Berlin City Guide: Fun Museums, Depressing Museums, & the Most Fun Activity I've Ever Found While Traveling by Randi / September 15, 2014
Let’s continue Berlin week with the general food guide! The unbelievable plethora of vegan food was the most surprising and enjoyable part of Berlin. We also have several amazing restaurant and special store spotlights coming.
I realize that my travel guides always tend to suggest that you eat like a hobbit (constantly/tremendously/gluttonously), but I really mean it this time. Like super mean it. Berlin is the most vegan-friendly European city. I’m pretty sure it’s the most vegan-friendly non-American city, actually. If you disagree, please buy me a ticket to your city of choice and I’ll let you know.
I realize that my travel guides always tend to suggest that you eat like a hobbit (constantly/tremendously/gluttonously), but I really mean it this time. Like super mean it. Berlin is the most vegan-friendly European city. I’m pretty sure it’s the most vegan-friendly non-American city, actually. If you disagree, please buy me a ticket to your city of choice and I’ll let you know.
Curry #1 at FBI
EATERY FBI
Anyway! My first food stop was an urgent, unplanned curry meal at Eatery FBI, right near our hotel in Potsdamer Platz. I think it stands for Free Berlin Ich. Famous Bread Inhere. Federal Bosnian Intervention? The servers were very knowledgeable about what was vegan, and they spoke English of course. They also made a green smoothie that I got a few mornings! Score! The curry was decent for what was essentially fast food – comforting and it tasted good! I hate the word tasty but I would probably use it here if I could stomach it.
Anyway! My first food stop was an urgent, unplanned curry meal at Eatery FBI, right near our hotel in Potsdamer Platz. I think it stands for Free Berlin Ich. Famous Bread Inhere. Federal Bosnian Intervention? The servers were very knowledgeable about what was vegan, and they spoke English of course. They also made a green smoothie that I got a few mornings! Score! The curry was decent for what was essentially fast food – comforting and it tasted good! I hate the word tasty but I would probably use it here if I could stomach it.
Curry #2!
JIVAMUKTI CANTEEN
One of my favorite cafes was the Jivamukti Canteen in Mitte (central), inside the Jivamukti Yoga studio. Yes, just like Jivamukti in NYC! It’s a franchise! So nice! Cafes inside yoga studios typically sell the exact food I would want at any given time. It’s always plain, fresh, arguably healthy, and yummy but veering towards bland, in the best way possible. Like Prasad in Portland with its lovely bowls and soups. Perfection. Anyway, we shared several dishes. The best was the potato salad, because it wasn’t that disgusting mayonnaise-covered crap that you know as potato salad. It was just lightly dressed potatoes, peppers, cucumber, celery, and herbs in a little mason jar!
Jivamukti’s potato salad I had a tofu sandwich that, while it sounds like the shittiest thing ever, was great. I mostly credit the spectacular, sturdy, chewy baguette that raised the sandwich to a higher level. Bread is so important. The tofu slices were yummy too, fresh and flavored and so much better than ready-made vegan lunchmeat blech ach. It had a bit of mustardy spread, tomatoes, and other salad fixings on it and it was so good!
We also tried a…this. What’s it called? It’s a fried gooey cheesy and spinach pastry. It was good but not my typical yoga studio fare; it’s a little too fried and oily for my taste. 
Is this just a savory danish? Are they German? I’m lost. |
Potatoes and sandwich at the Jiva 
My sandwich??? MY SANDWICH??????!!!!!!!! 
All kinds of drinks |
Of course I also had a green juice. I chose the one called Green Machine, with cucumber, celery, fennel, kale, lemon, and apple. It was delicious AND there was very little pulp left at the bottom. Seriously, professional juice-selling people need to work on this across the board. Anyway, juice good. We also tried a raw brownie and it was definitely on the higher end of the very very short range of how raw brownies can taste (i.e. they are all pretty much the same).
