A Show of Savoir Vivre in West Berlin

La Cocotte - Schöneberg

Das Auge isst mit is a German saying translatable with „the eye takes part in the eating.“ Its point is the usual “presentation matters,” which we all know. Most people would (most probably) not like to eat anything that looks like troll excrements or a squashed frog. So far so good. But what about different sorts of presentation? Let’s say more theatrical ones?

The element of show involved in owning a restaurant had not bothered me in the slightest before Tom and Jamie, two London acquaintances of mine, decided to venture into the world of culinary service and open a café in East London. As London’s all about added value and exclusive identity, Tom and Jamie needed a concept and they needed it fast. They came up with the idea of an “entertainment café,” which would move its focal point from the banal idea of coffee into the value of its owners’ exquisite company and their ability to entertain their customers.

I found the idea utterly ludicrous. Call me old-fashioned, but I get the urge to punch people in the face if they happen to be trying to entertain me while I’ve got a chunk of quiche stuck down my throat. Tom and Jamie actually never got the opportunity to prove me wrong (as the entire business proved to be more expensive than what they had had in mind), but with time, I realised every restaurant had an element of showbiz attached to it. It can be the loud kind, like the 90’s classic Beverly Hills 90210’s obnoxiously annoying Brenda metamorphosing into the Southern Laverne just to keep her customers’ complaints at bay, or it can be the French kind, as I discovered last week in Schöneberg’s La Cocotte.

The restaurant seems to be a West Berliner institution of sorts. It enjoys the best location Schöneberg can offer on Vorbergstraße, a pleasant side street off the cute (and slightly overrated) Akazzienstraße. It has a charming garden outside, but fate so wished and we found our way there on a cold and rainy summer evening, which induced the discovery of La Cocotte’s interior space. And a discovery it was. Not because it was all too well designed. It wasn’t even that pretty. Yes, it had daft homo-erotic art works on the walls and the lightning was quite nice, but it was a bit drab with its dirty-grey walls. And then there were these tables crammed up on top of each other so that you got the feeling you couldn’t escape eavesdropping on your neighbour.

But wait a minute, a French restaurant with grey walls, filthy loos and narrow seating arrangements? Gosh, it sounds a bit like actually being IN France. Which it really was. Bit by bit, I realised La Cocotte was just one big show. It was all about recreating an authentic French restaurant in West Berlin. It doesn’t have the je-ne-sais-quoi feeling of posh aloofness attached to the traditional British or German perception of French culinary institutions. No trace of that perfect ambiance from an imagined utopia of beautiful things. This one is what the real stuff is made of.

And last, but not least, one could not recreate a credible impression of France without speaking to everyone in French and visibly expecting them to follow suit. I didn’t mind the bonjours and voilàs and the general underlying francophone snobbery, but then again, it can come across as intimidating (which some of the waiters clearly enjoyed in a fair number of cases). Quite unnecessary, at the end of the day.

And yet, going through all this effort to create a French Disneyland would not have done any good without the appropriate food quality. The menu was quite promising to begin with. It was not regional, like most restaurants in France would be, but it did make a point out of living up to the restaurant’s name and serving lots of casserole-based dishes (cocotte is – surprisingly enough - French for casserole) and a couple of unavoidable French classics like steak tartar or bouillabaisse.

Pissaladière

Terrine de Crustacés

We started by ordering two relatively simple starters (we decided to leave the likes of foie gras, noix de St. Jacques or escargots for another occasion, as they all cost between 7.50 and 9.50 € and we decided we could just as well stay below 6 € with the starters): the terrine de crustacés (shellfish terrine, 5.90 €) and the pissaladière (a Provencal onion confit with tomatoes, anchovies and black olives on a thin layer of bread-dough, 4.90 €). Both portions were well presented and large for the price (and for the fact it was a French place, where you know the chef actually has an excuse to keep the portions miniscule). The pissaladière’s quality was quite good with the only complaint being too little anchovy-olive presence. The terrine was harder to comment, as it was just perfect. Everything about it was just right: it was delicious with the exact right taste of sea; its texture was smooth and pleasing and even the rouille that was served on the side was a perfect match.

