Gastronomy in Germany!

Visited Berlin last April on a one month backpacking trip across Europe! Studying and living in England introduced me to the kebap and the döner, of which I was told were Turkish... later I was told that the döner is originally German! Regardless of whether that's true or not, you can guess what my first meal in Berlin was then...

Yes, that is the Brandenburg gate in the background! Anyways, this döner, from a cart in the road (go street food!) was the best one I'd ever had. Probably one of the cheapest too. The döner-kebap is closely related to Greek gyros. The meat in the döner, whether chicken, lamb or beef, is roasted on a rotating spit and sliced off into flatbread and then accompanied by sliced raw onions, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes and a yoghurt sauce similar to tzatziki. The veggies were so refreshing after coming out of a carb-saturated tour of Italy!

Amidst a free walking tour, my eyes landed on this famous chocolatier:

Going as far back as 1863, Fassbender and Rausch were chosen as the official chocolate suppliers to the royal German family. That spells quality, no?

After the tour, my travel buddy and I made a beeline back to the chocolate shop (shop is a bit of an understatement as the place consists of multiple floors lined in marble, gold gilding and glass).

After drooling over the truffles, buying samples for ourselves and friends back home, we took the elevator up to the 2nd floor cafe. In the late afternoon there were plenty of people having their between-meals coffees. We popped open the menu and perused a bit after we were shown to a table with a pretty fabulous view.

The menu's prices were around what we expected for a pretty fancy place, but we figured, hey, we're staying in a hostel, not a hotel; we've been eating cheap (but amazing) street food, and we've been walking everywhere, thus saving lots of money. Why not?

What's an afternoon coffee-break without coffee? And they gave a complimentary chocolate!

Traditional apple strudel. Excellent, light, flaky, buttery and perfectly sweet! Great presentation as well!

The eisschokolade (ice-chocolate drink) was definitely my favourite, being a chocoholic. They didn't skimp on the cocoa neither. Plus, who doesn't love fresh whipped cream? Heavenly!

Another venture with sweets that I partook in was a trip to KaDeWe, a fancy superstore of an establishment with a famous gourmet food court.

The inside was absolutely glorious! Fancy glass shelves and cases filled with beautifully plated pastries--everything you can imagine! Cakes, cupcakes, streudels, macarons, truffles, meringues, tarts, brownies...

It was such a difficult time choosing what to sample! So four of us settled to split these two beauties:

Our friend on the right is an apple pastry with streusel on top, a bit resembling a bear claw. The pastry on the right is a strawberries and cream tart (the whipped strawberry cream was spiked with some liquor and pretty strong). I must say, I gave the award to the apple pastry, which was buttery and rather donut-like.

In addition to sweets and street food, we also tried to sample more formal traditional cuisine. Our tour guide recommended a place to us called zum Paddenwirt that was slightly touristy, but served up reasonably priced German food. I decided to order herring with potatoes and sauerkraut.

Being the seafood-lover that I am, I enjoyed the herring quite a lot; it definitely needed the potatoes and yoghurt sauce to balance out the saltiness. The sprig of dill on top was a pretty touch as well.

My friends, feeling quite adventurous ordered pork knuckle/ankle with sauerkraut and potatoes. They enjoyed their fare a little less, so I probably ate most of it, to be honest. A little background: at home I eat pork ankle quite a bit, being of asian heritage and all, so it didn't freak me out. In fact, it was really good trying it pickled instead of braised in soy-sauce, which is also delicious.

Am I making your stomach turn? Maybe I can convince you: if you're willing to eat hot dogs or sausages (assuming you know what these are made of), what's to stop you from trying ankle? Really, it's just another piece of the animal (although, disclaimer: there are parts that I would not try).

Next up, wursts! (I spared you so many terrible puns just now...) Of course one has to sample the various wursts/sausages of Berlin when trying to get a good grasp of the country's culture. It's what Germany is known for, right?

Over our month's worth of trips, we made a habit out of looking up famous eateries; one of them was Currypoint (above). That was actually the last place we went and since we'd already had bratwurst and currywurst, we went for bockwurst!:

Bockwurst is different from bratwurst in that it is usually made with veal; it is also often simmered instead of grilled. It came with a side of potato salad.

Bratwurst is generally made of beef or pork, but it can be found made of veal; eaten with a sweet or hot German mustard, it can be then called currywurst!

Aside from the flavour, something else you should look for in a wurst is that snap you get when taking a bite; when cooked/grilled, the ground meat inside the casing expands, making the casing taut and giving you that satisfying snap on first bite!