Yummeeeeeeeeee
MOMOS DUMPLINGS
Momos is a little place selling freshly steamed Nepalese dumplings. They’re more like ravioli than the Chinese or Japanese dumplings you or I might expect, in that there is less doughy part. Despite the slightly lower carb level, the taste was pretty good, with strong curries and spices coming through. I prefer less spicy dumplings, but if you are a fan of strong curry flavors or, of course, Nepalese dumplings, then you’ll like this place. I just had a steamed bun yesterday, so right now I’m like give me all the big puffy balls of dough and so a little biased in my memory. The vegan options are clearly marked (and the majority of options are vegan). You can get your dumplings pan-fried or steamed, and you can choose small (8 momos), medium (14 momos), or large (18 momos), with 1-3 dips. We got a small because this was second lunchies, and we got the mitho sauce, which is another strong curry-like tomato dip. It was a little too much of the same flavors so I’d suggest a different dip.
Momos is a little place selling freshly steamed Nepalese dumplings. They’re more like ravioli than the Chinese or Japanese dumplings you or I might expect, in that there is less doughy part. Despite the slightly lower carb level, the taste was pretty good, with strong curries and spices coming through. I prefer less spicy dumplings, but if you are a fan of strong curry flavors or, of course, Nepalese dumplings, then you’ll like this place. I just had a steamed bun yesterday, so right now I’m like give me all the big puffy balls of dough and so a little biased in my memory. The vegan options are clearly marked (and the majority of options are vegan). You can get your dumplings pan-fried or steamed, and you can choose small (8 momos), medium (14 momos), or large (18 momos), with 1-3 dips. We got a small because this was second lunchies, and we got the mitho sauce, which is another strong curry-like tomato dip. It was a little too much of the same flavors so I’d suggest a different dip.
VONER
My pick for what place out of Berlin should be franchised internationally in every major city is Vöner, the VEGAN DONER restaurant in the Friedrichshain neighborhood. That’s right, not only does it have the cutest sign ever but it is vegan doner. Like doner kebab, you know that disgusting slab of hanging meat that sellers shave off and wrap up in pita for? But it’s all vegan! They have burgers, fish & chips, all manner of vegan doner, and even Berlin’s very well known fave currywurst (which we will recreate later this week!). Definitely get the vöner. I got it as a platter but I wish I got it in the pita because I love bread. Still, the vöner was so awesome!! The chips were good, the tahini sauce was solid, and it had a little bit of Israeli salad (I wonder what it’s called here?). But the seitan vöner was amazing! I love this place so much! I would go every week if I lived there.
My pick for what place out of Berlin should be franchised internationally in every major city is Vöner, the VEGAN DONER restaurant in the Friedrichshain neighborhood. That’s right, not only does it have the cutest sign ever but it is vegan doner. Like doner kebab, you know that disgusting slab of hanging meat that sellers shave off and wrap up in pita for? But it’s all vegan! They have burgers, fish & chips, all manner of vegan doner, and even Berlin’s very well known fave currywurst (which we will recreate later this week!). Definitely get the vöner. I got it as a platter but I wish I got it in the pita because I love bread. Still, the vöner was so awesome!! The chips were good, the tahini sauce was solid, and it had a little bit of Israeli salad (I wonder what it’s called here?). But the seitan vöner was amazing! I love this place so much! I would go every week if I lived there.
Vöner platter
We also tried a platter of the currywurst, which is a take on Berlin’s favorite local food, a curry-besauced sausage sold in trucks on every single corner. I loved the seitan in both platters; it was so well done. But the curry sauce is so weird! Husband said it was pretty much how real currywurst is, so currywurst is just weird. (Yay let’s make it later!)
Vegan currywurst
OHLALA
My other absolute favorite place that I would go to every week (or maybe every day) if I lived there is Ohlala, billed as a ‘dessert restaurant’ but is really actually heaven. While they do have actual food there – we had a good quiche and a salad – the desserts steal the show, your hearts, everything that can be stolen.