Bourguignon

Crème Brulée

If the starters were enough to teleport us to France, then the main courses were nothing less than a stroke of joy. We ordered the bouillabaisse (a fish and shellfish soup from Marseilles, served with croutons, rouille and cheese, 17.90 €) and the boeuf Bourguignon de joues (a Bourguigon made of veal cheeks, 13.90 €) together with a side of potato-olive-rosemary mash (for an additional 1.90 €). As both dishes came in their black, steamy iron casseroles, we could not help noticing that the quality was impressive even here. The bouillabaisse might not have been the best one I have ever had, but it was generous and refined. A Marseillais might frown a bit at it, but it was more than pleasing for our local Berliner circumstances. The Bourguignon was even more exciting. The meat was perfectly tender and the sauce was perfect. It was strong and refined at the same time – not originally so, Julia Childe wouldn’t mind eating it either.

What’s left? Oh, desserts. We went for the crème brulée (5.90 €) and the tartelette au citron (4.50 €). Both were no-bullshit-cookbook-standard desserts, which means they were not too original. And yet, both were perfectly executed, being perfectly tasty. The same applies to just about anything about La Cocotte – it is a standard French restaurant with all the froglike knots and bolts. If you can handle the French show aspect and want good-quality, to-the-point and in no way overpriced French food, La Cocotte’s team of squeaky waiters are waiting with just what you’re looking for!

Overall mark:

La Cocotte

Vorbergstraße 10, 10823 Berlin
http://www.lacocotte.de


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Knowing Nina (Greek Galore)

Ousies - Schöneberg

Studying in Paris, I got acquainted with a number of characters I would not have met otherwise. Amongst them was a young man who always scribbled down the word “Prince” under the field “profession”, a girl who often arrived in tears because her parents would not allow her to employ more than three cleaning ladies for her 700 square meter flat (which they had maliciously bought for her in a posh suburb rather than in the city centre) and then there was Nina.

She was a mousy girl; quiet, timid and fairly introvert. Being Greek, she spoke French with an accent most of our fellow students frowned at. It was not entirely simple to become friends with her, yet I liked her and we got along very well from the very beginning. It did not take a genius to realise we had grown up in different circumstances and with different values. We were interested in different things and reacted differently to just about every possible situation. And yet we did not enquire too much into each other’s backgrounds. Knowing she had come from a very sheltered home was more than enough.

I learned more about her on a spring day after an excruciating set of exams and presentations. We needed a walk in the polluted Parisian air to get over the day’s traumatising start and we began by wandering aimlessly between some of Paris’s most expensive shopping streets. On more than one occasion, Nina would see a shoe she fancied in one of the shop windows and without blinking would then step decisively into the shop and come out two minutes later with a completed transaction and a colourful bag in her hands. I did not ask how she was able to afford any of it, as my mother had told me it was not polite to talk about money. Every now and again, however, Nina would murmur an undecipherable sentence about her father needing to wire her shoe money.

As the day came to a close and we were both getting hungry, Nina suggested food and asked me whether I knew a nice place. I proposed an Indian restaurant I knew behind Gare du Nord and we began making our way northwards in silence, which was not our usual state. A few minutes later it was Nina who broke it by saying she had never before been anywhere around Gare du Nord and that she was afraid. “Is it dangerous? Are there any... you know... strange people over there?”
“It’s alright,” I shrugged. “I’ve never had any problems over there.”
“Oh, OK,” replied Nina, not too sure about whether to trust me or not. “But I heard there were Arabs up there.”
I shrugged again. I did not like these conversations and could do without another one of her lectures about why Greeks felt unsure around Muslims and why I should not put her in danger. We had already had that same conversation a few times before. The girl should grow up, I thought. My sense of conviction did not seem to put her at any ease though. A few minutes later she asked whether Indian food was hygienic.
“You see,” she began, “I’ve never had any of it before.”
“Oh... it’s fine. It will be an experience.” Which it was. Upon entering the place Nina wanted to turn on her heel and run away as fast and as far away as possible. Her eyes balls seemed to want to pop out of their holes and every little muscle on her body twitched in utter panic. I made her stay though, as she kept staring at the mainly Indian crowd sitting around us.

