Berlin on a Platter

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

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

Sunday Brunch at Café Aroma

The sacred weekend brunch buffet is an institution in Berlin. And though it can be tempting to try out a different café each weekend, trekking across the city in search of 5 euro, all-you-can-eat, groaning tables, I'd venture a guess that you'll get mighty sick of the same array of bought-in-bulk cold cuts, bowls of fruit salad, cubed feta cheese with chopped tomatoes and arugula (at the progressive places!) and boiled eggs as the weeks go on. I know I did. 

Then Sylee told me that a favorite Italian restaurant of mine in Schöneberg, Café Aroma, also did a Sunday brunch. And that it was good! Not the usual cold cuts and Brötchen, she said, and that's really all I needed to know. We headed there the next weekend with some friends.

Café Aroma has been at the top of the adorable Hochkirchstraße, nestled into the Rote Insel part of Schöneberg, since 1987. Run by what seem to be an assortment of Italian friends, both in the kitchen and at the front of the house, it specializes in homey Italian food, simple and pleasing. On Sundays, the restaurant opens at 11:00 and boasts a groaning board placed directly opposite the bar when you walk in. Come hungry and be patient with the limitations of your own belly. You'll want to fill your plate several times.

There are tiny meatballs in tomato sauce so good I'd bottle it. There are lovely roast potatoes, squidgy and herbal. There's poached salmon and roasted peppers. Stuffed mushrooms and cauliflower in homemade béchamel. Wedges of frittata. Breadcrumb-stuffed calamari. Grilled slices of zucchini and eggplants. Little squares of lasagne. Slices of imported Italian salami, tender and almost sweet. Some dishes are there every time we go, some things are new each time we're there.

Everything on the brunch buffet could use an extra dose of salt, but this seems to be a Berlin-wide malaise. I don't really understand it. Otherwise the food is fresh and tasty and impressively varied. Aroma's not interested in using chafing dishes, which results in some dishes that should be served hot being a little lukewarm, but that doesn't really bother me (how un-Italian of me, I know). I'm just so pleased to have found a brunch spot that I love going to again and again.

If you've got room at the very end (I never, ever do), there's always tiramisù and fruit salad and a few other desserts (the last time we went, there were creampuffs and a berry-topped Bavarian cream).

It feels like our own little Berlin secret, to be nestled in Aroma's four walls on a sleepy Sunday morning, hearing the waitress banter in Italian with the bartender while we munch away contentedly. A walk up and down the streets of the Rote Insel afterwards, passing the cemetery where the Brothers Grimm are buried, helps with digestion and prolonging that languid Sunday feeling.

Café Aroma
Hochkirchstrasse 8
10829 Berlin
(030) 782 5821

Barbara's Kaffeetafel - Lunch at the Market

These past few weeks have been of the magical Berlin sort. You know, the kind where you walk outside your front door and are sort of overwhelmed with the loveliness of Berlin. Or is it just me? In any case, I'm grateful for it, for all the trees losing their blossoms and carpeting the streets with white and pink clouds, for the good, fresh air, for the happy crowds spilling out from cafés and on the banks of the lake near my house, for getting to live here.

And I'm grateful that when I go to a green market as lovely and bustling as the one at Winterfeldtplatz (so buzzy and crowded compared to when I used to go there with my mother, thirty (!) years ago), gathering up rhubarb, scallions, asparagus, fresh butter and good bread galore, thereby working up a slightly ferocious appetite, that there is bowl of puckery potato salad and Maultaschen in a savory, homemade broth just waiting for me, right there in the market.

Barbara's Kaffeetafel sells all manners of cakes (and a seriously gorgeous, burnished poppyseed Hefezopf), but what seems to truly be the bulk of her market business, at least, are her homemade Maultaschen (Swabian ravioli, for lack of a better descriptor), filled with meat (traditionally) or a spinach-fresh cheese mix. You can buy the Maultaschen by the piece to take with you or you can order a few for lunch right then and there. They come floating in a light, tasty beef broth or are served next to vinegary, faintly oniony potato salad (I could eat just the potato salad and be happy, too - it's pretty stellar). They're very good - savory and filling, the pasta dough toothsome with just the right amount of chew. The stand also sells freshly prepared salads - sliced beets or cabbage slaw, for example. Barbara's Kaffeetafel also caters, makes wedding cakes, offers cooking classes at your house, even delivers homemade cakes to you, if desired.

We ate our lunch standing up at the table next to the stand, just like I used to eat my Würstchen on that very same market square as a little kid with a bowl cut and stripey pants, and I practically got the shivers with happiness at this whole full-circle business.

