honestly, at that point, dessert would have been too much for me anyway. (Actually, that reminds me that although I didn't eat any of the bread, it looked sort of average - they're not making their own, as far as I can tell, which is a shame since the food is so good. But there you have it.)

On one run to the buffet, I ran into a chef sliding a new platter on the table, so I told him how delicious everything was and I asked him what kind of Arab restaurant Casalot is. My father and Max and I had spent the entire lunch wondering if the cooks were Moroccans or Lebanese or Tunisians or Palestinians or what. And actually, it turns out that we were all right. The chef told me that Casalot is the old Roman name for the Palestinian town his boss is from. But the cooks are from all over the place: Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon, among many other places.

There are a lot of cooks in Casalot's kitchen and thank goodness for that, because what they're doing is delicious. I can't wait to go back.

Casalot
Claire-Waldoff-Strasse 5
10117 Berlin
(030) 275 72 210

Jäger und Sammler

All I have to show you from my dinner at Jäger und Sammler is this snapshot of the dining room, taken moments before I left after dinner. I was out with a group of girlfriends and vague acquaintances and felt sheepish about taking a photo when my dinner plate was first placed in front of me, so I hadn't. Eh, I thought to myself. The last I-don't-know-how-many meals I'd had out were such a disappointment that I hadn't even wanted to mention them on the blog. Why would this meal be any different? There was no point in shooting the meal anyway, I figured.

But then it turned out that my dinner, a piece of perfectly cooked salmon (I mean, perfect, folks, textbook) on a bed of sautéed spinach, fingerling potatoes and tiny roasted tomatoes, was delicious. So good that when I cleaned my plate, my first thought was actually to flag down the waitress and ask for another order. I'm not even kidding. It was so good.

The menu is tightly edited - there are only a handful of appetizers and entrées and only two desserts - and the focus is, I'd say, seasonal Italian with German influences. The room is warm yet airy, with Altbau flair - long wooden plank floors, Stuck on the ceiling, a big wall of cookbooks crammed in every which way. And the service is good, friendly, relatively quick. For Berlin, pretty great.

Two in our group ordered beef cheeks that came served on mashed potatoes with broccoli and brussels sprouts and the servings were massive - neither of them could finish their plate. Another ordered spaghetti marinara, in the Italian sense, with clams and mussels, and the serving was so dainty it would have passed as an appetizer in an American restaurant. So there was some unevenness to the portion sizes, I guess. But did I mention how perfect my salmon was? How moist and tender and flaky and delicious it was? How I wished I'd had twice the amount of spinach and tomatoes and potatoes on my plate because they were all so good? Right. Let's put the quibbles aside and just focus on how wonderful it felt to have such a simple, pleasing meal in such a nice space.

So wonderful, in fact, that I'm going back on Friday with my husband and close friends and I plan on trying far more from the menu this time: appetizers, maybe a dessert, and I'll definitely be stealing from our friends' plates. Stay tuned.

Jäger und Sammler
Grunewaldstraße 81
10823 Berlin-Schöneberg
Tel: 030 700 94 084

Japanese Imbiss Heno Heno

Yes, folks, another day, another lunch spot on Kantstraße. I can't help it! It's my little Asiatown.

Actually, Heno Heno is also open for dinner. It's a little sliver of a Japanese Imbiss around the corner from Stuttgarter Platz and I first read about it on Mel's blog. It's really a hole-in-the-wall: There's a counter with stools and then three tiny little tables only big enough for two rather slim eaters. (A warning: There's no restroom.) The vibe is all rather relaxed and homey, which befits the simple menu. Also, there's always good music playing.

Heno Heno serves homestyle Japanese cooking, with almost no sushi in sight (the exception being oshi sushi, an Osakan method of making sushi by pressing rice and herring, in this case, together in a wooden box). There are a few simple appetizers (house-pickled vegetables and onigiri are the plan for my next visit), a few rice dishes topped with meat or vegetables and an array of noodle soups (either udon or soba). That's pretty much it.

The first time I went, I had an udon soup that seemed a lot murkier and grainier than I'd been used to at the noodle shops I used to go to in New York. But it certainly tasted quite authentic, nice and seaweedy and sweet with miso.

The next time, I couldn't resist the edamame (which came at room temperature, sadly; I'd kind of wanted them piping hot), which were delicious - I spooned a little bit of the spice mixture from its beautiful bowl with that delicate little spoon onto the edamame plate and then dunked each bean into the pepper.

For my lunch, I ordered the vegetarian don with an egg on top - the smallest size. Perfect for my appetite, I could just about finish it. What you get is a bowl of hot rice topped with a very molten poached egg, ground sesame seeds, slivered seaweed, cooked greens, sliced scallions, a few mushrooms and shredded carrots. If there was more in there, it was well camouflaged. Using your chopsticks, you hack and mix everything together until you have a fragrant, sweet-salty, chewy mixture of rice and vegetables and sticky egg yolk clumping together under your chopsticks.

With a mug or two of hoji-cha, roasted green tea, it was just the thing for a gray day. Sitting at a small table, marveling at the tiny wooden pepper spoon, a ceramic tea cup nestle in my hands and a few simple Japanese cooking instruments hung over the stove, I almost felt like I'd been teleported somewhere far away. I love that feeling.


Heno Heno
Kantstraße 65
10627 Berlin
(030) 663 073 70