The Secret Beer Garden: Zur Laube
I love traditional Berlin pub names. They always begin with zu, like you’re taking a mental leap to somewhere: zum Nussbaum (to the nut tree), zur Glühlampe (to the lightbulb), zur fetten Ecke (to the … fat corner). Their names make it sound like you’re being transported to a very special place, just by stepping over the threshold into a smokey, candle-lit grotto. Getting … Continue reading The Secret Beer Garden: Zur Laube
Yes Yes: Polish Food in Berlin
Pierogi please. I would like to pretend that this post about hearty pierogi and restorative beetroot soup is tied in with autumn sneaking in. But it’s not – I don’t give a damn what season it is, I always fiend after them. Have you ever had them before? Yes? Thank God. No?! I’m sorry. After a trip to Poland, how can you not come back addicted to them? … Continue reading Yes Yes: Polish Food in Berlin
Spoken Word in the Spotlight
Spoken, not said.
If we’re honest with ourselves, open mic nights can be a bit of a mixed bag. And sure, that’s how they’re supposed to be – an evening that any old Jack or Jill can go to to get up on stage and get a few seconds of glory. You can’t always expect that much from them. At least, unless you go to Du Beast on a Thursday night.
Before going, I invited a friend to the “open mic night”, Berlin Spoken Word. But after just one dose of it, I realised it would be unfair to sum it up like that. It delivers exactly what you’d suspect: spoken words. Those can be poems, stories, true anecdotes, amusing lies, songs, stabs at saying something in front a crowd, whatever. They’re not restrictive about what you can do, almost to the point that the schedule starts to go a bit haywire. But what they are selective about is that human element, that open-minded, conscientious empathy, that an average open-mic night down the local pub really lacks. Continue reading “Spoken Word in the Spotlight”
Leave Berlin: Day Trip to Poznan
Yes, we know. Berlin is hard to leave.
Many have moved here from other continents with good intentions: “Ooo, no more than a couple of hours to Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden? Hell yeah! Backpacking, here I-” and then they’re called out to the latest vernissage with free tea tastings followed by beer yoga (google it if you doubt me).
But there’s more to life than Spätis and Mauerpark. Sometimes we tend to forget that Berlin, half a day away from Cologne and Munich, is almost sitting on the Polish border. This makes it a mere three hours from Poznan: the cutest cafe town I’ve ever been to.
Now, what are your excuses? Time? Poznan can be done in a day, and you can easily work on the train. Money? A train ticket can cost 40-50 euros last minute without a Bahncard25 (i.e. 25% discount), and there are some buses that go there. Plus it’s 1 euro to 4 zloty, so your spending money is quadrupled. I probably spent no more than twenty euros for two and a half meals and a handful of hot drinks.
Plastic is the New Poo: Berlin Theatre gets its Hands Dirty
When things start going down the toilet, a family hires a Jessica to clean up.
Actors: Robert Beyer, Jenny König, Sebastian Schwarz, Marie Burchard; Photo: Arno Declair
Stück Plastik (A Piece of Plastic) is the Schaubühne state theatre’s latest excuse to break the fourth wall with food.
Nothing goes unmocked in this play. If you’re a character who’s lost all creativity and sensibility, you get spaghetti thrown at you. If you’re a character who thinks you haven’t lost it, you get spaghetti thrown at you. If you’re not a character and have paid 30 euros to sit in the first row, you get spaghetti thrown at you.
I think I’d go to see this play for the spaghetti-slinging alone, but that’s not why I came home raving about it. Continue reading “Plastic is the New Poo: Berlin Theatre gets its Hands Dirty”
Two and Two = 10/10 Cafe in Berlin
Maths isn’t my forte. Drinking coffee in nice cafés is.
Don’t ever big up a brunch place in Berlin. It’s as if they know you’re coming, and to prepare for your modest party of two they’ll hire hipsters & co. to strategically spread themselves across the five only tiny tables. This was my experience at Roamers, which deserves both its hype and its following. But that said I may have thanked God for gentrification in Neukölln – Two And Two was just around the corner. Continue reading “Two and Two = 10/10 Cafe in Berlin”
Yours for a euro
Paupers become book billionaires thanks to Tasso’s magic number.
Are you a student? A read-a-holic? A polymath – of course you are. Now read this sentence; you’ll never be the same again:
There is a cafe which sells books for one euro each. Continue reading “Yours for a euro”
A Small Wonder
House of Small Wonder is a little miracle in the big city.
When people visit and we’ve done the Brandenburg Gate, Museum Island, etc. and we’re trudging along Friedrichstrasse, there is one question that I dread above all other questions: know anywhere good to eat near here?
NO. No (I would think, sweating a storm and biting my lip), I did not know anywhere good to eat, unless you were happy wandering aimlessly until giving in to a döner, currywurst or burrito. Otherwise I’d persuade you to let me drag your rumbling tummy twenty minutes on the train to somewhere where there might be better, locally credible options. That was the fearful situation a few months ago. Then the miracle happened. Continue reading “A Small Wonder”
Simple is sweet
And I don’t mean in a let’s-get-back-to-our-coffee-roasting-roots kind of way.
Incidentally, Ako does do good coffee. And sweetly decorated notebooks. And soft padded stationery cases. And is a mini art gallery. And co-shares the space with a record shop and two cats. And does the best interpretation of the elusive British scone that I’ve tasted in Berlin – infused with Earl Grey or plain and always served like this: Continue reading “Simple is sweet”
Stooping to the steep
Berliners: don’t get too high and mighty about the TV Tower
Family resemblance?
After spending a total of 17 months in the city, I finally condescended to do the number one Berlin tourist activity: I went up the TV Tower.
There are more reasons that Berliners could give you for not going up the TV Tower than there are steps in the oversized thing: expensive ticket prices, expensive restaurant and bar menu, constantly busy with all the wrong people, you have to book miles in advance, there are so many other cheaper places to get a panorama of the city, it’s always there anyway so what’s the rush, etc. etc. with a few more snobby remarks for an extra bit of Berlin-born-and-bred superiority. Even Berliners-by-choice like me are so keen to be a part of the ‘authentic’ Berlin club, we’ll start saying these things without having ever set foot inside. Continue reading “Stooping to the steep”
Blah Blah Berlin 