Burrito Bowls at Dolores

I'd heard about Mission-style burritos being served at a Mexican joint in Mitte called Dolores for a while. I wasn't all that eager to get there, since burritos had never really been my thing. But one night, after a movie at Babylon and starved for dinner in those darkened streets where food can be very hard to find, we found ourselves looking into the bright, colorful Dolores.

It turns out that Dolores doesn't just do burritos. Their menu reads like a souped-up version of Chipotle's, with burrito bowls, salads, agua frescas and soups rounding out the offerings. We put together our burrito bowls, which came topped with homemade tortilla chips and sat down to dig in. I was underwhelmed. The iceberg lettuce piled on top skeeved me out a little and the food beneath it was just okay. Eh, I thought. Another disappointment. Par for the course.

But my friends Margue and Daniel, whose tastes I always trust, raved about Dolores whenever I saw them and when we found out that Dolores was opening another location on Wittenbergplatz, far closer to all of us than the Mitte location, they could barely contain their glee. What was I missing? I had to go back and find out.

I am so glad I did. For one, the Wittenbergplatz location is lovely. It's airier and bigger than the original one in Mitte, with a lovely view out onto the square, the fountain and KaDeWe.

Second of all, the food was really good. According to their website, the Wittenbergplatz location is offering some new items that the Mitte location doesn't yet have, like soft tacos. I saw pork pibil on the menu, made with organic meat, achiote and habañero peppers, and I practically did a double take. They must mean business, I thought. After all, there's no way to tame down a habañero, right? So that's what I got in my burrito bowl, along with a couple different spicy salsas (if you eschew sour cream and cheese, they'll let you get two salsas).

The meat was saucy, complex, spicy and falling apart at the poke of a fork, while the salsas were fresh and delicious and as spicy as they promised to be. In other words, just right. I ate up my entire bowl, even the iceberg lettuce. (Which still skeeves me out. But I'm willing to look past it now.) And couldn't get over how good it was, especially after I'd been so underwhelmed the first time. (I blame it on the chicken?)

I've been back a number of times since. I even ordered the chipotle soy meat once and you know what? Combined with the fajita veggies and the three-chile salsa cruda, it wasn't half bad. In fact, I could get kind of used to it. But the pork pibil is still the thing to order here.

Long live the habañero! Bless you, Dolores, for keeping things spicy.

Dolores Wittenbergplatz
Bayreuther Strasse 36
10789 Berlin
(030) 548 21 590

Berkis at Winterfeldtplatz

I almost don't want to write about Berkis, because it's already hard enough to get a seat in this place. But I like it so much that I can't keep it a secret. The first time I went to Berkis, just off of Winterfeldtplatz, we actually stopped in late for a sandwich after a movie at its little take-out corner, next to the main room of the restaurant. We had simple gyros sandwiches, but they were really exceptional. The meat was so delicious, the fries were fresh and snappy, the tzatziki was thick and gorgeous. For three euros a pop, the sandwiches were a steal (the meat is all organic and humanely raised).

Ever since that evening, I've only been back to the actual restaurant, which is so good I may never eat another one of their gyros sandwiches again (though that would be a shame). Berkis makes authentic home-cooked Greek food, simple grilled fish, lovely meze. It's a good, reliable neighborhood spot that makes me curse not living in the neighborhood every time I pass it.

I almost always just order off the daily specials menu, because I've had such roaring successes from there over the past year (long-stewed lamb in tomato sauce, falling off the bone; veal and artichokes braised in a lemony sauce; tender grilled octopus; you get the picture).

The last time I went, I ordered these long roasted peppers to start. Slightly peppery and slicked with good oil, lemon juice and little slivers of garlic and chopped parsley, they were delicious. I could have eaten a whole plate only of these, mopping up the juices with bread.

Next was a simple grilled orata that was one of the best pieces of fish I'd ever eaten. Almost sweet with freshness, cooked exactly right, with just the right amount of charred flavor, it almost melted off the bones.

The fish came with a side of simple vegetables: long-cooked Swiss chard, boiled potatoes, drab-looking squash and carrots. But the Greeks are like the Italians in this respect. They know how to cook the ever-loving daylight out of vegetables in just the right way, leaving you with intensely flavored, sweet vegetables so wonderful you would - once again - be happy with only these for dinner.

