Vegetarian Berlin 2011 Trip Report

October 27, 2011 at 12:22 am (Trip report)

I know I haven’t yet posted anything about Japan, but I just got back from my second annual October trip to Berlin, and I want to write reviews of the restaurants we tried before the details fade away.  Compared to our 2010 Berlin trip, this time Derek and I veered towards fewer Asian restaurants and a few more American and European places.

Zosimo (Italian, Wilmersdorf, U-bahn Spichernstr.)

I first read about this “nuovo Siciliano” restaurant on the Exberliner website.  They included this restaurant in their “Best of 2010” list.  It also was in Prinz Magazin’s top 5 for 2012.  Derek loves fusion or “nuovo” cuisine, and as soon as he looked at the menu he wanted to go.

They started us off with some olive oil and simple, but very tasty, Italian bread.  I wish we could get such good Italian bread in Saarbruecken!

I started with a simple salad of seasonal vegetables.  It was wonderful.  Definitely the best salad I’ve had in a restaurant in a long time. The salad was full of vegetables and all of them were perfectly fresh.  The tomato wedges were the weakest.  They weren’t mealy, and had a little flavor, but I would still say just leave them out.  The fennel, on the other hand, was extremely flavorful, and there were some slices of a white, silky smooth vegetable that didn’t taste like much, but added an interesting texture.  I had no idea what it was.  My only guess was hearts of palm, but it wasn’t quite fibrous enough.  Derek thought it was cucumber.  There were cucumbers in the salad, but this vegetable was clearly not a cucumber. The waiter guessed celery root, but it didn’t taste like celery and the texture wasn’t fibrous at all.  Finally as we were leaving the waiter asked the chef. He didn’t know the English name so he came out of the kitchen carrying a baby turnip to show us.  Wow, I never knew raw baby turnip was so nice in a salad! The dressing on the salad was also nice–quite vinegary and not too oily.   Derek started with some kind of strange salmon appetizer (with almonds, hazelnut nougat, spinach, celeriac, seaweed, nori chips, black sesame, sour cream…)  He loved it.

For my main dish I decided to pass on the lemon-pistachio pesto. Instead I got the more unusual sounding tagliatelle with truffles and a beet sauce.   I was hoping it would be reminiscent of the beet pasta I had at Babbo in New York, but it wasn’t nearly as tasty.  There was lots of red beet sauce but I found the beet flavor quite understated.  Despite the profusion of truffle slices covering the pasta, I couldn’t really taste the truffles at all.  Derek liked the dish a lot, however.  He said he could taste both the beets and truffles quite clearly.  For his main dish Derek got papardelle with lamb ragout, which he said was okay but not as good as my dish and not nearly as good as his appetizer.

For dessert we shared a Zabaione, which was a warm creamy eggy concoction served in a wine glass.  It tasted reasonably light and not too sweet.  It made a nice end to the meal.

The atmosphere was pleasant, although when we first arrived there was not-very-pleasant smell emitting from the bathroom near our table.  The service was friendly but pretty inattentive.  It probably didn’t help that we sitting all the way in the back of the restaurant and there was a party of 10 at the front that was taking a lot of the server’s time.  Both waiters spoke excellent English, but tended to switch back to German to explain the wine and other details.

Even though I didn’t like my main dish that much, my salad was tasty enough that I’d give the restaurant another try.

Little Otik (Locavore American, Kreuzberg, U-bahn Schönleinstr.)

[Note that Little Otik is now closed.] Derek found this restaurant on some list of trendy restaurants in Berlin.  The owners are two Americans, and the place feels very American. Everyone there was speaking English and the waiters seemed American not German.  Derek calls this type of restaurant “nouvo rustic.”  The food is mostly simple, hearty, “back to basics” fare, made with seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.

We went for a late dinner with friends and ended up sharing a large fraction of the dishes on the menu.  Every stage of the meal had some very tasty (and some not so tasty) things to offer.  We tried two “snacks” to start.  The radishes with butter was really just a plate of halved radishes with a side of butter.  I like radishes, but I didn’t get much out of it. Nobody else did either. The brown sugar and sweet paprika roasted almonds, on the other hand, were excellent. I wish I could make candied nuts with such well-balanced flavors, and that were so non-sticky!