My other absolute favorite place that I would go to every week (or maybe every day) if I lived there is Ohlala, billed as a ‘dessert restaurant’ but is really actually heaven. While they do have actual food there – we had a good quiche and a salad – the desserts steal the show, your hearts, everything that can be stolen.
Look at this stuff. Isn’t it neat? |
White hot chocolate that I tried. It was SO FREAKING GOOD. And I love the ballsiness of putting a hot beverage in a regular glass. |
First, the quiche:
Spinach quiche and salad at Ohlala!
The spinach quiche was pretty good! It was nothing to write home about but it was yummy. I remember the crust being kind of spongy, which was weird, because I’d expect the crust in a mostly dessert place to be perfectly crusty. The salad it came with was covered in a little too much dressing that was a little too mustardy, but I’m always happy to have fresh salad when traveling so overall I enjoyed my food here. But. What came next was a delight!
Whuuuuut.
This pyramid sonofabeach was a peanut butter-chocolate extravaganza of richness. I feel like this is the real gift the Egyptians meant to leave the Earth. Look at this bitch! It was so so good. This is the kind of thing it’s good to share because that dark chocolate can really do some gluttony inhibiting. Man alive this was decadent.
Rich chocolate cake
Next, we tried the dark chocolate sponge cake. The texture was perfect but I prefer things a little sweeter? I think? Maybe it wasn’t so much unsweet as just a little hard to read. Like the chocolate wasn’t coming through enough for me. It needed a pinch of salt maybe to make that happen. If you prefer your chocolate cake more subtle and deep, this one is for you. My favorite part was the whipped cream.
But, if you do happen to be going to Ohlala, none of the above matters, because you can get this freaktastic work of all the genies in the atmosphere:
The Tresor. IT’S A FREAKING INTERNATIONAL TREASURE! THIS IS WHAT THOSE STUPID NICHOLAS CAGE MOVIES SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT! I’M JUST KIDDING THOSE MOVIES ARE NOT STUPID THEY ARE AMAZING!
LOOK AT THAT SONOFABITCH! AHHHHHHH!!! I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to eat this mofo. This is a chocolate hazelnut freaking work of ART. That light chocolate mousse on the outside is absolutely perfect in taste and texture, and it’s coated with crushed crunchy nuts. But it houses SUCH SECRETS you can’t even BELIEVE! So much so that in the previous sentence I first wrote ‘secrest’ and almost didn’t change it because it might as well have housed Ryan Seacrest in there for how surprising and amazing this is. Except it’s SO MUCH BETTER THAN RYAN SEACREST IS THERE? Ok, are you ready? It’s like this chocolate ganache and when you get to the center, A FLOOD OF CARAMELLY CHOCOLATEY LAVA POURS OUT OF THE MIDDLE. And THEN THERE IS A HAZELNUT. I CAN’T STOP YELLING IN MY HEAD. This is definitely one of the five most incredible outstanding things I have ever, ever eaten, anywhere. Go get one now.
I don’t know how we move on from there, but move on we must. Moving on…
DOLORES BURRITOS
I would say that Dolores is another place I’d go to all the time if I lived near it, but I pretty much already do, because it’s just like a Chipotle. Not that I necessarily live super close to a Chipotle anymore, but there are some in London and I’m near a Chilango and apparently that is close enough to. ANYWAY the point is, very good, solid burrito place with clearly marked vegan options. Yay!
BURRITO ROCKET |
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QIU RESTAURANT in the Mandala Hotel
On our last night in Berlin, we were so beat and realized so late that we were hungry, so we checked out the restaurant in the hotel. Not the super fancy one that had two Michelin stars, because that was booked for quite some time, but the little sister restaurant Qiu, which still seemed way too fancy to cater to veganism. Also, this little piece of amazingness was on the menu (and I’m still laughing at the wording):
On our last night in Berlin, we were so beat and realized so late that we were hungry, so we checked out the restaurant in the hotel. Not the super fancy one that had two Michelin stars, because that was booked for quite some time, but the little sister restaurant Qiu, which still seemed way too fancy to cater to veganism. Also, this little piece of amazingness was on the menu (and I’m still laughing at the wording):
Lolol
However, the super friendly waiter helped make an actually great meal for me! Yes, it was a take on pasta primavera, so I hear all of you groaning in response to this too-frequent too-easy offer from like every single restaurant in their shitty attempts to accommodate vegans, but this was delicious! He also worked together a great salad for me.