But she liked the food. She kept on nodding in pure amazement, whispering she would never have imagined she could like it.
“You see,” she said, “I’ve never liked anything besides Greek food.” It was my turn to stare at her in pure amazement. Thinking she had lived in Paris for such a long time and that she had been able to afford buying pairs of shoes for a few thousands of Euros in one afternoon, it did not strike me finding good food in Paris would be all too difficult.
And yet, to her it was. It turned out she was a billionaire’s daughter. She had lived in a sheltered Greek paradise with access to every shoe brand on the face of the planet, but food diversity had never been all too high on her shopping list. To be fair, she did not enjoy discovering new food stuff. She just liked the homey feeling Greek food gave her.

After this evening, as more and more of our conversations turned to the subject of food, Nina would spend more and more time describing the wonders of the Greek cuisine. I was not always convinced, but these long stories about the abundance of meat served in a friendly atmosphere she obviously missed in Paris made me think of Greek food as a potentially utopian thing. As I later realised most Greek restaurants in the countries I lived in were of the greasy-and-bland type, I started recalling Nina’s descriptions ever more often as an alternative for the actual unspectacular quality I was otherwise confronted with.

And then last week, I was time to try out a new restaurant with a friend from Paris which somehow evoked the memory of Nina. The bizarre association called for trying out a Greek restaurant and we opted for Ousies on Grunewaldstraße in Schönberg, having heard it was a lot better than the average Greek experience in Berlin (little birds usually whisper in a cacophony, the place is always crowded. Reservation recommended).

We sat outside, which was nice in itself, but even if we had decided to sit inside, it would not have been any worse, as the usual columns and Zeus figurines are pleasingly absent from the large indoor space. Instead, the restaurant looks like a scene from a retro film about 1960’s Italy with pink walls, light tables and endearingly overused tablecloths.

Starters

Beans and sausage

The two of us were soon overwhelmed by a menu long enough to keep an army eating for a good week. Moreover, it was more expensive than most Greek restaurants in Berlin. This called for a clear strategy and we decided to order a number of “representative” dishes. The starters we opted for were the eleosalata (slices of tomatoes covered with olive paste and a slice of goat’s cheese, 5.00 €), dolmadakia (those stuffed vine leaves, served warm for 7.30 €) and gigantes me loukaniko (large white beans in tomato sauce with slices of Greek sausage, 6.50 €). All were very good quality. The vegetarian starter was fresh, the dolmas had the right consistency and a very distinct taste and the beans were just beans with very good chunks of sausage. And yet, it felt like paying a lot of money for what was – at the end of the day – just very simple food.

The main courses went along the same line. We ordered mousakas (a dish based on layers of minced meat, potatoes and aubergines, 13 €) and a bifteki gemisto (a minced steak with a cheese-pepper-tomato filling served with a side of potatoes, 12 €). The mousakas was very authentic – it was a simple, hearty dish with the right seasoning and the right amount of grease. The bifteki was too heavy to be pleasing, but the meat was well seasoned. The side of potatoes was utterly dry and not very appealing.

Mousakas

Bifteki gemisto

We left with bloated bellies and mixed feelings. Generally speaking, the food quality was pretty impressive compared to every other Greek restaurant I’ve been to in Berlin. And yet, the otherwise well known Berliner pattern of excellent starters and less inspiring main courses repeated itself even here. Moreover, even though the quality was definitely a bit better than anywhere else, the prices were also a lot higher, which was not necessarily justified by the fact that the food was not yet “amazing” or “inspiring”. If you are like Nina and crave Greek food in big portions – Ousies is probably one of the best choices around. If not, there are other things to get through an evening.

