restaurant Berlin

During our weekend in Berlin we went to restaurants and enjoyed the food scene. Berlin has very good restaurants, many specialize in Berlin or Brandenburg specialties like boulette (meat balls) or fish dishes like wild trout or smoked barbel, a Carp like fish or a fricasse of chicken served with crayfish. There are also more substantial foods, like stuffed oxtail simmered slowly in wine served with a sirloin steak and spring vegetables, Braised pork knuckle served with cabbage cooked in champagne. There is also the famous Curry wurst, spicy curry sausage invented in Berlin, you eat it with a pretzel and a glass of beer.
Lots of soups also on the menu, Beetroot with cream, creamy potato soup and Brotsuppe made from brown bread enriched with cream and served with crispy bacon and croutons.

Not to forget wonderful desserts, cakes and pastries. We really enjoyed them with a good coffee. Berlin has so much to offer, there are also the ethnic restaurants, Berlin has a very large and old Turkish population, who came to Germany in the last 50 years as guest workers and stayed on. Indians are also now a sizable population. Then you also have the Poles, Berlin is just a few kilometers from the Polish border, but Slav and Poles have lived in the Brandenburg region for 1000 years.
You will find a lot of Slavic influences in the food and many dishes are Polish.

We went with friends to one East Prussian restaurant, what is since 1945 the Russian enclave of Koenigsberg. The restaurant is at the Savigny Platz station on Mommsen Strasse 9. Marjellchen (pronounced Mar gel Ken) features typical heavy cuisine of eastern Poland and Eastern Prussia, Pomerania. Very good food for fall and winter, dishes of pork,beef and fish, lots of heavy soups with cream, you need a good appetite. I had a wonderful dish of chicken livers, the way I like them, sauté in a bit of wine. We also had appetizers to start beetroot soup with cream. Wonderful salads in between and a good white Riesling.

We also went to another restaurant which use to house the Trichter restaurant just around the corner from the Berliner Ensemble theatre where Bertold Brechts worked for so many years, he was often at Trichter, now it is redecorated and renamed Brechts (www.brechts.de), the food was wonderful. Love the decor also with its large windows on the Spree River by the Friedrich Strasse train station, wood panel and high ceiling, very nice service. I had venison, another favorite of mine.

For the pastries and cakes we went to the OpernPalais Cafe, Unter den Liden 5. It is located next to the Stadt Opera and inside what use to be the Crown Prince Palace. The selection of cakes and pastries makes your head spin, so beautiful and so much choice all fresh and rich.