Between the four of us we tried three of the five starters.  The crostini with pumpkin butter, ricotta, and kale were quite tasty, but I thought they needed more kale, more garlic in the kale, and more spices in the pumpkin butter.  The  (homemade?) ricotta, however, was perfect.   I didn’t care for the salad of beets, hard boiled egg, postelein (a leafy green), and aioli.  I really like beets and egg together, but the components were all set separately on the plate and I could never seem to compose a bite that combined all the flavors well.  I would have preferred it if they had tossed everything together first.  Derek disagrees.  He liked the dish, more than the crostini.  My favorite starter by far was he cabbage and leek soup with croutons and gruyere.  I loved the caraway seeds in the croutons and the gruyere added a really nice, funky note.  Derek said it tasted like a perfect version of a vegetarian onion soup without the beef.

There was only one vegetarian main dish, which we shared.  It was really good though, so I regretted that we didn’t order two!  The dish was an eggy corn pudding on top of a pile of sauteed brussels sprout leaves.  The corn pudding was topped with a thick layer of green tomato chutney and on top of everything was a pile of onion rings.  My favorite component was the brussels sprouts.  They were perfectly seasoned and cooked–I just wished there were way more of them.  The corn pudding had great corn flavor and a perfect consistency, and was complemented nicely by the quite sweet (but not very sour) green tomato chutney.  But the ratio of chutney to pudding was off I thought.  There should have been less chutney and more sprouts.  The onion rings added a nice crunch but were unnecessary.  Derek had some house-made venison sausages with lentils and chard.  He said it was fine but nothing too special, although it had a strangely “earthy” smell.  A bit too earthy perhaps.

We also ordered all four of the sides to share.  Derek loved the jerusalem artichokes with rosemary, but I thought they tasted almost like potatoes.  The parsnips cooked in cream were decadent, as one would expect.  The green salad was uninteresting and the dressing was too oily for me.  The sauteed mustard greens were not memorable.  They weren’t bitter at all but didn’t have much distinctive flavor.

We finished the meal with four desserts.  The baked apple was quite small but nicely seasoned, although I couldn’t detect any hazelnuts in the hazelnut ice cream on the side.    Derek and I loved the flourless chocolate cake: it tasted like a really rich brownie.  I’m not usually a pumpkin pie fan but I really liked the pumpkin chocolate tart.  The chocolate was pretty discrete–just a very thin layer on top of the pumpkin.  But the pumpkin part had a very delicate texture, and the spices were prominent but still gentle.  The only dessert none of us liked was the chimneysweep’s ice cream, which turned out to be ice cream in a bath of some kind of liqueur, topped with some crumbly stuff resembling dirt.  The ice cream wasn’t interesting and there was too much alcohol, even for Derek.

The ambience was pretty bare bones, and the noise level was a little high for me, but not enough to spoil the meal.  The prices are perhaps a little high for Berlin, but considering the local angle they seemed acceptable.  The service was extremely slow. (It was the only part of the restaurant that didn’t feel American.) All in all, it was an interesting restaurant with a number of good vegetarian options, and we’d definitely be happy to return.

Cookies Cream (Vegetarian gourmet, Mitte, U-bahn Französische Str.)

We read about Cookies Cream, a trendy-seeming vegetarian restaurant, last year.  But the reviews were very mixed, and we were worried that it was popular more because it was trendy than because the food was good.  But this year we decided to just give it a try.

You can order a la carte, but you get a slight discount if you order three courses–a starter, a main dish, and a dessert.  I started with the poached “beetroot egg” on beetroot chutney, with spinach cream, vegetarian caviar, and “crispy blade” (whatever that is).  The “beetroot egg” turned out to be an egg poached in a cube-shaped cast, dyed red with beet juice.  The “caviar” (some kind of seaweed, I think) looked nice but had no detectable flavor.  Other than that, I liked the dish — it was certainly more successful than the beet salad at Little Otik.  Derek ordered the Vacherin Mont d’Or baked in filo pastry served with Jerusalem artichokes, truffle vinaigrette, and “pepper pear”.  The cheese tasted as you’d expect, but the rest of the plate was totally original — I couldn’t detect any of the listed components, but the combination was amazing.  Derek was not as blown away as I was, but he thought the dish as a whole worked very well.