Overall mark:

Restaurant Ousies

Grunewaldstraße 16, 10823 Berlin
www.taverna-ousies.de
Tel: +49 (0)30 216 7959


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A Spring Diatribe

 Jäger und Sammler - Schöneberg

„Veronika, der Lenz ist da“ is probably the most accurate representation of Berlin’s quirkier side to this date. It became a hit in 1930 when the Comedian Harmonists, the first ever German boy-band (who had to flee the country for the bonus of being Jewish) started performing it: A spring serenade to a certain Viktoria about phallic asparagus growing in pre-war Berlin. Oh, springtime!

To be fair, the world that produced the Comedian Harmonists is long gone. Viktoria is probably dead, as are most of Berlin’s Jews together its pre-war flair. What’s left is that pure joy and excitement that never fail to arrive alongside the first day of spring, when everyone suddenly becomes nice, accommodating and flirtatious. The sour faced cashier at the supermarket who had grunted resentfully at the very sight of a customer just a day earlier suddenly winks suggestively as she licks her upper, voluptuous lip and asks the first male customer she spots whether he’d already seen their fresh Spargel. Spargel? Really? Now, that’s another example for the Comedian Harmonists’ legacy.

Spargel, or white asparagus, is the local spring obsession. During the asparagus season, every place in town - including Chinese, Indian and Mexican restaurants - will offer a bland asparagus menu for double its weight in gold. Inquisitive TV shows will screen special reports about this year’s Spargel-consumption and greedy farmers will erect half legal stands selling organic Spargel to those who can afford it. If it weren’t for the fact I found white asparagus completely useless, I would find it all quite amusing.

I grew up knowing that green asparagus was a delicacy, whereas white asparagus was used to feed the hogs. And I fully agree. White asparagus’s phallic form might be appealing to some, but it still has the consistency of sperm, being rubbery, stringy and mushy all at the same time. Before this diatribe takes me to places we all should avoid, I really should say I don’t mind white asparagus. I just do not see the point of serving it absolutely EVERYWHERE. What I find even more baffling is the fact people here actually eat Spargel as a main course with only potatoes as a side. To each his own, but I find that particular combination a tad too much.

And thus I was looking for a spring feeling without too much Spargel and decided to go and try out Jäger and Sammler (Hunters and Gatherers) in Schöneberg. It was one of the first sitting-outside-evenings of the year, and we decided to make the most out of it despite the fact that the interior was remarkably attractive. We soon discovered the place had a very limited seasonal menu, which suited us just fine. The only problem was that the only starter was a (Spargel) soup on a warm day, so we decided to just share the “spring risotto” to kick start the evening (risotto with beans, asparagus and spring onions, 10 €). And what can I say? The dish was perfect. Risotto is a tricky one. Especially in Berlin it can be either extremely bad or perfectly endearing with very few middle-ground compromises. This one managed to get everything just right with a perfect texture and a pleasingly light taste.

Risotto

Flounder

We continued to the main dishes, which were the Finkenwerder Mai-Scholle (a dish of fried flounder with bacon and a side of potatoes, 14 €) and Rinderschmorbraten (beef roast in a vinegar-cream sauce with a side of mash, 14 €). Both main courses were quite alright, but not inspirational. The fish was impressively large, nicely fried with greasy bacon, which made it quite pleasing in a piggy sort of a way. However, it was too greasy to be refined and the bacon tended to outshine the fish, which was, unfortunately, not the main idea when we had ordered a fish. The meat was good. It was tender, high quality and the sauce was also nice. If it had been a bit cheaper, the first course a bit less impressive and the restaurant a bit less fancy, I would have approved whole-heartedly. But it was not cheaper, the first course had set the bar fairly high and beautifully decorated restaurants raise expectations as well. Tough luck.

Roast

Panna cotta

Even though these main courses were more than filling, I am glad I was smart enough (not to mention obliged by the blog) to order a dessert. The only sweet treat on the menu was a panna-cotta (served with strawberry sauce for 5 €), which turned out to be a dream come true. For some unknown reason, panna cottas tend to be fairly unimpressive. People who don’t know how to cook think vanilla creams are always an easy option and usually get it wrong (or bland, which is even worse). But Jäger and Sammler was one big exception to the local rule. It managed to get everything right: the cream, the texture, the strawberry sauce and the visual presentation. It was a fantastic way to end a meal.