Also bought a popular German drink called Mezzo Mix; the best way to describe it is orange Fanta mixed with Coke--in fact, when I spent New Years with my friend Lena in Germany, she and her friends made their own with Coca Cola and Fanta. Alas, we don't have it in the U.S...

Want to hear a secret?

My favourite sausage EVER is actually the käsewurst... which I ate in Leeds at the German Christmas Market.

The real kicker is that packed in the ground meat, there are squares of CHEESE and when the wurst is grilled, the cheese melts! This goes onto the list of one of the best things I've ever eaten.

Munchies in Madrid

Jessica and I went out for tapas on our first night hanging out in Madrid! We ordered a plate of spicy potatoes and a plate of mussels! It came with really great bread as well. :) To celebrate our meeting, we got some lovely wine with lemon. :)
The only thing I don't care for about Spain is that smoking indoors is legal and completely acceptable; some places prohibit smoking indoors, but they are few and far in between. My poor, poor lungs. No fumar por favor! <- My poor Spanish...


Meet what the Spanish call bocadillos! My lovely flat mate, Laura, who is a local of Madrid, Spain, showed me around on my first night there! She also treated me to these lovely sandwiches. Here's her little tour of some of the different kinds:

The restaurant we went to was called 'Cervezeria 100 Montaditos.' There were ACTUALLY 100 different kinds of sandwiches!
Anyways, Laura, made me a fantastic and very complete list of things to do, and of course, things to eat, in Madrid. She's wonderful and I can't thank her enough!


Laura put 'churros con chocolate' on her list, so Jessica, Ryan and I went out to grab some for breakfast one morning! It's just what it says it is: churros (like the Disneyland kind, but without the sugar and cinnamon) with thick, syrupy, melted chocolate! Delish. If you do order it, don't necessarily expect the chocolate to be super sweet.
Here's a close up:



Calamari bocadillo is fried calamari rings in a baguette. Very simple, salted, and yummy! Again, something that Laura recommended. Apart from it being typically chewy, I loved it!

Germany & Switzerland

BREAKFAST


Here's the lovely set out breakfast table. Lena's mother adores candles and she lit some anytime we had a meal, snack or tea. She's also a fantastic interior decorator, if I do say so myself. On the table we've got some great breads including the wonderful pretzel, some croissants and really great rolls, some with poppyseed. Bread is Germany is fantastic, with a texture on the outside and a nice fluffiness on the inside. Lena's mum goes out to the local bakery and picks up the bread fresh. Next to the breads we've got some lovely Swiss jam, Nutella and honey, I believe. Butter as well. I'm a big fan of butter with Nutella on a croissant. :)
Note: that shark at the bottom isn't particularly German. Lena's mother heard that I LOVE croissants and got some extra for me the next day for breakfast; the one I fished out of the basket had a small defect to it: it was missing teeth. So I gave it some.


Meet German New Years bread! It's a sweet kind of bread, slightly like King's Hawaiian, but not quite as cotton-candy like as King's Hawaiian bread. It's between that and perhaps a soft scone, being more dense, but not hard.


I can't quite remember what these are specifically, but I do know that that cheese is goat cheese. The meats are schinken and speck (thanks Denise!!). Nonetheless, extremely tasty. This was the first time I had goats cheese while knowing it. And I liked it. :)

APPETIZERS/SIDES

Cheese-stuffed baby peppers. A nice twang balanced out with the goat cheese. The olive oil it's soaked in makes it fantastic. I believe the peppers are slightly pickled as well. Great side.

ENTREES




This is raclette. Basically it's like an indoor grill with a top grill underneath. How it works is you grill whatever you want on top, really, and then in your individual trays, you put cheeses and meats and whatever else to be melted under the grill. When it's bubbly and gooey, you remove the tray and slid the toppings onto either a slice of french bread or some lovely potato. Delightful and very Swiss.


While this is more a dish that Lena and her mother cook (not entirely sure if it's particularly German), this meat, eggplant and zucchini lasagna was wonderful! I've never had eggplant before (just because it looks funny, in all honesty), but I thoroughly enjoyed it here. Everything in Germany = sooo much tastier than British food, by the way.



Lena made some pie that we decided to call cottage pie, since it wasn't quite shepherd's pie or any other English pie. It was great! :)


Nurnberger Rostbratwurst and potato salad. My last night in Germany, Lena and her mother searched forever to get me traditional sausages from Lena's mother's hometown Nurnberg, or Nuremberg as we say in English. And success! I'm learning that sausages are very particular... (I wish I could take a class on learning about the types. Same for cheeses.) Also, teamed with some really really good potato salad. It was made with dwarf potatoes, sliced pickle and a certain kind of oil.

