Lucky Leek, Berlin: Fantastic Fancy Food With A Few Minor Hurdlesby Randi / September 18, 2014
This is the menu lolol
Another fantastic restaurant in Berlin is Viasko, ostensibly a bar or pub depending on what country you live in (I will call them bubs now) but with really interesting and delicious – and all vegan – food. You’d assume such bar food would be fried shit and what nots, but the menu is a tad nicer and more upscale than the usual bar fare of fried shit and what nots (or just plain gross salads for vegans). I’ve heard you have to go for the buffet brunch (buffet brunch is HUGE in Berlin – we’ll look at one this weekend), but I can recommend going for a really fun dinner with the ambiance of a chill bub. We sat in the basement, which was dimly lit with candles among the all wooden plank furniture. It had a very pirate ship vibe, which is totally fitting because today is apparently Talk Like a Pirate day, the celebration of which will probably get you smacked.
I immediately felt fond of Viasko because printed inside the menus is this incredible Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:
what hideous signage!
Seriously how lovely is that. Ugh he was amazing.
Anyway, if I am not mistaken, this was our very first dinner in Berlin, so we ordered way too much food. Not that that’s really a reason. We were just hungry. I freely over-order in most situations. We started with appetizers of the mixed salad with tempeh and the jalapeno cheese sticks, so my favorite kind of dish ever (salad + tempeh) and the most revolting sounding thing ever (cheese sticks). Both were great!
Anyway, if I am not mistaken, this was our very first dinner in Berlin, so we ordered way too much food. Not that that’s really a reason. We were just hungry. I freely over-order in most situations. We started with appetizers of the mixed salad with tempeh and the jalapeno cheese sticks, so my favorite kind of dish ever (salad + tempeh) and the most revolting sounding thing ever (cheese sticks). Both were great!
Fried tempeh bits forever!
I loved this salad! I wish the lettuce and veggies were cut smaller; it helps me look less gross when I eat if stuff isn’t going to get all over my face. The fried tempeh nuggets were outstanding though. Fried tempeh nuggets are pretty hard to mess up; I’m pretty sure they are like falafel in that there is a very very limited quality range (never bad, always good, can’t really break the ceiling) but oh man, these were fantastic! The perfect addition to any salad and much better than croutons.
Cheese sticks & a big pepper
For the jalapeno cheese sticks, I guess we were expecting the cheesy sticks themselves to be spicy, but instead they surrounded a pepper. I’m sure they were intended to be spicy and the pepper was just there as well, but we were like, oh you just put the pepper on the plate separately, okay. They were interesting. I’m sure if you like fried cheese sticks, then you would love these, but they’re not my thing. Husband says they were good, so yeah I’m the worst person to review stuff like this. Try them and see, I guess.
Watch out for that arugula, gnocchi
Of course we ordered the homemade gnocchi with asparagus (spargel!) because of the spargel. It was delicious! Homemade gnocchi is the best. This dish was in a cashew-pumpkinseed-ramson (wild garlic) pesto with white and green spargel, cherry tomatoes, and arugula. The raw arugula should have been dialed back a little in favor of more spargel, but it was still great.
Bread and hummus are on this plate! Best plate ever!
I was told to get the gyro plate (by either a person or the internet) and I’m so glad I did! Look at that stuff! Anything with bread and hummus is a winner in my book already, but this added olives, some kind of decent kraut (Germany), cucumbers and tomatoes, and of course the delicious soy gyro meat. Granted, this should have come with a flatbread of some sort so you could turn all the components into an actual handheld gyro, but whatever, it was really yummy AND fellow diners got to see me try to make this all handheld anyway (all over the face).
So, I can definitely recommend Viasko for a really fun pub dinner. The atmosphere was great, the service was friendly if slow (we were in a basement), and the food was really fun and overall great. Also, it seemed very affordable. I’d love to go back for more fried tempeh cubes and to try its buffet brunch.
VIASKO, BERLIN
Water speed: Slow because we were in the basement.
Bathrooms: These bathrooms were standard bar/pub style (kind of gross) but decent for their ilk. The best part is that they are absolutely COVERED with stickers and graffiti for vegan-friendly bands, blogs, everything! I need stickers for my blog so I can put them all over bub bathrooms!
