Hungry in Berlin

found at: http://www.durum-kebap.at/

OK, rules is probably too strong of a word, but as I mentioned in my last post, the goal of the Dönerspende challenge is to save money *and* eat as healthily and heartily as you can.

Here’s the few guidelines for submitting and suggesting Dönerspende recipes:

1. Each recipe should be a “complete” meal. That is, protein, carbs and veg.  Protein can (and probably will be, more often than not) vegetable-based. Meat is expensive; organic, free-range meat even more so. Get a couple of veg-protein recipes under your belt and you just might realize how much meat you can go without.
2. Each recipe should feed at least two people. Because sharing is nice.
3. Each recipe, when priced out per person, shouldn’t cost more than 2.50 Euro. That’s the average price of a döner in the Hauptstadt.
4. Spices shouldn’t be included in the final price breakdown. It’s way too much a pain to calculate the per-serving price of 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. That said, recipes shouldn’t require bizarre or only-at-KaDeWe ingredients. Be rational.

A side goal, too, is for people to collectively come to the realization that cooking  with and for other people is actually cheaper than cooking just for yourself. It’s a recession, people, and soup kitchens are cool again. Get your ladle on with other hungry Berliners you know.

Have a suggestion? Or want to share a recipe? Toss it in the comment pile below. For our part, HIB will post weekend-ready Dönerspende recipes on Fridays, or whenever the spirit moves us from the laptop to the kitchen and back again.

Nefertiti says, Eat your veg

In case you’ve been living under a rock, capitalism’s dead. Or dead enough for the high-rollers in Manhattan who will not be able to order Kobe burgers with fois gras and truffle mayo for lunch anymore. The pity.

The global meltdown has given us here at HIB some inspiration (and yes, gotten us off our rears to finally get out of our pjs and update this blog. Sorry.) While Berlin may not be considered among the world’s gastro-capitals, it does have one thing — cheap food.  Not cheap restaurants,  but cheap goods.  Which is ideal if you’re not making a load of dough (and aren’t terribly picky.)  Which brings us to the subject of the döner.

First, a moment of silence — the inventor of the döner, Mahmut Aygun, died last month. His creation (döner is a Germanized version of a Turkish word that describes meat cooked on a spit ) quickly became a currywurst-killer, and every weekend thousands if not millions of beer-besotted kids at 3 a.m. in Berlin and around Germany shell out 2 to 3 Euros for this all-in-one meal. It’s easy, ubiquitous and while not exactly healthy, does curb a midnight craving when it strikes.

But the world isn’t about quick fixes any more, and spending money — let’s just call it Dönerspende — is hard enough to come by. So here’s our challenge to our readers, and to ourselves. We’re going to come up with buying recommendations and recipes that break the döner price barrier — or a meal for less than 2.50 Euro per person.

Difficult? Potentially. It will require some initial investment, but the long-term goals are clear.  Buy smarter, and cook more for yourself (and for others.) What you’ll gain in health and savings (and potentially new dishes and flavors) will be worth the extra effort and time.

So here starts the Dönerspende Diaries. Tomorrow, the ground rules. Zum Wohl.

You don’t need us to tell you that there’s winter happening out there, which means you also don’t need reminding that it’s Christmas carnival season.  I know I’ve read plenty of times that this or that German city claims the oldest, or the largest and oldest, Weinachtsmärkte — but Berlin, ever its own master, methinks is looking to claim the prize of Germany’s “largest number of nearly identical Christmas markets and vomit-inducing swirly rides”? You can’t throw a quarkball without hitting one, and this is a big city.  But speaking of quarkbällchen…

Yes, I know we ranted about the joys of fried foods (and the perils of grunkohl) last year. But since we’re already in the holiday mood, we thought we’d get a head start and warm ourselves up with at least a few samples of doughy goodness before the crowds build up.  But lo!  Perhaps it’s a sign of the global economic slowdown, but the quarkballs we’ve had — and we do love them when they’re good — are decidedly lacking quark this year.  Pancake dough fried in Biskin?  Ick.  That’s a big lump of coal in the stocking for you, Alexanderplatz market.  You know who you are.