For my main course, I ordered the “elder pearl barley on peas’ pudding” served with marinated fennel, pepper cranberry sauce, and “cress”.  It was edible, but not good.  The peas’ pudding tasted kind of liked mashed-up overcooked peas.  The pudding was topped with a thin layer of pearl barley died red with elderflowers (berries?).  The barley had a nice texture but essentially no taste.  The marinated fennel was also tasteless.  The only thing I liked was the pepper cranberry sauce, which was a mere thin stripe on the plate.

I liked Derek’s main course much better.  He got the parmesan dumplings with coriander carrots served in a lemon sauce.  The carrots were nothing to write home about, but I really liked the flavor and texture of the parmesan dumplings (kind of like a very rich, very light cheesy matzoh ball), and the combination with the lemon sauce was marvelous.

For dessert, Derek ordered the “Latte Macchiato Tartlet”, with pickled plums, white coffee ice cream, and cocoa bean.  This dish was not as advertised.  It was more like something you’d expect at a decent conference buffet.  My dessert, the Chocolate Fondant (molten chocolate cake) with blueberry sorbet, was also not very original but much tastier.  I really liked the combination of chocolate and blueberries, I’m going to try this at home.

The atmosphere was much like that of a “pop-up” restaurant, according to Derek.  Exposed brick walls, candle light, oddly dressed waiters, strange entranceway (in a back alley near the dumpsters).  The whole place reeked of excessive trendiness.  But it was fine, and didn’t bother us.

Overall, there was enough really interesting dishes that I would definitely return.  The variance was high, and the prices aren’t cheap (at least for Berlin), but the chef was clearly making an effort to do something different.  Next time, however, I won’t order anything vegan, as the one vegan dish we ordered was the dud of the evening.

Postscript: This restaurant has the most annoying website I’ve seen in a long time.  They won’t let you download the menu until you enter an e-mail address, and to even get that far takes ten clicks as they cycle through various stupid photos of trendy girls trying to find the trendy restaurant in the back alley.  Whoever designed this website should be forced to eat elder pearl barley on overcooked peas pudding for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Buddha Republic (Indian Tandoori, Charlottenberg, U-bahn Ernst-Reuter-Platz)

I read a number of blog posts about this new Indian restaurant.  All of them said that in a city full of tasteless Indian food, this is one of the standouts.   It was even in ExBerliner’s 2010 list of top Berlin restaurants.

They started us with some complimentary papadams served with a tamarind chutney and a yogurt chutney.  The chutneys were very basic. The tamarind tasted like pure tamarind paste without anything else added (except a few sesame seeds on top).  The yogurt tasted like plain yogurt with maybe a little salt.   Both were simple but tasty.

We didn’t order any appetizers, but Derek graciously ordered a vegetarian main dish so that we could share.  He got the paneer tandoori, which was a long skewer stuck with large rectangles of homemade paneer cheese and various vegetables.  The cheese and vegetables had been marinated in a spicy tandoori paste, and then the skewer was inserted into the tandoori oven to cook.  The cheese (which was made from cream) was very tasty, and the marinade was nicely spiced but simply too salty for me.  The veggies tasted like grilled veggies coated with tandoori spices (and salt).  They were all tasty except for the potato chunk which was undercooked.  The tandoori plate came with a salad (mostly iceberg lettuce with a not-very-Indian-tasting balsamic vinaigrette) and a creamy curry sauce, which was good, but seemed to drown out the tandoori marinade.  Derek admittied the marinade was too salty, but still loved both the curry sauce and the paneer.

I ordered the vegetarian thali.  It came with three dishes:  palak paneer, a dal dish, and a mixed vegetable korma.  Although none of them tasted really bad, I didn’t care for any of them.  The spinach didn’t taste anything like spinach and it took me a while to figure out which one was the dal!  They all had lots of fat and spices (fennel or anise was especially predominant in the dal), but they just didn’t taste good–I don’t know why.  Derek didn’t like them much either.  Maybe the balance of spices was off?  Not enough salt?