Service: Slow.
Food: Great!
Bonus: Great pirate atmosphere.
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Sarajevo Vegan Scene: Zaatar & Co. Restaurant
Zaatar & Co. is one of the few Middle Eastern restaurants in the region. I dumbly expected to find a lot of hummus on this trip, I don’t know why. (Because hummus should be available like water, right?) However, this was the only place I could find it. So, if you’re like me, that should be enough motivation to go here.
Man alive, did we have trouble finding this place. All of the info from Google maps and Happy Cow is WRONG. Like, wrong sections of the city wrong, not just wrong side of the street wrong. The restaurant is actually located just off the main street in the Old Town, across from Caffe Libris and generally behind the Old Synagogue. Luckily, there was a clapboard sign on the main road leading to the alley.
We had such a hilarious time here. First of all, when we walked in, the owner proclaimed, “Bosnia is out of chickpeas.” It was kind of hysterical. She explained that there was something of a chickpea shortage going on, resulting in exorbitant prices, and they were out of them that day. I was on the verge of tears, because it had been almost a week without hummus. Luckily, she checked for me, and found some hummus and falafel stored in the fridge from the day before. Yay!
Man alive, did we have trouble finding this place. All of the info from Google maps and Happy Cow is WRONG. Like, wrong sections of the city wrong, not just wrong side of the street wrong. The restaurant is actually located just off the main street in the Old Town, across from Caffe Libris and generally behind the Old Synagogue. Luckily, there was a clapboard sign on the main road leading to the alley.
We had such a hilarious time here. First of all, when we walked in, the owner proclaimed, “Bosnia is out of chickpeas.” It was kind of hysterical. She explained that there was something of a chickpea shortage going on, resulting in exorbitant prices, and they were out of them that day. I was on the verge of tears, because it had been almost a week without hummus. Luckily, she checked for me, and found some hummus and falafel stored in the fridge from the day before. Yay!
“Bosnia is out of chickpeas”
Carrot soup
I begged her to bring me the hummus and falafel, and then we ordered a bunch more. To start, I ordered carrot ginger soup. It was brothy, not creamy like most carrot ginger soups I had. It was a bit plain but fine, and I was happy to have some sort of vegetable.
Next, she brought us elderflower juice. This was amazing. She said this glass was mixed with some other flowers. The juice was just sweet enough, and really pleasant.
Next, she brought us elderflower juice. This was amazing. She said this glass was mixed with some other flowers. The juice was just sweet enough, and really pleasant.
Elderflower juice |
Hummus, tabbouli, pita |
Falafel and tahini sauce |
Zaatar manakeesh
The hummus and falafel were pretty good, not the best I’ve had but considering I asked for it knowing it wasn’t fresh, it was fine. We also had tabbouli. The herbs seemed really fresh.
The best food we ate, by far, was the zaatar manakeesh, a pizza dough-like flatbread with zaatar spices and olive oil on top. When I was in Jordan, I fell in love with this dish. It’s everything you could want from fluffy dough. Delicious. This version was really hot and the crust was awesome. Want now.
While we ate, the woman was frantically dealing with a million different things – she was on the phone with her supplier (arguing about chickpeas, I assume), doling out assignments to employees, seating customers and discussing the menu, and conducting a job interview with the poor guy sitting near us, waiting nearly throughout our entire meal to talk to her. During all this, she spent considerable time talking to us about her life in Bosnia, her husband, her years spent in America and Asia, and more. I kind of love her.
ZAATAR & CO, Sarajevo
The best food we ate, by far, was the zaatar manakeesh, a pizza dough-like flatbread with zaatar spices and olive oil on top. When I was in Jordan, I fell in love with this dish. It’s everything you could want from fluffy dough. Delicious. This version was really hot and the crust was awesome. Want now.
While we ate, the woman was frantically dealing with a million different things – she was on the phone with her supplier (arguing about chickpeas, I assume), doling out assignments to employees, seating customers and discussing the menu, and conducting a job interview with the poor guy sitting near us, waiting nearly throughout our entire meal to talk to her. During all this, she spent considerable time talking to us about her life in Bosnia, her husband, her years spent in America and Asia, and more. I kind of love her.
