Fröhe Weichnachten

It's white christmas, folks!

It's been snowing since the end of November here in Germany, but because it's christmas, everyone is happy and enjoying a white christmas. Here is the place, where we went sleigh riding.



and here is a view from the back of my home



I was invited for christmas dinner by my landlady and she served a pork medallion with cognac sauce and home made spätzle, as side dishes, there were Blaukraut and veggies in herb butter. Not a typical German Christmas dishes, because usually the German eats goose or duck for christmas dinner. However Mrs Diebold told me, that they were just too fatty for her so instead of those poultry she choose pork. And the pork medallions were tasty, it was small but crisp outside and juicy inside. The cognac based sauce was rich but gave an extra flavour to the soft and chewy spätzle.



Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday

Pizzeria Amalfi

Probably the best Pizzeria in Laupheim? After eating in a lot of pseudo-Italian restaurant, I have to say, Amalfi is easily the best Italian Restaurant Laupheim can offer. The restaurant itself is pretty small. We went there on a cold friday night and we were lucky to be given the only free, unreserved two-seater table in the middle of the restaurant. It's not the best table, but then again, we didn't know that it would be that full. So, noted, a reservation is recommended.

I was positively surprised that even in such a small restaurant, there's a wood-fire brick oven. And the menu was pleasantly surprising too, for they offer buffalo Mozzarella and spicy salami, which are my favorites pizza toppings. Not only that, they also offer Rocket Salad with Parma ham and Parmesan cheese Pizza, another favourite of mine. I didn't order this that night but I will visit them again just to have this.

On the table, there're bottles of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. And once you placed the order. They served a basket of white bread which you eat with the olive oil.

So here are some stuffs that we ordered that night:
Small mixed salad with balsamic reduction (4,50 euro)




Pizza with Buffalo Mozarella, spicy salami and mushroom

I like the pizza a lot. The combination of the toppings and the crispy pizza bread is heavenly. Unfortunately, the dough is a little burnt and I don't like the taste that much. Not as best as it can be.(Although, for around 7 euro, it's a pretty huge serving! I could only eat half of it and packed the rest for lunch the next day)

A New Beginning

I must say, this is the most difficult post that I have ever written. I've been dreading to write this post for months. And even as I was writing, I kept rereading sentences, deleting them and then I try to rewrite them again and again. I don't think there's anything I can write to explain these complicated feelings that I have. Anyway, long story short, I'm moving out of Berlin. Scratch that. I've moved out from Berlin. THE Berlin that has been my home almost 10 years. I've spent some of the best years of my life in the capital of Germany. I came to Berlin as a teenager and in that city I grew up to be the young adult that I am today. I've come to love Berlin as much as my hometown. Maybe even more. So I'm pretty sure you can imagine how difficult it is for me to write this post. I felt as if I left a part of me behind and that by writing this post, I'm officially ending my 10-year-long relationship with this fascinating city.

So, the next question that needs to be answered is: where have I moved to? well right now I'm living in a tiny town, about 30 km from Ulm. For those of you who doesn't know where Ulm is, Ulm is located around 90 km from Stuttgart. Well Stuttgart must at least ring a bell for you right? And what am I doing here? Well, I'm calling this city as my transit place until I find the next place where I can call home. The reason for all this relocation is because I have recently pocketed my master degree and now I'm desperate for a decent job. So if any of you, my dear reader needs a chemist with knowledge and experience on HPLC and homogeneous catalysis, Please please please contact me. I will be deeply indebted :D

Well I've been wondering this whole time about what to write after I moved out of Berlin into this charming little town. Well, I'm glad to say that I've realized that I can still express my love for food, wherever I am. Food doesn't only means Asian or Chinese. Here I can have the freshest products available. I can hand picked my tomatoes from the garden, yes! the house where I'm living now has a garden. And the generous landlady of mine told me, that I can take whatever I want, from tomatoes, wild berries, plums and much much more.

Not only that, here I can get in touch with the local "schwabisch" food , imagine hand made spätzle (german noodle) with cheese, Maultaschen and lots more. And because of the scarcity of Asian ingredients in this little town. It forces me to be creative whenever I want to eat some decent Asian meal. So I think, I will post more recipes rather than reviews about restaurant. But for those who loves my restaurant review, don't worry. I still have some Berlin restaurants review posts that I haven't published. So don't go away but keep on waiting and I promise I'll come up with some interesting posts soon.

Egg Tart at Tian Fu Supermarket

After I re-read my post about Zha Jiang Mian at Tian Fu restaurant. I remembered that I have a photo of the egg tart from Tian Fu Supermarket. I Bought one back home and took a picture of it in the darkness of my room.



And it's really good, the filling is sweet, soft and custardy without beeing overly sweet and the so good flaky pies are barely strong enough to hold the soft filling. so they just melt once inside my mouth

Sadly, there's no Chinese bakery in Berlin, there used to be one in the Oriental supermarket, however after they finished renovating a while ago, they closed down the bakery. So if you crave for some egg tarts, I only know one address and that is Tian Fu supermarket. Be warned though, there're only limited amount (not more than 20?) everyday.

Zha Jiang Mian 炸酱面 at Tian Fu Food

Honestly saying, the first time I heard about this black bean noodles is from Korean Drama (Shame on my Chinese heritage) I thought Jajangmyeon is a traditional Korean food. Little that I know it's actually an adaptation of northern China speciality. After I taste both Korean and authentic Chinese black bean paste noodle. I must say I prefer the Chinese variation better, it's meatier, the sauce was not thickened with unncessary starch and I can't appreciate the potato in the jajangmyeon. I would say too much starch in a meal.