Save yourself from disappointment.  If you find yourself at the Prenzlauer Allee S-Bahn station, and are hankering for some fried dough, check out the small white truck usually parked on the south side of the exit.  The gentleman stirring the batter is kind, jolly (yes, believe it) and makes a damn good quarkball.  With quark. It is rich, slightly gooey inside and perfectly fried. And covered in powdered sugar.

Here’s a list (brought to you by the Berliner Morgenpost) of the Hauptstadt’s Christmas markets; if you hit a good one (especially if the food is interesting/good/or something to avoid), let us know below.

Apropos of nothing much but what’s in my inbox this morning. The kids over at Goldhahn and Sampson (Dunckerstr. 9, Heimholtzplatz) have a newsletter that’s sent out about as often as it snows in this town, but just like that snow, it’s guaranteed to make you giggle a bit. This morning the team is struggling with a pack of imported samosas, which like so many imported products to the EU (or anywhere, I suppose) has operating instructions garbled in at least five languages. It’s Engrish goes to Deutschland, by way of Italy.  Makes you want to be a fly on the wall in the marketing department in Kerala. Check it out.

A specter is looming over German cuisine: the specter of monosodium glutamate.

Now, it’s not my intention to get into the usual thrash about whether MSG is bad for you or not. You’re you, and only you can answer that question. Me, I’m very reactive to the stuff and always have been. Further, I have high blood pressure (as might you: it has no symptoms, and a huge percentage of the population has it, undiagnosed), and the sodium in MSG sets it off. I managed to live through three weeks in Japan, eating it, most likely, three meals a day, seven days a week (except for the day I found an Indian restaurant near my hotel and decided that sounded like a good idea — although it, too, might have used MSG).

MSG, despite its fearsome-looking name, is a natural side-product of the fermentation of soy to make soy sauce, and a chemical which occurs naturally in seaweeds, most notably kelp, or what the Japanese call kombu, one of the two ingredients (the other is shaved bonito) used in making dashi, the broth at the basis of Japanese cuisine. It has traditional uses, and is at the center of the sensation (or fifth taste) called umami.

That’s not what’s bothering me. What’s bothering me is how it’s taken over German cuisine in the past 20 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that we’re finally cruising in the 20-degree Celsius band and the parks are packed to overflowing on the weekends, summer wines are in order. I like that there’s a decent market in larger-sized wine bottles — and the wine’s often of a quality that’s definitely higher than the swill we guzzled during high school (bring on the Hearty Burgundy!) My idea of a good summer wine is one that’s got some good acidity (like lemonade; juicy and refreshes the palate), light in alcohol and if possible, under 5 Euro a bottle. Here’s two recent finds that we’re enjoying — if you’ve some recommendations, let us know in the comments below.

Veit Gruner Veltliner 2007, Austria: This 1-liter bottle was shoved in John’s hands last weekend, with the insistence from our very favorite wine dude that “It’s the perfect summer wine!” Well, for 4.50 Euro, it was hard to argue. This Qualitatswein offers a good combo of green apple and lychee flavors, and isn’t too heavy (12.5% alcohol). Although the wine’s label claims it’s good with “Wiener Schnitzel” (props to the home team there), I’m pretty sure it will do the job with lighter dishes quite nicely. Find it at Sonnenreich at Arnimplatz, Seelowerstr. 6.

Le Pavot Rosé 2007, Vin de Pays de l’Aude, France: This kills a couple birds with one bottle — it’s crisp and refreshing, it’s cheap (4.95 Euro) and it’s bio. The Aude is a river that runs west-east through the western Languedoc; the vineyards have been organically certified Ecocert (no mean feat in France) since 2002. It’s a gorgeous deep pink and tastes and smells like super-ripe strawberries (blend of Grenache and Mourvédre methinks). Uncomplicated and easy to sip. At the bioladen Kiepert & Kutzner at Schönhauser Allee 65 (in the wine section, very lower shelf.)