ZAATAR & CO, Sarajevo
- Water speed: I had to ask for it a lot, but she was incredibly busy. My standards for water became much, much lower in the Balkans.
- Bathrooms: It’s downstairs, again past the kitchen. I guess that’s common in Bosnia.
- Service: Slow, but worth the comedy.
- Food: Good for lunch.
- Bonus: The owner is a character. Also, once you find it, it’s very convenient to a lot of sights.
Crazy Mother Hubbard: What To Do With The World’s Largest Squash, Part 3 – Squashy Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns!
The Saga of the Massive Hubbard Squash is just about over! We have (had, I mean this was like 3 weeks ago) just about 2 cups of baked squash cubes left, enough for one last hurrah, after we made delicious bean stew and great squash muffins. I am almost sad to say goodbye to this monster. #StockholmSyndrome.
I was craving cinnamon rolls, and I didn’t have the motivation to make anything else, so into the buns they went! Are they rolls or buns? Someone please tell me. Anyway, I used to be scared of baking with yeast because ew it’s alive and it makes things grow and we’re vegans and shouldn’t be eating things that grow as you make it…but then I remembered that my love of playing with my food outweighs my fear of weird things, so I gave it a try, loved it, and now I’m like the yeastmaster. Worst name ever. But these rollbuns are fantastic! Let’s learn how to make them!
I was craving cinnamon rolls, and I didn’t have the motivation to make anything else, so into the buns they went! Are they rolls or buns? Someone please tell me. Anyway, I used to be scared of baking with yeast because ew it’s alive and it makes things grow and we’re vegans and shouldn’t be eating things that grow as you make it…but then I remembered that my love of playing with my food outweighs my fear of weird things, so I gave it a try, loved it, and now I’m like the yeastmaster. Worst name ever. But these rollbuns are fantastic! Let’s learn how to make them!
These are very much like pumpkin rolls, so if you don’t have a monster squash around, you can substitute pumpkin or other wintry squash. The squash provides moisture in the bread and lovely, comforting flavor in the filling.
CAUTION.
NB that using the Hubbard Squash somehow breaks the laws of nature, because the normal amount of flour that should have sufficed ended up being nowhere near enough. After mixing the liquid ingredients together, I added the flour, la di da, things are fine, but then the mixture was still way too wet, no matter how much extra flour I added. It was the Squash Monster! It kept absorbing flour like it was me drinking water and it wouldn’t stop and everything got dark and fuzzy and I ran out of flour and had to make oat flour but the Squash Monster (Squashster?) just wouldn’t be satisfied until it had destroyed ALL OF THE POSSIBLE FLOURS I had in my house. I even had to throw in some quinoa flour just to mess with its head. Finally, with both of us exhausted but only me still hungry, Squashster dried up a little, enough for me to actually roll out the dough, which was yet another hurdle to overcome considering I had no flour left to flour the rolling surface. Man alive. All of this is just to warn you that this could happen, so buy extra flour. The rolls were fantastic, so don’t be skeered. Also, I’m sure it was just me.
HUBBARD SQUASH & PUMPKIN
CINNAMON ROLL BUNS
CINNAMON ROLL BUNS
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INGREDIENTS:
For the buns:
For the filling:
DIRECTIONS:
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 Yay boy the yeast is jumping! It’s really jumping! Come in, cats, and check your hats, I mean this yeast is jumping!  HAHA SQUASH I HAVE DESTROYED YOU!!!  Punchy punch!  ROLLING rolling ROLLING rolling ROLLING OUT MY DOUGHHHH  Roll from the rolling pin side down  Dental floss prevents gum disease AND slices your cinnamon buns without hurting them!  Unbaked, goopy with congealing butter. Mmmm. Do that. |
THESE ARE SO GOOD YOU HAVE TO MAKE THESE! I brought them to work and people loved them. I bring goodies to work somewhat frequently, and usually only the people I run into give me comments. With these, however, people actually sought me out to tell me how good they were. So, you know, you gotta make them. Enjoy!