Berkis
Winterfeldtstraße 45
10781 Berlin
(030) 779 00 402

The Oyster Bar at KaDeWe

Most days of the year, I am a hole-in-the-wall kind of girl. If I'm not cooking at home, I like going to weird little restaurants or snack stands - the smaller, the better - and fancy or luxe food isn't really my cup of tea. But Champagne is my very favorite thing to drink in the whole world. You all can keep your well-shaken martinis and Hefeweizens and full-bodied reds and Cosmopolitans. Give me a glass of Champagne (flute, coupe, whatever) any day and I will be a happy woman.

The thing is, I don't get to drink it half as much as I'd like. It's hard to get people to see Champagne as a regular, everyday drink (I'm working on it, though!). So the other day, when my mother and I had a little something to celebrate, we met up at the oyster bar on the 6th floor of KaDeWe for a festive lunch: Champagne (Roederer for me, which was amazing; Veuve Clicquot for her) and oysters.

It's such a fun thing to do. You're in the hustly-bustly food department - there are people everywhere shopping for their fish and wine and good bread and French cheese. There are folks across the aisle buying crusty, salty Fischbrötchen and white-clad men shucking oysters and working quickly at the stove. They work with a serious expression on their faces, but catch them at the right moment and you might get a sweet smile or a little wink. You eat at a tall bar table with stools and there are people's coats everywhere. It's a little cramped, it's true, but before you know it you're sharing bread with the people at the table next to yours. It's warm and brisk and a little incongruous - but most importantly, the oysters are very, very good and the Champagne is cold, dry and delicious.

We each had a plate of mixed oysters, six apiece. Four from France, one from Ireland and one from Scotland. They were impeccably fresh and pristine. Tasted almost sweet and more like the sea than the sea itself. I could have eaten two whole plates, in truth. You can have them served with mignonette or Tabasco, but I like nothing more than a few drops of lemon juice so I can really taste the clean, faintly briney liquor.

Though the oyster bar is always crammed, it still feels like a little bit of a secret place. I loved celebrating there - it felt down-to-earth and special at once. And now I can't wait for Paris over New Year's, and Huitrerie Régis.

Celebrating at Renger-Patzsch

I had been meaning to get to Renger-Patzsch in Schöneberg almost since I moved back to Berlin last December. I kept hearing how good it was, from newspaper reviews to radio reports to friends' recommendations. Well-executed German cuisine, seasonal cooking from local purveyors, genial atmosphere, fair prices, and on the corner of one of the prettiest streets in Berlin to boot. But something kept getting in the way, until Max finally made a reservation for us a few weeks ago, for a little celebration of sorts.

I loved the room - long and simply furnished, the walls hung with black and white photography by Albert Renger-Patzsch, a German photographer for whom the restaurant is named (the owner of the restaurant inherited the photography from his grandfather who'd been friends with Renger-Patzsch). According to the restaurant's website, one of Renger-Patzsch's photographs hangs in the MoMA, which made me feel all, I don't know, connected. Who knows.

Most of the menu changes daily, but the restaurant also serves a whole slew of different Flammekuchen, which are a permanent fixture on the menu. (They're nicely priced, filling, and with a glass of wine, make for a very good, budget dinner.)

I also really liked the atmosphere. There was a good mix of young families, girlfriends dining tête-à-tête, sharing a Flammekuchen, older folks having a fancy dinner together and the two of us, among other couples. It was relaxed, without pretension, but still felt special. The perfect place to celebrate, say, a wedding anniversary, like the pair next to us with their bookworm children, or just to have a good meal together and a long catch-up chat.

We drank dry cidre as we contemplated the menus and ate good, crusty bread. We shared an appetizer of sautéed octopus on a shaved fennel salad with roasted cherry tomatoes, which was delicious. It's not that easy to cook octopus properly, so that it stays tender and yielding - most places don't get it right. Renger-Patzsch did.

The eggplant Flammekuchen with feta and capers has a thin, crackly base and they used restraint with the topping. Still, I don't know how Max finished the whole thing; it was intense.

I had duck from Brandenburg with little dices of quince, luscious gravy, a kind of Brussels sprout hash and two slices of Serviettenknödel, lightly browned and crisp. The meat was outstanding, tender and melty and rich with flavor, especially paired with the deep, dark gravy and the sweet quince. The Knödel slices and vegetable hash were fine, a little predictable, perhaps.

But on the whole, I loved our meal. (The waitstaff was attentive and prompt without being stuffy, the bill was fair.) If we lived a little closer to Schöneberg, I'd do my darndest to make this place our Stammtisch. I'll settle for it being our special-occasion place. I can't wait to go back.

Renger-Patzsch
Wartburgstrasse 54
10823 Berlin
(030) 784 20 59

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

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