We thought the tandoori dish came with naan, but the waitress only brought us basmati rice.  We asked and she said that the dish comes with *either* naan or rice.  But she graciously brought us a piece of naan.  It was thinner and crispier than the typical naan, but otherwise not that exciting.

Personally I wouldn’t go back to Buddha Republic, but Derek said he’d go back just for the tandoori paneer, and maybe to try some of the non-vegetarian tandoori dishes.

Mr. Hai and Friends (Vietnamese, Charlottenberg, U-bahn Uhlandstr.)

I was craving Asian food and found this well-reviewed place nearby.  Derek said he had been there before and gotten the pho, and it wasn’t good.  But he never likes pho so I said we should try it again.  It turned out I should have listened to Derek.  The food was mediocre to bad.

We shared a vegetarian green papaya salad to start. It was okay, but tasted somehow… sterile. It had the requisite sweet and sour sauce, and some chopped peanuts, and some herbs, but it didn’t come close to the best papaya salad I’ve had. It needed some more depth of flavor. And although it didn’t look oily it left my face feely quite greasy.

For my main dish I ordered a vegetarian pho. I was expecting a broth with cinnamon and anise, or some spices, but the broth tasted simply like salt water. In the salt water were lots of noodles, a few pieces of raw tofu, and a handful of vegetables. And almost no herbs! I was expecting a plate of herbs, limes, bean sprouts, etc. But the soup came alone. I asked for some chili sauce to give it some flavor, and the waitress brought a trio of sauces, two red and one brown (tamarind??). After adding these sauces the soup was edible but still not very good.

Derek ordered a beef stir fry. He said the sauce tasted like generic chinese sauce, not vietnamese at all. The menu said it had lemongrass and other south asian ingredients, but he couldn’t taste any of them.

The only thing we really liked was the artichoke tea we ordered. it just came from a teabag, but it tasted just like artichokes!

We weren’t too concerned with the ambience, but the decor made the place feel like a chain restaurant. I was excited about the open kitchen. I wanted to see the chefs cook our food, but we only saw them make the stir-fry. The salad had already been made I think, and the salt water (ahem, soup) just appeared without us seeing them making anything.

I feel like this quote from a Tripadvisor (translated from the German) review sums it up pretty well: “Where are the fresh herbs, the subtle gradations of sharpness, acidity and sweetness. One has the feeling that everything is ready and just wants to be quickly thrown into the wok, a microwave oven or the fryer. Mr. Hai is an insult to the Vietnamese cuisine!”

Amrit (Indian, Schöneberg, U-bahn Nollendorfplatz)

This place was packed two days in a row and the food looked good through the window.  It got pretty good reviews on Tripadvisor, so when I was in the neighborhood for lunch I decided to try one of their lunch specials, which consists of a main dish along with a bowl of soup and a salad.

When I sat down they gave me a plate of four papadum (for one person!) They were extremely salty and (somewhat unusually) a bit spicy.  I liked them, but I missed having some kind of chutney to dip them into.  Next they brought me a bowl of tomato soup and some naan. The soup was very rich with some Indian spices and A LOT of salt. Not exciting, but not the worst tomato soup I’ve had. At least it wasn’t overly sweet. The naan was fine but unexciting.

The main dish (alu ghobi) and a salad came last. The alu ghobi looked very oily but flavorful… until I put the first bite in my mouth. I couldn’t taste anything! Maybe a teensy amount of tomato sauce? Really, the dish had absolutely no flavor. I have no idea how they managed to create such a bland dish. I ate a little of it over the (fine, but not great) basmati rice. Then I ate the salad which was edible. The best part of the meal (by far) was the slice of orange in the salad.

The amount of food for 4.50 euros was shocking. Even if the food had been good I wouldn’t have been able to come close to finishing it all. I would have had enough with the tomato soup, one papadam, and the salad. The curry, rice, and naan would have served another 1-2 people!