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So, this is just to tell you that if you stay at the Mandala Hotel, or find yourself in Potsdamer Platz late at night and don’t know what to do, you can eat well at Qiu.
ICE CREAM – EISSALON TANNE B & CARAMELLO
Last but certainly not least: ice cream! Berlin, like every European city, loves its ice cream a sumbitch. There are salons (with the emphasis on the first syllable obvs) everywhere, and so many have vegan options. And most of you know my deep, deep hatred for places that only offer vegan fruit sorbets. TRY A LITTLE HARDER PEOPLE. I want chocolate or something awesome and non-fruit. I eat fruit for breakfast! Luckily, the SALons in Berlin offer wonderful non-cheater vegan options. My favorite was Eissalon Tanne B, in Kreuzberg. Get it? Eissalon= ice salon? Love it. I had absolutely wonderful chocolate and cherry.
This ice cream was positively delightful! The cherry wasn’t sorbet but legit ice cream, so it wasn’t cheating, and the chocolate was so delicious! No So Delicious the brand but sooo delicious nonetheless. And the cones were vegan! Yayyy!
We also found vegan treats at Caramello in Friedrichshain. Friedrichshain, by the way, is like a small Brooklyn in terms of vegan-friendliness by density. Even the non-food shoppes were vegan-friendly (tattoos mostly). 
THESE ARE NOT MY HANDS! |
Eissalon Tanne B 
Caramello I don’t know whose chocolate + red fruit-flavored ice creams were better! Yummy!
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So, as you can see, Berlin is a vegan paradise! This doesn’t even cover the bigger restaurants we enjoyed; they will come later this week. Please let me know if any of my recommendations work out for you! I want to see pictures of inside the Tresor! I know I took some but I can’t find them! Also, what are your favorite places in Berlin?
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Sunday Night! Pizza Night! In America! – Al Roker
While most people were watching football today (American football, where the foot rarely touches the ball), I decided to celebrate Pizza Night In America (as Al Roker announces every week…right?) by breaking in my brand new pizza stone! Yes, thanks to my bestie known around here as The Bean, I can no longer complain about not owning a pizza stone! (And after buying myself a Vitamix for Christmas, I’m running out of equipment-based things to complain about. Not that I’m complaining.)
Blessed with a few rolls of Field Roast sausage waiting to be used, I decided to top a bean-spread-based pizza with it, along with roasted cauliflower, a ton of roasted garlic, and some greens I had lying around. As you may know from my past pizza-making expeditions, I’m a big fan of replacing cheese or cheese-like substances, and sometimes (like now!) even sauce, with bean spreads. White beans are really the tofu of the bean world (I guess aside from soy beans…), waiting to be turned into anything you want. Except for brownies. Seriously, chill with that noise.
I’m pretty sure the pizza stone ranks as one of the smartest inventions in human history. The crust slid right off the stone, it browned nicely all around, and even though I used about twice as much dough as I should have (you can’t really tell, but I redefined the term ‘deep dish’ – and so can you!), it cooked perfectly throughout the massive folds of bread. Delicious!
Obviously, this will work with a wide variety of items you might have on hand, but I have to recommend following my lead with spinach and pre-sauteed Brussels sprouts. Or, better yet, arugula and spinach mixed together. I’m not a huge fan of arugula eaten raw, but it’s great on pizza.
Sadly, I realized that I was out of nooch. I KNOW! Perish the thought. This is a really serious problem. Please, everybody, to avoid a fate similar to mine, please make sure that you have a backstock of nooch. Don’t fail your future self. Keep nooch well-stocked as if it was the only way to thwart a nuclear attack. Happily, I realized that I can make a cheesy white bean spread without nooch. (Not that I’ll ever do it again.) So the below recipe is great for those of you who didn’t prepare well, or who don’t like nooch.