At the end of the day, Jäger und Sammler is a good address. It is a sterling example of how some restaurants manage to raise expectations before getting to the main course, just to create disappointments with food that is fairly good, but just not enough to rise to the challenge of perfect ambiance, ambitious menu and wonderful starters and desserts. And yet, don’t let it scare you off. It is a perfect four-printer.

Overall mark: 

 

Jäger und Sammler

Grunewaldstraße 81, 10823 Berlin
www.jaegerundsammler-berlin.de


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Jesus Loves Kimchi

Ixthys - Schöneberg

Let’s talk about the concept of a hole-in-the-wall: shops of miniscule proportions that often combine a run-down urban charm with industrously independent character. To put it more bluntly: they are family run dumps. Some people love them; others would never set foot past their mangy thresholds.

My father is a sterling example of a holes-in-the-wall-enthusiast. You can’t really blame him for it either. There is something authentically appealling about these urban grottos. Eating in a hole-in-the-wall, you realise you are in it for the food. Most people will not be there for the superb ambience generated by the fat stains, the old cutlery or the lack of space (my father might, but I hope you will allow me to politely sneer at the idea). With a hole-in-the-wall, you get the feeling you know where the food comes from – if only because you can see the kitchen behind the counter with your own eyes. And then, you know who does the cooking, sometimes you can even talk to them. It is small enough to see past the “business” character and be admitted into a family. Take a closer look and you’ll see it is a bit like paying a random grandmother to cook for you, and just like with your own grandmother, you’ll get the food directly from that battered aluminium pan into an old plate adorned by a decade-old scratch on the side.

Holes-in-the-wall can be either extremely good or extremely bad, and it is impossible to know which one it will be in advance. And then, the really good ones have a psychologial added value. Having a truly delicious meal in a grotto equals a major discovery. It makes you feel like a 2011 urban version of Christopher Columbus, sailing in the dagerous waters of a big city (because let’s face it: holes-in-the-wall are an inherently urban phenomenon), trying to immerse yourself in the local structure and culture, unlike all those lard assed tourists who just go to Starbucks’ because they know what they’ll get over there.

Berlin has less holes-in-the-wall than cities like New York or London because – let’s face it – there is no need for any. The spaces here are usually large and often affordable. Squeezing a restaurant into a lightless cell of 100 square feet is entirely unnecessary. Which was why I had to raise an eyebrow when I had walked into Ixthys, a Korean place in Schöneberg. Alright, I did not only raise an eyebrow, I was overwhelmed and did not know whether to laugh, cry or run for my life. The place was not only a classical hole-in-the-wall, but it was a missionary one at that. Ixthys is not a word in Korean, but rather the Greek name for “fish” and an early Christian symbol. The walls are completely covered with old and dirty canvases crammed with handwritten psalms and biblical texts. The small space is not unpleasant, but for a non-believer such as myself, it was nothing less than frightening (with a pinch of exotism).

The menu did not provide much relief either. The textual treasures hidden under the layers of grease referred more often to Jesus than to food. The last page was a highlight of sorts, as it started out explaining kimchi’s merits, describing to what extent the Korean cabbage dish can improve one’s health, just to recap and decide that end the end of the day, the “richest ingredient in life” was really just the love of the Lord. Yeah, right. The added value of the Christian faith was soon forgotten, as we finally found the food references. It did not take long to realise that the choice of dishes was astonishingly promising despite its being very limited. The menu was comprised of about five vegetarian and five meat dishes, and they all sounded good.

The walls...

