Looking back there were a lot of posts in my blog about restaurants and cafés in the recent past. So, time to sit down and write a short little list of the best food and drink places in Berlin that I visited so far. This list is purely biased of course, created by a vegetarian and subject to change from time to time as soon as I find an even better place in a category:

Best vegetarian restaurant: Samadhi

Best cafè: Café & Bar Hilde

Best cakes: Tortenwerkstatt (Sredzkistraße 63, 10405 Berlin), Café Frau Paul (Hans-Otto-Str. 6, 10407 Berlin)

Best burgers and fries: Yellow Sunshine

Best sandwiches: Luigi Zuckermann Traditional Gourmet Deli

Best juices: Eve & Adams

Best noodles: Spreegold (Hufelandstr. 20, 10407 Berlin)

Best american pizza: Fatass Pizza

Best italian pizza: Pizza Nostra (Lychener Str. 2 – 4, 10437 Berlin)

Best burritos: Dolores

Best falafel: El rief (Schönhauser Allee 47, 10437 Berlin)

Best crêpes: Crêperie Bretonne

Best bagels: Bagels & Bialys (Rosenthaler Str. 46 – 48, 10178 Berlin)

Best soups: Suppen Cult

Best hot dogs: Hot Dog World (Kastanienallee 102, 10435 Berlin)

Best ice cream parlor: Häagen Dasz

I am wondering where all these people were during fall or winter? As a regular visitor to the Volkspark Friedrichshain here in Berlin I very often noticed a vast emptiness during the cold weather period. Apparently all these people were just sitting at home in front of the TV or computer while just a few joggers or skaters were consistently doing something for their fitness and enjoyed the park which actually has always something to offer.

The best sandwich I had so far in Berlin I ate at Cafè Olinda. Since we moved to Prenzlauer Berg we have visited various cafès and restaurants in this part of town. Many places offer a piece of lettuce and cheese in between some bought toast bread as a sandwich. But the sandwich at Cafè Olinda (Immanualkirchstr. 6), named “Portugiesisches Croissant”  was just loaded with various ingredients.  My avocado sandwich came as a fluffy but crisp and big, unusually shaped Croissant filled with rucola salad, red peppers, jalapeños, cream cheese, dried tomatoes and of course avocado pieces. Very delicious and a good mixture.

Snow finally arrived in Berlin. And I am talking about a mentionable amount and not about the few flakes that melted at the ground before.The effect was that a giant group of families with kids used the opportunity took the sleds or everything that could be used as one out of the basement and went to the Volkspark Friedrichshain. Walking by I noticed a constant yelling and cheering similiar to the noise level that you have at public outdoor pools. It seems that for kids when it snows sledding is the equivalent fun to swimming. And even when it got really really cold in the evening, the sportive event went on at the hill in the park after dark. Probably anyways a good tip if you don’t wanna have it too crowded assuming though, that your eyes work perfectly.

While Berlin is certainly a very interesting city when it comes to it’s cultural, culinary or sportive offers the weather here at the moment is simply boring. Every day the same tristesse: Greyness, overcast, temperatures hardly above the freezing point and, occasionally, a very strong icy wind kicking in from the east. Oh – and it drizzles very often. No snow of course, that happens in practically every other part of Germany but not here.

The Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate often used to be a very crooked sight. This time the City of Berlin was lucky to get an almost perfect example of symmetry and put up a very nice decorated good looking Christmas tree.

Bad photo of a nice looking Christmas tree at the Brandenburg Gate

The Christmas market in front of City Hall turned into one of the best in Berlin this season. It used to be pretty small and unimpressive with just a few stands right in front of City Hall and the neighboring mall. Now they made the market much bigger and gave it a whole new concept. There are many huts decorated with big photos of historic buildings.  In contrast to other Christmas markets in town this market has many more huts offering a lot of seasonal art items. And the centerpiece of this market is an ice skating rink surrounding the illuminated Neptune fountain with a great view of the City Hall and the TV tower. There are so many Christmas markets in Berlin -  there is one on just about every corner downtown – but this market is special.

ice rink at Christmas market by Berlin City Hall

Probably as many other big cities in the world Berlin has a lot of these little soup stores. They all offer some healthy, freshly made variations and I have already been to many places in this city.

There is one store I want to mention that gets the label “Best soup place in town” from me. I am talking about Suppencult at Prenzlauer Allee 42. The fact that this store is in my neigborhood is not so important. It is the taste of the soups there, the big and always changing variety of seasonal products as well as various vegetarian offers. Additionally and in opposite to some other places soups are cooked right in the store. That means that they simply never run out of any soup offered on their menu.

When I visited the Cupcake Bakery in Prenzlauer Berg and mentioned that I am always searching for smokefree places in Berlin, a friendly worker there told me about a smokefree bar called “Erdbeer-Bar”.

Say what? “Smokefree” and “bar” – I never heard these words in combination here in Berlin although I heard about a smokefree pub in Weißensee. So I had to check for myself if that was true. Upon arrival at the Erdbeer-Bar which is situated near the Volksbühne at the corner of Max-Beer-Str. and Linienstr. I saw a man standing outside lighting up his cigarette. Actually a good sign cause somehow it told me that he did this here and not inside for a reason. And indeed, entering the bar there were a lot of people enjoying the music played by a live DJ and drinking their cocktails but nobody smoked. While the worn down furniture was something I had to get used to I really liked the big variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as well as the size of the cocktails that you can get there. Not forgetting the fact that this bar is open until the early morning. So,if you want to sit somewhere smokefree late at night, this place is definetely recommendable.