I’m pretty sure the pizza stone ranks as one of the smartest inventions in human history. The crust slid right off the stone, it browned nicely all around, and even though I used about twice as much dough as I should have (you can’t really tell, but I redefined the term ‘deep dish’ – and so can you!), it cooked perfectly throughout the massive folds of bread. Delicious!
Obviously, this will work with a wide variety of items you might have on hand, but I have to recommend following my lead with spinach and pre-sauteed Brussels sprouts. Or, better yet, arugula and spinach mixed together. I’m not a huge fan of arugula eaten raw, but it’s great on pizza.
Sadly, I realized that I was out of nooch. I KNOW! Perish the thought. This is a really serious problem. Please, everybody, to avoid a fate similar to mine, please make sure that you have a backstock of nooch. Don’t fail your future self. Keep nooch well-stocked as if it was the only way to thwart a nuclear attack. Happily, I realized that I can make a cheesy white bean spread without nooch. (Not that I’ll ever do it again.) So the below recipe is great for those of you who didn’t prepare well, or who don’t like nooch.
SOME PRETTY GREAT PIZZA
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Components:
Ingredients for pizza dough:
Directions:
Ingredients for white bean spread:
Directions:
For the Brussels sprouts:
Directions:
For the cauliflower and garlic:
Directions:
Assemblage:
 Brussels, cauliflower, and garlic successfully placed.  How good is Field Roast. This kind was pretty darn spicy. Love it. |
 Now that is some crust.  I love sharing pictures of my yeast jumping because it is magic!  Look how pretty my new stuff is! Thanks brotherrrr.  Beans & cashews & other things oh my!  I want to go to there. Not to a saucepan. To Brussels. I love that statue of the little boy peeing. I don’t know.  Objects in picture look a lot bigger than they actually were.  GLUTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I made hummus in a blender, look at me I’m a rebel.  Aw man it kind of looks like my pie mousse. It’s not!  Spinach! We’re movie clockwise here.  Cooked & shriveled. |
Enjoy! It’s real good.
Is there anything better than Pizza Night? I might have to make this a regular weekly or biweekly fixture now that I have a Stone. So exciting! What are your favorite pizza toppings? Is pizza your favorite food? I went to a casting call when I was like 11 (just for shits and giggles) and about 30 girls were asked “What’s your favorite food?” Every single one of us said pizza, except for one girl, who said “raviolis”. I said to her, “Um that’s not a word. Ravioli is already the Italian plural form.” She got a callback. Bitch.
Yellow Juice Bar in Center City, Philly
This used to be my playground…
It’s kind of ridiculous how much I love green juice. I’m probably the last person (/vegan blogger) who would tell people to eat something that doesn’t taste great just because it’s good for you. But guess what? Veggie juice, when done right, is AMAZING. It’s like my favorite thing after hummus and Ron Swanson. So how happy am I that a new juice place has opened in Philly?
Philly has been screaming for more juice bars, at least in Center City. (At least in my head.) I needs my juice! And with more vendors creating more competition, the prices are getting much more affordable. I’m tired of spending upwards of $10 in the suburbs for a juice that I down in about 9 seconds. (I drink juice fast.) No juice should cost almost a dollar per second! Luckily, the new Yellow Juice Bar, right across from Helium Comedy Club at 2046 Sansom, is not only well-priced but delicious.
Upon entering, I was delighted to see that Yellow Juice Bar offers smoothies with protein add-ins, some vegan food options, and banana whips in addition to juice! Also, adorably, they call the banana whips Banana Twirls. It’s like ballet dancing for fruit.