Bulgoggi

We then ordered the Za-Chang-Myun (a noodle dish with bean sauce, pork and various vegetables, 7.50 €), the Doesi Bul-Go-Gi (pork and onions in a spicy sauce, 7.00 €) and the Bibim-Bab (a “mix it yourself” dish with beef, rice, vegetables and a fried egg, all the joy in the world for 7.50 €). The dishes came with a side of kimchi, which was very convincing (yet not as good as the one at Madang). It would probably be best to start describing the Bul-Go-Gi, which was tasty, but not too inspiring. The meat was nice, the sauce was extremely pleasing, but nothing more, really. The noodle dish was definitely a couple of notches superior. Not only was the noodle-quality superb, but the sauce was just brilliant. It was refined and exciting at the same time, with random slices of meat and vegetables to chew on (which were fine, but still secondary to that fantastic bean sauce).

Noodles

Delicious bibimbab

And then came the bibimbab. Alright, I might be biased. I believe bibimbab is one of the things Adam and Eve managed to smuggle out of the Garden of Eden and then went on to hide somewhere in Korea so that God wouldn’t find it and punish them. I think Bibimbab is pure joy and good bibimbab is a virtue. And this one was definitely good. Everything in it was just right: the meat, the vegetables, the quantity and the spicy sauce (which was served in a large, filthy jar, which was so much more pleasing than the embarrassingly small quantity seen elsewhere around here).

Needless to say, we did not stay too long. I did not mind the Christian theme as much as I was bothered by the uncomfortable chairs and the lack of basic facilities (yes, I mean the loo. For a place that offers tea on its menu, not having any toilets can be equated with crime). After a while we just had to go. And yet, I can only recommend Ixthys warmly. As far as holes-in-the-wall go, this one was just perfect, with the best possible value: good quality food for affordable prices.

Overall mark: 

Ixthys

Pallasstraße 21, 10781 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)30 814 747 69


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Eating Trolls

Munch's Hus - Schöneberg

Don’t you just miss these days when everything was clear-cut and easy? When the world had a clear set of rules and you knew what was right and what was wrong? Girls wore pink; boys wore blue and all that jazz? That certainty is bound to cave in at some point, whether we like it or not. The interesting part is what triggers the moral meltdown.

I remember my serene world of infantile certainty collapsed because of trolls. Trolls, you ask? Well, yes, trolls. As a child I understood trolls. I did not much like them (I was a mainstream kinda boy, rooting for the good guys and disliking ugly, hairy creatures with warts the size of a tuna sandwich, whether they were real trolls or just that dodgy guy who used to haunt Digbeth Coach Station), but I got their essence. They were big, revolting and scary. And most of all – they had a purpose in life, which was just that, to be perfectly hideous and then be slain by the good guy. And then came the 90’s with their strange deviations. Do you remember those little plastic trolls with the neon-coloured hair that suddenly invaded every school class on the face of the planet? They were all about being sweet in a revolting kind of way, with nostrils the size of half their faces. If they were real trolls, these nostrils would be hairy, but alas, those colourful look-alikes had nothing natural about them, and hairy nostrils were definitely not cute. Suddenly every child in the country was obsessed with those little dolls, and I could not get to the bottom of it. Why on earth?

Nearly twenty years later, I had a troll flashback on a flight between Paris and Oslo, as I had the pleasure to sit next to a French Erasmus student who happened to be going back to Oslo after spending Easter at her parents’ in the Bauce. She was happily ranting about the woes of a Frenchwoman forced to spend a year in the Norwegian wilderness: no baguette, no cheese, and the rest of the food is so bleakly horrid. “It tastes like eating trolls, you know?” She pouted her lips before she continued, “but Norwegian trolls, not real ones.”
“Real ones?” I asked, “Aren’t the Norwegian ones real enough?”
“Oh no, real trolls are so cute! You can play with their hair for hours!”
How could I forget? The Erasmus students of today were born in the 90’s. For them trolls are no Norse mythological beings, but rather toys made in China. And yet the girl had a point: Food in Norway often felt like biting one’s way through a troll. It wasn’t that the food wasn’t good on paper, but it usually ended up being served without the slightest hint of seasoning for the price of three meals in any other country. With all of my awe and admiration for the country’s stunning natural landscapes, the best thing about eating there was usually nibbling on the sandwiches I had prepared in Sweden before crossing the border. I was therefore intrigued when I heard there was a Norwegian restaurant in Schöneberg which was supposedly wonderful.

