is Berlin any good?

[iamcoop]

Don't accidentally passively smoke heroin in a public toilet before you go for a romantic meal with your partner like I did last time I was there. That's my tip.

[touchingcloth]

One of my favourite cities in the world but unfortunately absolutely shit for food.

Dogshit for food.

That said, if you like sausages and potatoes and bread/things fried in breadcrumbs then you'll be happy, it's just not particularly dissimilar from British cuisine.

I've got friends who live in Frankfurt and I've had amazing food there, but always Asian, Italian, or Middle Eastern. Berlin has these options, but cheap regional food tends to focus on quantity rather than quality - the food of cold climate farmers. I ordered a pork knuckle in a bierkeller after being impressed with one brought to a nearby table, but after the first couple of mouthfuls it turned into a chore of gobbling through a gammon the size of my head.

I'd love to be wrong on this and know what regional delicacies I've missed that I could try next time, though.

[badaids]

That said, if you like sausages and potatoes and bread/things fried in breadcrumbs then you'll be happy.

This sounds pure amazing to be honest, for a few days anyway.

[touchingcloth]

This sounds pure amazing to be honest, for a few days anyway.

Yeah, if you opened up Deliveroo and a new category of "Christmas Market food" appeared then you'd be crazy if you didn't order from there and you'd be crazy if you ordered from there more than twice a year tops.

[iamcoop]

Also maybe I've been going to the wrong places all the time but every time I've been it's been quite difficult to find any cool bars that are non-smoking in the evening so maybe worth being mindful of if that's not your bag.

I absolutely fucking LOVE tabs so it's fine for me but the last time we were there my partner was pregnant and it became a bit of a hassle trying to get in anywhere that wasn't absolutely hot-boxed past 7pm.

[shoulders]

Sorry that includes flights over and back and it's 4*. Not bothered about the 4* but like the idea of walking out the hotel front door and being in the thick of it.

There are a lot of centres in districts of Berlin that are in the thick of it, so to speak.

It's completely unnecessary to be by the Reichstag or Brandenburg gate or Alexanderplatz, a bit like London there are many centres and it is all extremely well connected. Hell, I was out near the airport last time and it didn't matter.

€500 for two nights even with flights sounds unnecessary. If you get a 3* for £180 then you'll have more spending money to do with as you wish.

[shoulders]

I must say I disagree about the expensive booze, Berlin is much cheaper than Munich, Hamburg, Cologne and Dusseldorf for that, god at the bottom end I was still able to find basic beer for under €3 / 0.5l in Neukolln.

[kngen]

Dogshit for food.

Amazing Turkish food in Kreuzberg. Also the bratwurst you get from those fellas that are literally walking around wearing a grill strapped to their front are pretty fucking good, too. Thinking about getting one to go hiking with. That'd show those North Face-wearing ponces with their protein bars.

[iamcoop]

Me and my partner got what was essentially a tiny flat with a small bathroom and kitchen in the heart of Kreuzberg for about €45 per night last time we were there. You should be able to find decent accommodation in decent areas for way less than what you're prepared to pay at the moment, especially if you're only going for a few days.

It's cheap there but not that cheap and every little helps.

I'd suggest that's all you need if you're out and about all the time anyway.

[touchingcloth]

Amazing Turkish food in Kreuzberg. Also the bratwurst you get from those fellas that are literally walking around wearing a grill strapped to their front are pretty fucking good, too.

No disagreements here, but you can get amazing Turkish food in most capital cities in the world. Germany is one place where besides getting a sausage and a pretzel, there's not much local that excites me. It's not one of those countries where there's an exciting range of different foods or where I'm interested in finding out who's got the best hot dog, because like with fish and chips the difference between worst and best is pretty narrow.

That said, you can get incredible kebabs in Germany and they've been adjusted to local tastes, so there's probably a case to be made for them as German cuisine in the same way as a BIR curry is a British dish.

[Cleveland Steamer]

x

[chutnut]

S&M rubberwear isn't my thing.

Typical English

[iamcoop]

It's the best city in the world if you like looking at men that have two little keys hanging from their belt loop.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

It's the best city in the world if you want to meet English men in Benny from Crossroads hats

[SetToStun]

Pergamon museum. Contains the Ishtar Gate and the market gate of Miletus (home of Anaximander), amongst a great deal else.

DDR museum. Small and fun.

The Pergamon was shut for a long-term refurb when we were over there in December - apparently still closed now. Not sure when it opens again but it might not be for a while.

The DDR museum had been improved with some interactive bits added and the whole thing spruced up, but I think the price had gone up correspondingly - we paid something like €18 each, but we were walk-ups; it's something like €13 if you book up front and you can get bigger discounts sometimes although I haven't a clue how.

A few years ago we did get into the National Museum dead cheap by (accidentally, honest) wandering into the "academics and students" entrance. We assumed it must be a tiny place as it was only something like €5 each. It was massive and absolutely brilliant.

[SetToStun]

If there's a better simultaneous demonstration of Germans' terrible food and toilet idiosyncrasies that weisswurst then I'm not aware of it.

Spoiler alert

[close]

If you order those in the posh place near the red town hall do *not* let the waiter catch you eating them with the skins still on. You'd think we'd brutally violated his mother the way he went on about it.

[touchingcloth]

If you order those in the posh place near the red town hall do *not* let the waiter catch you eating them with the skins still on. You'd think we'd brutally violated his mother the way he went on about it.