DESSERT/SWEETS


Though we had this for afternoon tea, it technically can go under desserts. It's a really nice vanilla cream cake basically. :) The cream was very good. Eaten at the Hohentwiel restaurant down the mountain from the actual castle.


You can't go to Switzerland without having Swiss chocolate because it actually is amazing. So milky, soft and wonderful! It's like velvet in bar form! (I'd also LOVE to take a class on just chocolate.)


Bratapfel: so there's no Wikipedia page in English for the bratapfel, but it basically means "baked apple"-- no, not that kind of baked. >_> I shadowed Lena as she made it, so I can describe it and hopefully duplicate it one day! The apple is first hollowed out and then filled with a mixture of breadcrumbs, raisins, ground almonds, honey and a bit of sugar. Then slices of butter are placed on top and it's placed in the oven and wonderfully baked! I really adore this dish... (Boy, I sound like Ina Garten now.)

This is just something adorable I have to share:

I've set my heart on finding one and buying one to bring home. Except my fridge is not magnetic. Dammit.

Grub in Istanbul

BREAKFAST

Turkish Breakfast - this is all eaten with bread rolls; there's sausage, cheese, tomato, an egg, olives, sourcherry (popular in Turkey) jelly, chocolate spread, butter and honey. And an orange slice to taste. This was the complimentary breakfast at the hostel, but I saw the same thing on menus at several other restaurants.

ENTREES


Lamb doner with rice, salad and chips - The lamb was cooked perfectly (really tender!) and was complimented with great spices which I can't really name.
A lot of places are beginning to add chips (or fries) to their foods. At one restaurant we had doner wraps with fries IN them. Not bad. A bit like a California burrito. But not a burrito-- man! I miss Mexican food! The restaurant I ate this at was very close to my hostel. The drunken restaurant owner, who called himself "Uncle" beckoned us in. And he gave us a free concert. What a man. I'll provide you with some entertainment by Uncle before we continue this tour of Turkish cuisine (Uncle let me play with his "guitar" thing before he gave us a free acoustic concert):




Perde Pilavi - This dish starts out like a cylinder-shaped tower of rice with almond slices on top (representing children). Inside is rooster meat (representing the groom) and chicken meat (representing the bride). The rice symbolizes blessing and the dough sheets on pilaf represents the immunity of the home. Originating from Middle Asia, this dish is now popular for Turkish weddings. That little dumpling thing on the side is kinda like a pizza in a roll with mushrooms, cheese and peppers.


Grilled fish - they have these open grills all over the riverside next to fresh fish stands. If you want, you can even hire a boat to take you on a tour, have the staff catch a fish for you, and grill it right on the boat.


Grilled fish sandwich - this is usually how the grilled fish is eaten, with lettuce, tomato, onions, oil and salt. We ate fish sandwiches twice simply because they were really amazing. I haven't had many fish sandwiches, so this was easily the best fish sandwich I'd ever had. The key? The fish. INCREDIBLY fresh.


Chicken kebab with rice bulgur pilavi (rice), lettuce and flat bread

DESSERT


Rice pudding - You can get this in lots of Turkish shops and restaurants, but be careful: it has to be done right! If it's too watery, well, all I can say is that it's ruined! The consistency is meant to be between jello and grits.


Baklava from Karakoy Gullugolu Baklava Shop - The best baklava I've had to this day (and ask my mother, I've eaten a lot of baklava). Perfectly flakey and caramelized; good texture. Not too hard. A nice twist with the ground pistachio.


Tulumba tatlisi - I don't know the translation of this sticky, delicious cross between a churro and a glazed donut, but it's very sugary. The syrup, which I'm pretty sure is JUST sugar will essentially glaze your hand if you don't eat it fast enough.


I've heard of the company that makes these bars, but this I've NEVER seen this one before! It's essentially a Neapolitan chocolate bar! Light, airy (like those Aero bars) strawberry and vanilla on the inside, covered in chocolate. I dunno about you, but I think this is a great invention.

BEVERAGES


Turkish apple tea- made with loose leaf tea, not exactly sure what else is in it besides apple, but I bought a box before I left Istanbul. It's one of my favourite teas now because it's so true to the apple flavour and scent.

Pomegranate Juice
I sadly have no photos of this, but it's not exactly an unheard of drink. Basically what makes it special is that they juice the pomegranate for you right there. And it's delicious. :) And good for you!