(Or - what should you expect to find here?)
Judging by the name of this site, you probably assume I am just another pretentious ex-pat living in Berlin. And oh, how original, I chose to create a blog. Isn’t that endearing? So narcissistically entrepreneurial, these ex-pats. Yet before you judge me, have a look at what I have to offer.
* Why another food blog?
This blog was born out of a genuine need: You need one. Berlin needs one. The world needs one. There are quite a few small food blogs, but they are quite small and tend to cover more shops than restaurants. It’s hard to get a good recommendation in Berlin, which is a tricky city in the first place when it comes to food.
As most people know, Berlin is far from being the world’s food-capital. It does not have a traditional food scene like Paris or Vienna, nor does it have anything nearly as vibrant and as modern like London, New York or even Glasgow. However, it is not without local advantages and peculiarities. The first one is accessibility. Berlin is a simple and accessible place. It's all about being down to earth and money will not really get you that far around here. Things tend to be inexpensive and wholesome, yet this often means quality is left out of the main shopping list. For us foodies, this is unacceptable, and this is where this blog will come into the picture, trying to find these (surprisingly many) places in Berlin combining accessibility and quality.
This blog’s goal is to write about one restaurant a week, trying to map as many restaurants and options in Berlin. Berlin is a huge place with a seemingly endless choice of places, which means this blog cannot possibly cover everything. I will usually go for reasonably priced restaurants and will seldom venture too far out of the ring (if ever too far out of Kreuzberg...).
* What's in a name? (don't bother to read this if you actually want to get something out of your afternoon, as this is only ludicrous ranting)
At the end of the day, this site is about letting society benefit from my talents, them being mostly the inability to keep my mouth shut. The good side to my over-loquaciousness is that I usually know what I am talking about. My name is Itay. I may only be 28, but I have been wandering through random European capitals for the better part of the last decade. I have had the pleasure of calling Berlin my home for over six years, which means I had arrived just before the influx of hipsters from Shoreditch and Brooklyn altered the surface of the city forever: before Kreuzberg became East London’s dumping grounds and before Prenzlauer Berg became the exclusive hunting grounds of young organic mothers stampeding with their strollers. In these days of yore, the Palace of the Republic was still East Berlin’s best landmark and Zoologischer Garten was the nearest thing Berlin had to a train station. If I wanted to, I could flaunt my knowledge of “the real Berlin”. But then again, “real Berlin” has never existed. Berlin is a palimpsest; ever changing with new layers formed on top of older ones, with new people coming and halfway settled older-newcomers greeting them with their rude shrugs and sneers of resentment. The only thing I can contribute, as just another ex-pat, is leaving my own footprints. Hence the site’s ultra-pretentious name.