Munch’s Hus is located directly on the Bülowbogen, an area which might as well be recognised for what it is: A sterling example of West-Berliner utter desolation. As we entered the restaurant, the 90’s hit us again, and not from its brilliant Ace-of-Base angle. Even though it was aiming for upscale, the overall deco was far from being a success. With radioactively yellow walls, bright lights and reproductions of Munch densely covering the walls, I had to sigh disapprovingly before taking a long look at the menu, which was endearingly didactic with random pieces of information about Norway and Norwegian food. Slowly, I felt the Scandi-phile in me gaining the upper hand. The yummy Norwegian food I never got in Norway seemed to be accessible in Berlin for about a third of the price I’d have to pay in the land of fjords and trolls.

We started with a Nordmeersuppe (North Sea soup: a creamy soup with prawns and lumpfish caviar for 3.90 €) and a Rondane-Teller (we’ll call it the Norwegian antipasti mix: a mixture of elk and reindeer sausages, Norwegian cheese and a scrambled egg for 5.90 €). The soup was surprisingly perfect. I am not the biggest fan of cream soups, as I think they have the tendency to end up being just stodgy, but this one was good. It was delicate, had the perfect texture and most important: the cream did not cover up the taste of the other ingredients. The Rondane plate was also quite a success. It was a mixture of the best Norwegian products one can find, with meat and cheese stuff that incorporate a wide array of different tastes.

Elchbraten

Kveite

 We then continued with the Elchbraten (elk roast with potatoes, lingonberries and chestnuts, 16.90 €) and the Kveite (halibut filet in blueberry sauce with leeks and potatoes in saffron, 13.50 €). The roast represented one of Norway’s eternal culinary woes: it sounds a lot more exotic than it really is. The sauce was delicious, but elk never really tastes that good. We’re talking about very muscular animals here, and their meat in accordingly stringy. It was good, but not fantastic. On the one hand, it was to be expected, but on the other, it would mean other elements of the dish would just have to make up for it, which the potatoes and the relatively boring chestnuts did not do. The halibut, however, was a different story altogether. The fish was tender – not to raw and not too dry, while the blueberry sauce was very exciting indeed. I guess not anyone would fall for this dish because of the sweet and sour touch of the blueberries, but if you are into experimenting, it will be worth your thirteen Euros.

We then both decided to take the same dessert: crème caramel with cloudberries (for 5.10 €). Now, crème caramel is a fairly boring choice, I know. And the pricing might also seem a bit odd. At least until you take a closer look at the second ingredient: cloudberries, my friends, are probably the last remains of heaven of our little planet. They are one of Scandinavia’s true treasures: they look like golden raspberries and taste like…well… heaven. In Scandinavia, they are usually found in diluted form (jams, ice cream, etc.), partly because the fruit itself is so expensive and partly because it has such a strong taste. My pure enthusiasm upon finding a dish with real cloudberries was unimaginable. Alright, you can’t get any fresh cloudberries in March. And even if you could, you would pay more than 5.10 € for them. But I even enjoyed their de-frosted version (oh yes, and the crème caramel was good. Unspectacularly so, but it was perfect for what it was).

The marking business with Munch’s Hus is fairly tricky: the service was excellent, the pricing was very good and the food was good – from fantastic to just nice. The problem with the “just nice” was the fact that it was their house speciality (the elk roast). And then you’ll have to add these horrible yellow walls and yellow lightning (which ruined the photos this time around. My apologies indeed). Alas, Munch’s Hus will be awarded with only four prints, knowing it has what it takes to make it to five. Go there. It’s good.

Overall mark:

Munch's Hus

Bülowstraße 66, 10783 Berlin
http://www.munchshus.de


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Dancing on Tables? If You Say So

Ypsilon - Kleistpark, Schöneberg

When I was about six years old I asked my mother at some point why Greeks enjoyed breaking plates. “They don’t”, she answered with a grownup sigh. I sneered back and said I had seen them with my own eyes. And I was right. My easily impressionable nature was repeatedly traumatised by the loud gentlemen standing in front of Greek “tavernas” on touristy streets. All they seemed to be doing was to shout “ouzo” and throw an endless supply of plates with impressive force on the ground. For me it was clear there was something fishy about these Greeks and their strange affection to smashing objects. I could not fathom what on earth would cause a whole nation to live in a perpetual Birmingham-City-fan state of mind.

