Category Archives: Things We Ate

14Sep / 2014

Things We Ate – DDR Edition (day 7 post 2 of 2)

Spreewald Gherkins on crackers with herbed cheese called Quark
 

I decided this needed its own post, because while we are eating some awesome stuff (I had a super Belgian Waffle like food for breakfast today – the sugar was baked inside!) Nothing we eat in all of Europe is going to come close to today’s experience at the restaurant attached to the DDR museum (the museum of all things East Germany) the Domklause.

A bit of explanation about this place. The original Domklause served food in the DDR between 1979 and 1992. East German food was about what you can imagine during those years. Luxury foods and meats were scarce and the restaurants of the day needed to do the best with what was available from the DDR, the Soviet Union, and the brother nations like Bulgaria and Romania. Recipes well known to West Germans like Jagerschnitzel (pounded thin pork breaded and fried with a mushroom sauce) were entirely different in the DDR.

The new Domklause tries to recreate those dishes – part nostalgia and part history. How could I pass that up?!?

Starter course was the above pictured Spreewald Gherkins which were manufactured in the DDR and remain a favorite in Berlin. It’s a variety of pickles on crackers with something akin to a weird spreadable cheese like Alouette in the States.

Jim’s entree:

Kapernkochklopse!

They are Köningsberg meat dumplings served on rice with a caper sauce. Jim said it reminded him of his poor college days food: watered down cream of mushroom soup over rice. (No meat then) I tasted it and was glad I didn’t order it, it was wonderfully awful. It tasted like the DDR!

My entree: (and a secret message to Mike and Erika)


Chicken Parm!

No, it’s the aforementioned Jagerschitzel.

“But that doesn’t look like thin pounded pork with a mushroom sauce!” I hear you say.

Nope, not even. It’s sausages ground up and sausaged over again, into a patty, then breaded and fried. Then it’s serve over pasta in a generic tomato sauce. This was better than Jim’s dumplings but I would not call it fine dining by any stretch. But still, authenticity!

Dessert went a damn side better. Baked apples in a fried crust with a vanilla sauce with raspberries. Like apple fritters. Delicious even by the standards of today.

Overall the meal was incredibly awful. Jim’s went down better with a flagon of Berliner Bürgerbraü (Berlin Citizen’s Brew) which has been brewed in Berlin since 1969 and was very popular in the DDR. Jim said it tasted like many of the other pilsners he’s had. (And anyone who knows Jim knows he’s having a field day with the beers)

Dinner tonight was a very civilized room service meal that cost the EXACT SAME as it would have if we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant. No grand overcharging, no service charge, no room service food tax, and a more reasonable price than we expected from Berlin. It was a fine respite after an afternoon at the “naked man spa.”

That’s all from us for today. I hope you liked your twofer, don’t expect more of them.

Thus endeth week 1. It’s gone so fast already!

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

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13Sep / 2014

This Now Ends our Regular Broadcast Day

A burrito and a beer alongside the River Spree. Hell of a way to start a spin through Berlin.

Im posting tonight to tell you all I won’t be posting tonight. Not much of one, anyway. Today we took an excellent private tour with David (the weather held for us, thankfully) that is definitely a highlight of this trip. Problem is, afterward he joined us at the Augustiner for Schnitzel as big as my head and a few Bavarian pretzels and after that Jim and I walked up to the Brandenberg Gate again to see it at night and it’s now 11pm and we are just getting in.

On top of that, today is a difficult thing to quantify or put into words. The history of Berlin is so vast and so complex (even just the last 70 years of it) and in so many ways incredibly heart wrenching that I’m not sure how to express all that we saw without putting you through the same whipsaw emotional ride we took. (Also, late and beer.) So instead I’m going to give you some Europe is Weird, German Edition and try to take new stock tomorrow when we will be visiting the German History Museum and, likely either the Topography of Terror or the East Side Gallery.

So, on with the fun:

This thing seemed to follow us all over the place but this is the best shot I got of it. It is a bar, complete with taps that you sit at and pedal (every stool has a set of pedals) your way around the sights. So you drink your beer (no open container law here) and pedal to power it and the operator steers it from the back and (ostensibly) sober.

This guy tried to charge me €1.50 for a photo, so Jim took a picture from down the block with the digital zoom. He is cooking sausages on a grill he is wearing strapped over his shoulders. It’s a neat little concept called grill runner and if he wasn’t such a jerk about the picture we might have tried one. Behind him in the former East German uniform is a guy who for about €5 would put a fake East German visa stamp in your passport. Which doesn’t seem like such a good idea to me, but I’m not behaving like a crazy tourist. (We actually saw someone taking a picture while giving a ‘heil Hitler’ salute at the Brandenberg Gate this afternoon. I’m going to assume that she had no idea what this meant because I’m not sure I want to live in the same world as someone who did know and took that picture anyway – there is a reason why that gesture is illegal in Germany and if she were a citizen the Polizei who were on site in front of the American Embassy would have arrested her. They take that stuff seriously among their populace.)

 

So I promise a return to regular programming tomorrow. Until then, gute nacht everyone.

 

PS Secret Message for Marni (yes again. She is my sister, stop groaning)

 

Look what passes for street food in Berlin!

 

 

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