Other places

On the way to watch Melancholia at the Odeon movie theater, we stopped at Cafe Bilderbuch for a coffee.  The coffee was okay, but not great.  The back room, however, was both cozy and lively.  It would be a great place to meet up with a bunch of friends.  In addition to our coffee, Derek and I ordered  a slice of apple strudel to share.  Other than the elaborate presentation (with whipped cream, ice cream, and lots of different fruits) the strudel was forgettable.

Baraka (Egyptian/Moroccan, Kreuzberg, U-bahn Görlitzer Bahnhof):  We ate dinner here with some newly discovered cousins who live in Berlin.  The restaurant is supposed to be Egyptian/Moroccan, but the menu seemed to include a lot of dishes from other parts of the Mideast as well.  I ordered a basic “Teller” with falafel, hummus, and a salad.  The falafel was nicely crisp and the rest of the food was fine, but unremarkable.  Derek also got a “teller” but his had some kind of meat on it and fried halloumi cheese.  He also got a small bowl of Malochia soup.  Malochia is apparently some kind of leafy green.  I didn’t care for the somewhat gelatious consistency of the soup, or the taste, but Derek thought it was just fine.  Derek got a spiced tea, but I tasted it after it had been steeping quite a while, and it was too strong for me.  I ordered a drink made out of guava juice and some kind of succulent (I think).  I enjoyed it.  Overall, although the food didn’t excite us that much, we had a fun time hanging out with my newfound cousins.

Pizza by the slice near Nollendorfplatz:  I tried a slice of pizza from both Dolce Pizza and Nola pizza, both of which are Imbiss-style pizza places very close to the Nollendorfplatz U-bhan stop. The Nola pizza had a nice crispy crust, and the veggies were very fresh tasting, but none of the components were that flavorful.  I liked the crust and sauce on the Dolce Pizza a bit better.  But I thought that both places should heat the pizza up a bit more.  Derek really liked the slices from Dolce pizza, especially the slice topped in fresh arugula and strips of some kind of hard cheese that didn’t melt.

Update April 2014:

Cookie’s Cream: We went back to Cookie’s Cream this trip with Derek’s parents. Derek’s mom got a very light fennel salad with comte and pear, which was beautiful to look at, but rather bland. Derek and I shared two dishes. The first was a cooked chicory (a mix of Belgian endive and curly endive). I loved it. It had a great mixture of textures and flavors. It was my favorite dish of the night. The other dish was a quail’s egg in brioche on top of port wine shallots. It was rich and salty and so tasty, but not nearly as interesting as the endive. For my main dish I ordered the parmesan dumplings, since I had liked them so much last time. This time, however, they weren’t served with the lovely lemon sauce. I still enjoyed the light-as-air super savory dumplings, but the dish as a whole was better last time. Derek ordered the cauliflower with wild garlic pesto. The two parts of the dish came in separate bowls, and I didn’t care for either of them, but Derek and his mom both liked his dish a lot. Derek’s mom ordered a version of the dish I ordered last time—barley cooked in elderberries on top of pea puree, served with turnips. It was different than my dish last time, but still not that interesting. And it wasn’t hot. Derek’s father ordered an eggplant dish which I didn’t try, but I did taste his green beans, which I really enjoyed. Like last time, the desserts were acceptable but not great. They definitely need a new pastry chef. Overall I had a similar feeling as last time. They’re trying, and some things work, while others don’t. I’d go back again, but next time I’d skip dessert.

Dolores: We had lunch twice at this Cali-Mex burrito joint. The first time Derek and I shared two dishes. One was the “vegan lover” burrito bowl, which came with black beans, smoky corn “soy meat”, smoky peanut salsa, lettuce, mexican rice, and guacamole. It was a huge plate of food for 6.50 euros, and the bowl came topped with a big pile of corn chips. The corn chips were tasty but very greasy. They must have their fryer set too cold. Derek and I both liked the bowl, but about halfway through it started seeming quite rich and salty and heavy. I wish the bowl had more light, crunchy, fresh ingredients in it. We also ordered soft tacos, which were three small corn tortillas filled with pinto beans, pink marinated onions, grated cheese, and habanero salsa. The corn tortillas became soggy immediately, and were kind of unappetizing. The beans were good, but I didn’t care for the onions. Overall it wasn’t my favorite dish. Afterwards I felt like I had eaten about a cup of salt and 10-million calories. My lips felt burned and I felt super fat and desperately thirsty all day. My lips still hurt when I woke up the next morning. But Derek’s parents really enjoyed their burrito bowls (maybe their combo was less salty?), and so we went back again for lunch the next day. The second timeI ordered a potato, savoy cabbage soup and a glass of beet/apple/ginger/carrot juice. The soup was salty but tasty (and much smaller than a burrito bowl) and the juice was refreshing and not too sweet. I felt much better afterwards, even though I did eat some of Derek’s vegan lover bowl.