What I did not understand at the time was that some restaurant goers actually perceived this useless display of violence as exciting. And that was exactly what Greek restaurants in Northern Europe are all about: they sell an image of a land abundant in hot-blooded and colourful agitation that is so much more exotic than the drab gloom present in all of our everyday lives.

And then, when a friend asked me whether I wanted to try out Ypsilon on Hauptstraße (just off U-Kleistpark) because he had seen people dancing on tables there, my reaction was simply “I’m in as long as nobody’s going to break any plates”. Dancing on tables was exactly the right amount of excitement I could deal with: lively and utterly pointless. I could not quite call it exotic, as the only time I saw people dancing on tables had actually been actually in Warsaw.

Considering the fact I was lured all the way to Schöneberg under pretence of seeing people dancing on tables to the sound of a buzuki, the place was awfully quiet. Ypsilon has quite a large space and the overall design was rather tasteful compared to what Greek restaurants in Berlin usually deliver. No in-your-face bright lights, no pillars and no random Greek gods lurking around the place. This is not to say the place was entirely pleasing. The walls were too red and it felt like a mash-up of a cheap cocktail bar and a posh restaurant. A stage with a microphone was set in a central location, looming. A promise of live music and dancing on tables. It was still too early for that yet. We could concentrate on the food instead.

We started by ordering dolmades (stuffed vine-leaves, according to Chris the only true test of every Greek restaurant, 4.30 €), melitzana (mashed aubergines, 4.20 €), spanakopitakia (puff pastry filled with spinach, 6.30 €) and kalamarakia (pan fried calamari, 5.90 €). The starters came on large plates, decorated with fresh looking vegetables. They were also rather convincing on the quality end. The dolmades were not too sour and the rice filling was soft and nice. The aubergines were bland, as were the spanakopitakia, but they were not entirely bad. The calamari, however were even quite good. Not too rubbery and not too greasy. For pan fried calamari they were even rather pleasing.

The Wall

Starters

The main courses were a bit less convincing. We ordered a souvlaki arni (lamb skewer, 15.50 €) a bifteki gemisto (a piece of minced meat stuffed with feta, 10.90 €) and the moussakas (a dish not entirely unlike shepherd’s pie: a casserole based on layers of minced meat, aubergines, potatoes and cheese, 9.80 €). Generally speaking, the portions were very large and the presentation was appetising. The seasoning of all three dishes was also quite convincing. The only problem was the quality of the meat, which was lower than simply disappointing. It did not matter much in the case of the moussakas which is all about the sauce and the seasoning anyway. It had just the right consistency and the right touch of just about everything. It was no work of art, but it was thoroughly pleasing, even though a tad overpriced. The bifteki was fairly mediocre – with the meat not being exceptionally good, but it was still alright with the chips served on the side. The souvlaki turned out to be the main problem. When the entire point about a certain dish is eating chunks of meat off a skewer, you can’t really camouflage its poor quality with anything. Add the fact it was the most expensive dish on the menu and you’ve got stuff bad reviews are made of.

Moussakas

Souvlaki

As we turned to the perfectly friendly waiter and ordered the bill, we looked at the stage and the microphone one last time, feeling cheated and betrayed. The place had not become any more exciting or promiscuous, even though it was already long past 11. Without any dancing on tables to cloud my better judgement, I feel obliged to give Ypsilon three prints and feeling rather generous about it. It was not bad, but far from being good for the not-too-low pricing. Checking out their website I saw why we missed the action though: It says they have live music every Friday and Saturday after 11, but we went on a Sunday.

Overall mark: 

 

Ypsilon - Restaurant/Café/Bar/Sommergarten

Hauptstraße 163, 10827 Berlin
www.ypsilonberlin.de


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