I'd have done this deliberately if I'd have known as retaliation for ordering what I thought would be a nice meal but which was served to me in a potty.

What next, order a bag of chips and it comes in a nappy, or a pint in a colostomy bag?

[kngen]

No disagreements here, but you can get amazing Turkish food in most capital cities in the world. Germany is one place where besides getting a sausage and a pretzel, there's not much local that excites me. It's not one of those countries where there's an exciting range of different foods or where I'm interested in finding out who's got the best hot dog, because like with fish and chips the difference between worst and best is pretty narrow.

Yeah, I basically agree. On the whole German food makes it feel like they were under the psychological yoke of wartime cuisine limitations even longer than we were in Britain. It's the down-at-heel, immigrant-filled places like Kreuzberg that make it bearable, and - my experience only - it was easier to find that in Berlin as opposed to say Bremen or Munich (especially fucking Munich), where folk were all too happy to charge me 10s of Euros for some traditional German fayre that managed to taste acridly burnt and dry yet boiled and bland all at the same time. Mitt brot.

But I had the most transcendentally wonderful lentil soup at Hasir's in Kreuzberg (so good that I'll still occasionally daydream about it) that I felt compelled to say that good food CAN be found among the sub-dom hardhouse parties and crusty chaos days should one be prepared have a look around.

That said, you can get incredible kebabs in Germany and they've been adjusted to local tastes, so there's probably a case to be made for them as German cuisine in the same way as a BIR curry is a British dish.

Yeah, Hasir claims to have invented the donner (and I believe him, because now I only have to go to the wee shack in Pennsylvania or wherever it is that invented the hamburger in order to complete my 'expedition to source of the Nile'-esque Pizza Burger Kebab pilgrimage.

[SetToStun]

I'd have done this deliberately if I'd have known as retaliation for ordering what I thought would be a nice meal but which was served to me in a potty.

What next, order a bag of chips and it comes in a nappy, or a pint in a colostomy bag?

Well, Weisswurst is a Bavarian thing, and you know what that lot are like...

[touchingcloth]

Sheisswurst.

[shoulders]

Speaking of toilets there is K•L•O

A toilet themed bar in Berlin

[iamcoop]

I did have possibly the best sandwich I've ever eaten which was served to me from a Turkish kiosk in the middle of a massive estate of tower blocks that had a slightly dodgy vibe about it. We only stumbled across it as we got massively lost trying to find something else.

Essentially kofta with salad and sauces in a toasted and pressed baguette, it cost pence and was absolutely fucking sublime. I still dream about it.

"You English?" The guy said. When we said yes he just said "Arsenal" and carried on cooking.

[touchingcloth]

Is there anything like Tacheles left in the city these days?

[iamcoop]

Speaking of toilets

Also a great city to remind you how fucking abysmal the state of things here are.

Public toilets EVERYWHERE.

Play parks, benches and (relatively clean) green space is plentiful.

Public transport cheap, practical, easy to understand, punctual and reliable.

Cyclists and pedestrians treated and accommodated for with equal, if not more respect than car users.

Techno-Sex Dungeons EASY TO FIND AND CLEAN

[Sebastian Cobb]

Don't accidentally passively smoke heroin in a public toilet before you go for a romantic meal with your partner like I did last time I was there. That's my tip.

You got the Christiane.F tour for free! Embrace it.

[kngen]

Public transport cheap, practical, easy to understand, punctual and reliable.

Also you can drink beer on them without feeling like a social outcast. They want you to! They'll sell you it from a kiosk in the platform. 'Get blootered, mein herr. Another'll be a long in a minute.' 

[shoulders]

Also a great city to remind you how fucking abysmal the state of things here are.

Public toilets EVERYWHERE.

Play parks, benches and (relatively clean) green space is plentiful.

Public transport cheap, practical, easy to understand, punctual and reliable.

Cyclists and pedestrians treated and accommodated for with equal, if not more respect than car users.

Techno-Sex Dungeons EASY TO FIND AND CLEAN

Public transport is incredibly good there, not only good but really varied, fucking interesting and characterful, turning what is quite mundane into a sort of theme park set across the city.

Part of me prefers Munich's well-maintained civic success as a model for modern living, a thriving city, yet...

Berlin's swirling, messy bits and pieces kind of works. Be young there though, or young at heart.

[shoulders]

The primary problem for me with German cuisine is the absence of tomatoes, olive oil etc.

How anyone can live without those and simply survive on variations of pork, sauerkraut, bread, dumplings and mustard for 90% of main meals and not want to just end their lives confuses me.

I should add I absolutely adore good German cooking in the right setting, it's just the monotony after a while.

Kloß is fucking gross though.

[The Crumb]

Agreed about the food, lots of things which are delicious in isolation but cumulatively feels like eating a Christmas dinner for every meal.

The sort of delicious sort of grim fish sandwiches in Hamburg feel like a breath of fresh air relatively.

[touchingcloth]

The primary problem for me with German cuisine is the absence of tomatoes, olive oil etc.

Traditional British food is like that as well, which isn't surprising given how late of an arrival the tomato was.

In my experience German people like to eat as varied a diet as Brits do and they eat Italian food with the same gusto we do, but they suffer from having a climate like ours that doesn't lend itself to exciting ingredients.

Even the sauces are similar. They have Rahmsauce and mustard while we have mint sauce and mustard.