Lokal: This is a small restaurant that tries to use local and sustainable ingredients as much as possible. Thus, not surprisingly, I started with an asparagus appetizer. It had lots of different cuts of asparagus and other greens and spring vegetables. I enjoyed all the different textures and flavors. Yum. I’d definitely order the salad again. For my main dish I had a choice between a pasta with spring vegetables and a baked brie. I wasn’t really in the mood for a big block of cheese so I ordered the pasta. The pasta was a quite wide noodle that seemed to be homemade, but unfortunately wasn’t al dente at all. I didn’t care for the over-soft noodles and there were surprisingly few vegetables in my dish. The whole dish tasted fine but was very one note and boring. I was pretty disappointed. The dessert was better. Derek ordered a cheesecake that seemed to be made from a real cheese with lots of flavor, not crappy Philadelphia cream cheese. The balance of the sweet and sour of the cheesecake with the sour rhubarb compote was wonderful.

Katz Orange: We had our last dinner at Katz Orange, a more upscale Slow Food restaurant. Derek and his father both started with a cauliflower flan appetizer. The flan itself wasn’t so cauliflower-y or memorable but all the random little piles of things on the plate were absolutely delicious. I don’t know what they were but they worked wonderfully together. Derek’s mom and I just ordered a side salad, which was just greens with some kind of crunchy things (fried onions?) on top, but again it was very tasty. For my main dish I ordered the potato-lime Rösti, which was basically a big slab of potato pancake but with lime. The Rösti itself wasn’t so exciting but the addition of lime was a great idea. It was subtle but really helped balance out the salt/oil of the potatoes. My dish also came with pieces of Romanesco and shiitake mushrooms and some mixed wild greens. The Romanesco was perfectly cooked and delicious. I could have easily eaten a whole bowl of the Romanesco. The shiitakes were tasty but very, very salty, so I gave most of them to Derek. The mixed greens were kind of furry and generally unrecognizable—perhaps weeds of some sort? In any case, they tasted fine. Overall my main dish was not nearly as good as Derek’s vegetarian appetizer, but it was much better than my pasta dish the previous night.

Chipps: On our last day in Berlin we had lunch at Chipps. Since it was a holiday they were serving brunch instead of lunch. Derek’s parents both ordered big salads and Derek got the “Green Horn,” an open-faced avocado sandwich, which consisted of two slices of bread drowned in a mountain of avocado. It must have been at least two avocados worth. The avocado was a mix of diced avocado and avocado mashed with cilantro, but it wasn’t seasoned otherwise. Derek kept putting on more and more salt and pepper. I ordered the “Double Vision” breakfast plate with two fried eggs, vegan breakfast “sausages”, toast, and a salad. I enjoyed my dish, especially with some of Derek’s avocado chunks on top. Overall I wasn’t terribly excited about Chipps, but it was fine. I’d certainly return if it was in Saarbruecken.

West Berlin: We had breakfast one morning at this cute-looking cafe near our hotel. Derek and I shared a quiche and a “soldier’s” cookie. The quiche was tasty but very, very rich. I was expecting something like my own “quiche” and forgot how rich quiche can be. I’m glad we shared it. The cookie was an oat cookie that was supposed to be modelled on what the German soldier’s ate during World War II, but it was extremely sweet. I can’t believe that the soldier’s would have had so much sugar available during the war. I ordered a cappuccino, which I didn’t like at all. I’m not sure why, but the combo of the rich quiche and sweet cookie and slightly sour coffee made me feel a bit ill.