I have a very good Berlin guide book with me on this trip, and I have no hesitation in recommending the Time Out city guide (ISBN 978184670057-6); I will certainly want to buy others in the series from now on.
So this faith was again borne out last night in my (its) choice of restaurant. It's rather wonderful when you discover that somewhere you really like the look of on the page, turns out to be just round the corner. And so it was with The Bird. But first, I need to tell you a story ...
I'm sorry this is another of those stories that starts "When I lived in East Berlin ..." Look, it's somewhat inevitable that I know and relate the now to the history.
Anyway, having lived a sheltered childhood in Paris and rural England, I arrived in Berlin for my first summer holiday with very little practical understanding of Americans and their ways. I'd also never eaten a hamburger. Now during that holiday I discovered, sometimes with a colleague of my Dad's called Jim Brown and his family who had just come from a posting in Washington as Americanophiles complete with exported Pontiac Trans-Am ... so, as I was saying, it was with the Browns that I first discovered ten-pin bowling, Coca-Cola, and hamburgers in the American Air Force base at Tempelhof.
Now the British Officers' Club was a posh place, and the French one was, well, very French. But the Americans had what was basically a hamburger joint, and I loved it. Real US-style burgers and French Fries, Coke The Real Thing (the American stuff does taste different ...). It was all a revelation.
Steve reminded me the other day that I have a habit of demanding, when we are abroad, that we don't eat, say, Chinese food in Paris, or steak and chips in Spain, that we should eat the local food styles. I think I may be wrong about this, or at least I would like to modify this rule. In the great international cities of the world, there is a melting-pot of people, and cuisines. Who wouldn't want to eat Italian in New York? Or Caribbean in London? Or Chinese in Toronto? Or, as it turns out, New York burgers in Berlin?
And so we have come full circle. As an inveterate avoider of hamburgers and generally all things beginning with 'Mac', I enjoyed a wonderfully meaty, medium-rare, thick, cheese-covered, flame-scorched burger, and crisp irregular fries, along with half a litre of German beer, perched at the bar in a noisy, crowded, lively, happy burger joint, five minutes walk from where I'm staying. It was a million miles from a bland worldwide food franchise, and it was wonderful! Oh, and it's run by Americans: big, warm, friendly, have-a-nice-day Yanks, who speak little if any German. If you're in Berlin, especially if you're in Prenz'lberg, get yourself to Falk-Platz at the western end of Gleimstrasse. And if you don't really want to take a chance there'll be a table or even a place at the bar, you'd better book. They only take cash.
Today I'm going to spend quietly. I'm off for a walk around the bits of the Bezirke (borough) I haven't seen yet, including a museum, (and maybe wander as far as the next, Friedrichshain); I'm determined to get a currywurst from the hottest Imbiss in Berlin, which happens to be just down the road; and later on I'd like to find a cosy local café, and then maybe a cosy local bar, to sit and do some writing.
So this faith was again borne out last night in my (its) choice of restaurant. It's rather wonderful when you discover that somewhere you really like the look of on the page, turns out to be just round the corner. And so it was with The Bird. But first, I need to tell you a story ...
I'm sorry this is another of those stories that starts "When I lived in East Berlin ..." Look, it's somewhat inevitable that I know and relate the now to the history.
Anyway, having lived a sheltered childhood in Paris and rural England, I arrived in Berlin for my first summer holiday with very little practical understanding of Americans and their ways. I'd also never eaten a hamburger. Now during that holiday I discovered, sometimes with a colleague of my Dad's called Jim Brown and his family who had just come from a posting in Washington as Americanophiles complete with exported Pontiac Trans-Am ... so, as I was saying, it was with the Browns that I first discovered ten-pin bowling, Coca-Cola, and hamburgers in the American Air Force base at Tempelhof.
Now the British Officers' Club was a posh place, and the French one was, well, very French. But the Americans had what was basically a hamburger joint, and I loved it. Real US-style burgers and French Fries, Coke The Real Thing (the American stuff does taste different ...). It was all a revelation.
Steve reminded me the other day that I have a habit of demanding, when we are abroad, that we don't eat, say, Chinese food in Paris, or steak and chips in Spain, that we should eat the local food styles. I think I may be wrong about this, or at least I would like to modify this rule. In the great international cities of the world, there is a melting-pot of people, and cuisines. Who wouldn't want to eat Italian in New York? Or Caribbean in London? Or Chinese in Toronto? Or, as it turns out, New York burgers in Berlin?
And so we have come full circle. As an inveterate avoider of hamburgers and generally all things beginning with 'Mac', I enjoyed a wonderfully meaty, medium-rare, thick, cheese-covered, flame-scorched burger, and crisp irregular fries, along with half a litre of German beer, perched at the bar in a noisy, crowded, lively, happy burger joint, five minutes walk from where I'm staying. It was a million miles from a bland worldwide food franchise, and it was wonderful! Oh, and it's run by Americans: big, warm, friendly, have-a-nice-day Yanks, who speak little if any German. If you're in Berlin, especially if you're in Prenz'lberg, get yourself to Falk-Platz at the western end of Gleimstrasse. And if you don't really want to take a chance there'll be a table or even a place at the bar, you'd better book. They only take cash.
Today I'm going to spend quietly. I'm off for a walk around the bits of the Bezirke (borough) I haven't seen yet, including a museum, (and maybe wander as far as the next, Friedrichshain); I'm determined to get a currywurst from the hottest Imbiss in Berlin, which happens to be just down the road; and later on I'd like to find a cosy local café, and then maybe a cosy local bar, to sit and do some writing.
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