I’m ashamed of myself. The first time I passed Omoni (Kopenhagener Str. 14, Prenzlauer Berg), I saw the sign announcing that it was a Korean/Japanese restaurant and mentally went “Yeah, sure.” Like Thai sushi.

Um, let’s look at the history books. First of all, there’s ample (if suppressed) evidence that the earliest non-aboriginal inhabitants of the islands now known as Japan came from Korea. Second, Korea has had a contentious relationship with Japan over the centuries, including having been colonized by it from time to time. Third, a large number of Koreans live in Japan to this day, treated as second-class citizens, forced to change their names to common Japanese ones.

So, yeah. Korean and Japanese makes sense. Omoni certainly makes sense. It’s one of the best restaurants in Berlin. And, while they do make sushi, you really owe it to yourself to go beyond that point and seek out some of the sublime, subtle dishes elsewhere on the menu. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s just gotta be the best lunch bargain in town: a plate of 40 steamed Chinese dumplings, the form of dim sum known as jiao-zi, for ten Euros.

Hand-made, stuffed with ground pork with shrimp, ground pork with celery, ground pork with cabbage, and spinach, these are the same basic dumplings Americans know as pot-stickers. And you can eat them until you just about burst, dipping them in a sauce you mix at the table made up of black vinegar and home-made chili oil.Where? At Wok Show, Greifenhagener Str. 31, corner of Kugelstr., in the northern reaches of Prenzlauer Berg. The proprietors have been in Germany for 18 years, in this location for eight months, and word of mouth has spread not only to the local Chinese student community, but to such prominent Berlin Sinophiles as Alexander Ochs, proprietor of the eponymous gallery on Sophienstr., who’s a weekly visitor. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I struggled for years to find in this city was good fresh pasta. For a while, there was a place near where I worked in Charlottenburg called Ali Baba Pizza (I certainly think of Ali Baba when I think of Italy, don’t you?) that would sell good ravioli and tortellini out of the back of the store, like it was dope or something. Sometimes their stuff showed up at miscellaneous Italian delis, and then it vanished.

This seemed to be the way it worked: you’d find a good supply of the stuff and then it would vanish. There was no trouble getting it in restaurants, but for home use, it was hopeless. The stuff in bags that Buitoni and other commercial manufacturers like Rana was good as far as it went (although some of the Rana stuff had MSG in it), but it never really got al dente: it was either gummy from the git-go or it had a sort of industral hardness that didn’t go away.

Then, one day, I was at the market in Hackescher Markt on a Thursday and discovered the Pasta Ladies. That’s not their name: their name is Nudel & Co. I call them the Pasta Ladies because they’re all women, and from what I can tell, all their employees are women. They usually have about eight kinds of ravioli, five or six kinds of tortellini, two of tortellacci (huge fist-sized tortellini, usually with very exotic fillings), and a few other fresh Italian shapes. They also have a couple of kinds of Maultaschen, occasional Knödel, Schupfnudeln, and Spätzle for you Swabian food-lovers.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, we came; we got crushed; we griped about it. Green Week at the ICC in Charlottenburg (runs through Sunday, Jan. 27) made me and the rest of the HIB team feel like cows in a herd, and offered no surprises in the way of world cuisine. While I’m well aware that most world cultures have some form of mystery meat that comes cylinder-shaped, I refuse to believe that’s the only delicacy we have to share with each other, as a form of how-do-you-do. Eaters of the world (and organizers of Green Week, listen up!), we can do better than this. I’ve never seen more sausage, air-dried, pepper-spiced, boiled or canned, than in the halls of the hulking ICC; and yes, I know I live in Germany. And while I realize that sausage travels better than, say, Peking duck or lamb on a spit or injera bread, it sells a culture short when the image they present is the one they think the audience wants to see. And that’s what makes me sad. The Green Week in Berlin is a fantastic opportunity to show how worldly and gastronomically savvy this city *could* (and should) be. But what’s on offer now falls embarrassingly short of even the most muted expectations. Read the rest of this entry »