Philly has been screaming for more juice bars, at least in Center City. (At least in my head.) I needs my juice! And with more vendors creating more competition, the prices are getting much more affordable. I’m tired of spending upwards of $10 in the suburbs for a juice that I down in about 9 seconds. (I drink juice fast.) No juice should cost almost a dollar per second! Luckily, the new Yellow Juice Bar, right across from Helium Comedy Club at 2046 Sansom, is not only well-priced but delicious.
Upon entering, I was delighted to see that Yellow Juice Bar offers smoothies with protein add-ins, some vegan food options, and banana whips in addition to juice! Also, adorably, they call the banana whips Banana Twirls. It’s like ballet dancing for fruit.
The wraps are only $6! Hooray for not-NYC!
I love chalkboard menus
Before getting to the important stuff (what I ordered and how it tasted), can we just take a moment to appreciate those prices? Yes, it’s still a lot of money for a drink, but not compared to what other juice bars charge for the same if not inferior products. $6 for the biggest size is good in my book for a place in Center City. I do wish they had a 24oz. size, though.
Usually my juice tastes veer towards veg-heavy and fruit-light, so I ordered the 16oz. Green Day juice: spinach, cucumber, celery, kale. With no apple in it to balance all the green, I asked the guy if he’d add some ginger so, because I love ginger. He added a bit of lemon and ginger, and had me try it before declaring it finished. I don’t know why, but when he said, “Do you want me to add more ginger?”, I said yes. Oops! It was pretty spicy, but it wasn’t overpowering and I still tasted mostly green. Pretty nice!
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I also ordered a shot of wheatgrass. At $3, it’s on the more expensive end of what wheatgrass shots should cost, but this could have been the best shot I’ve had of the stuff. It was really sweet and had no aftertaste, which in itself is worth an extra dollar. So good. And, it comes with a frozen orange bite, which I adore. I can’t abide places that don’t give a piece of orange with their wheatgrass.
I was nearly awash with juice, but then the two guys working behind the counter offered me a shot of ginger. I stood by the counter and the three of us clinked our little shot glasses and downed a fresh ounce of pure ginger. Umm, have you ever had just pure ginger juice before? It is ROUGH. I mean, I loved it, but it is rough! My insides were on fire for a good 3 hours. Hot damn! You have to try this! It was so nice of them to offer me some after I made my love of ginger known. There were a few other patrons watching as my face and body went through convulsions for a good minute, so that was a little embarrassing, but then I felt kind of amazing. So much juice!
I’m definitely going to frequent Yellow Juice Bar, and I’m eager to try the smoothies, the food, and of course the dancing yellow fruits. Did I mention that they have a bathroom? And it’s pretty clean? Another point! And they deliver! If you’re into that sort of thing.
The only thing I really dislike about this place is that it opened now, after I’ve moved out of the building literally a block away. Other than its bad timing, it’s pretty great. I’ll be going here often! Hopefully they will institute some punch cards for frequent customers, because I love me some punch cards. Almost as much as I love green juice. (No, not nearly as much as I love green juice.)
I was nearly awash with juice, but then the two guys working behind the counter offered me a shot of ginger. I stood by the counter and the three of us clinked our little shot glasses and downed a fresh ounce of pure ginger. Umm, have you ever had just pure ginger juice before? It is ROUGH. I mean, I loved it, but it is rough! My insides were on fire for a good 3 hours. Hot damn! You have to try this! It was so nice of them to offer me some after I made my love of ginger known. There were a few other patrons watching as my face and body went through convulsions for a good minute, so that was a little embarrassing, but then I felt kind of amazing. So much juice!
I’m definitely going to frequent Yellow Juice Bar, and I’m eager to try the smoothies, the food, and of course the dancing yellow fruits. Did I mention that they have a bathroom? And it’s pretty clean? Another point! And they deliver! If you’re into that sort of thing.
The only thing I really dislike about this place is that it opened now, after I’ve moved out of the building literally a block away. Other than its bad timing, it’s pretty great. I’ll be going here often! Hopefully they will institute some punch cards for frequent customers, because I love me some punch cards. Almost as much as I love green juice. (No, not nearly as much as I love green juice.)
