Unexpected Places

You can often find delicious food in the most unexpected places. Today, it was a crispy tofu burger at a tiny, sign-less, stand housed in what was formerly a public bathroom under the subway tracks.

Burgermeister offers a tofu burger with mango curry sauce, in addition to a variety of incredible-looking bacon-topped concoctions, so we ordered two of them once we squeezed inside the little space.

The windows were artfully decorated with band stickers.

After a ten minute wait fraught with hunger and anticipation, our number appeared and we gathered our piping hot, fresh-out-of-the-deep-fryer tofu burgers.

The "burger" itself was not particularly exciting - a plain slab of fried tofu - but it did have a wonderful crispiness, which was unexpected but delightful in a burger. The obligatory tomato, lettuce, and red onion helped round things out, and the bun, ultra-soft and fried to a golden brown on the inner sides, was perfect. Topped with a squirt of the sweet mango sauce on top, anchored with a dollop of mayonnaise, and slathered in ketchup, it was pretty tasty.

And undoubtedly the best thing ever to come out of a train station bathroom.

Christmas Treats

In just the first few days here, I've seen all sorts of pastries and confections: candied nuts, fruit and cream cheese concoctions, giant swirled spice rolls, and chocolates (in a two-story chocolate story complete with a chocolate volcano oozing molten chocolate lava).

This morning we tried a traditional German Christmas bread called Stollen, a sweet yeasted dough filled with dried fruit and marzipan and covered with powdered sugar.

Wes wasn't a huge fan, but I liked it. It was cirtrusy and sweet with a creamy almond paste filling.

Perfect with a little black coffee, as Sylvie knows.

I also had an unintentional but delicious glass of blood orange juice

We were at a coffee shop to use the internet, so I was trying to order something other than coffee, but there were no menus. There was a basket of oranges on the counter, so I picked one up and said, in the best German I could manage, "Ich möchte diese bitte," (I'd like this please). The older Turkish man running the shop laughed, took the orange from me, put it back in the basket, and disappeared with both. I thought perhaps I'd made some faux pas so serious as to necessitate removing the oranges entirely from view, but he returned a few minutes later with a tall glass of deep pink orange juice.

First Days

The first few days in Berlin have been great! Compared to Minneapolis, it's hot: 40's! We've even had some sun. My favorite thing we've done so far is visiting a Christmas market - wonderful little villages of Christmas-themed food stands and shops that pop up from mid-November to the end of December.

We ate one of the most delicious street foods I've ever had: small red potatoes are peeled and boiled until tender, then fried in butter and spices until golden brown. A little basket of them is topped with molten Raclette cheese, scraped off the top of a large wheel being heated under a flame until it is bubbling. This is topped off with another shake from the spice jar and handed to you, steaming hot. So good! It's hard to get any better than melted cheese and some form of starch to carry it.

Another classic German street food: pretzels!

We grabbed one for a euro on our way to see the Holocaust memorial

and the Berlin Dom Cathedral.

We saw an amazing sunset from the top!