The Zha Jiang Mian in Tian Fu Food is just right for me. They served home made hand-pulled noodles, for me, the bounciness and the chewiness of noodles is the most important of all. If they got it chewy and bouncy then they got me. The sauce is made with minced pork and salty zha jiang. They also served a lot of veggies like carrot, cucumbar and soybean sprout, the sweet and fresh veggies complement the salty zha jiang very well, and I love the combination of the crunchiness of raw veggies with the soft noodles.

Different than JaJangMyeon, where everything is already topped in a serving bowl. Tian Fu serves the ingredients separately and you need to assembly everything yourself. Which works fine for me because this way you can control how much sauce and veggies do you want in the ball. Hey some people hates raw soybean sprout they said it has some grassy smell.



So this how the ZhaJiang Mian looks life after all the toppings are pour on top of the noodles







And this after it's been tossed evenly, it might look unappetizing because of the dark colour. But after you try one bite of this chewy and salty noodle. you are surely hooked. I brought my supervisor to this Imbiss and she loved it so much that she keeps coming back. And everytime I visit this Imbiss I saw many Korean Ahjumma and they always order the ZhaJiang Mian. So I guess that It's one of the place that real Korean Ahjumma visit, when they crave for JaJayngmyeon.

Btw, if you are wondering why there're Tian Fu food, Tian Fu Restaurant and Tian Fu Supermarket. Well the explanation is simple, there's only one owner for these three establishments. And if you already take your time to visit Tian Fu Food then you just need to walk next door to shop for some Asian ingredients in the Tian Fu Supermarket. I would suggest to grab some home made egg tart in the counter of Tian Fu Supermarket. They are really one of the best (or better said the only one) in town.

Tian Fu Food
Berlinerstr. 15
Wilsmersdorf 10715
U9-Berlinerstraße

http://www.tianfu.de/nudelspezialitaeten.html

Aaberna - Korean Imbiss

The funny thing about Aaberna is, it's not actually an imbiss. It's actually a part of a bed and breakfast. The owner is a Korean man and he is always sitting behind the bar. The cook, a Korean ahjumma is always standing in the kitchen. The moment I enter this bed and breakfast, I felt like I'm entering a Korean family's sitting room, where the father is busy in front of the computer and the mother is busy cooking. I'm not sure wheter the owner and the cook are related, but that's the impression that they gave me.

Their menu is simple but it represent home cooked Korean meal like bulgogi, deokbukki, kimchi jigae and bibimbap. I was there more than once and I've tried all those food I mentioned above and they are all satisfactory. They are not like the food that you are going to get from a restaurant but more like a home-cooked meal from your mom. But for foods that cost around 4 to 6 Euro I think it's very reasonable.

The only picture that I have from this restaurant is this stir fried octopus with rice



And here it is once again with the complimentary kimchi and other side dishes




Aaberna Hotelpension
Wilhelmshavener str. 37
10551 Berlin
U9-Birkenstr.
Tel. : 3952594
http://www.aaberna-berlin.de/

La Mian at Selig

In the last couple of years, there are more and more new restaurants in Berlin that claimed to specialize in hand pulled noodles. For example, there's Le LaMian at Friedrichschein, Tian Fu food at Wilsmersdorf and my personal favourite, Selig, also known as Lan Zhou La Mian (which literally means Lan Zhou Hand Pulled Noodles) at Charlottenburg. Lan Zhou is a region in China which specialized in this special type of noodles.

The hand pulled noodles served at Selig is exactly how hand pulled noodles should be. They're chewy, al-dente, fresh, has a bold taste and they're perfect in texture! Surprisingly though, my favourite dish in the restaurant is not my usual beef noodle soup. In fact, I think I would go as far to discourage you from ordering their noodle soup. Go for Selig's hand-pulled noodles with deep fried duck with chef's special sauce instead. It sounds like if a Germanized Chinese food, I know. But the sauce is so good that, trust me, you can eat the noodles sans any soup.



For side dish/appetizer I ordered a cold glass noodle salad. It was sour and salty but nothing special about it.



And now, let me present you this Selig's peppermint tea, a favorite drink of mine. The best thing about the tea is that Selig don't use tea bag. Instead, they put in fresh mint with brown sugar.




After the end of the meal, they served a complimentary sugar coated peanuts. They're my favourite part of my meal. I wonder how they make it? Deep fried the peanuts and then coat them with frosted sugar and oil? anybody has a recipe for this? I would like to make them at home too.




Selig / Lan Zhou La Mian
Kantstr. 51
10625 Berlin
U-Wilsmerdorferstr./S-Charlottenburg

liquid nitrogen wild berries ice cream

While I was doing my research in the chemistry group at TU-Berlin, I learned a lot of things. Not just about chemistry, research and laboratory, but also a lot about cooking :D. One of the dish that I learned is liquid nitrogen wild berries ice cream.

Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen in liquid form which only exist at a very low temperature. It's a colourless and odorless liquid that boils at -196°C at regular atmospheric pressure. This property of liquid nitrogen causes rapid freezing when it comes in contact with warmer object. Usually, liquid nitrogen is used to freeze chemical solution. And because of the low temperature, the solution will freeze into solid so fast that ice crystal has no time to form. Then, the liquid nitrogen will lose its coldness and finally turn into gas-form nitrogen. Gas nitrogen is the content of our atmospheric air, in fact 80% of the atmospheric air consists of nitrogen. So, for those of you who are worried about putting "chemicals" into food, liquid nitrogen/gas nitrogen is not toxic at all.

As the summer is ending, it's high time to eat something nice and cold, and of course ice cream must be on the menu. So one Sunday evening, my brother and I quietly slipped into my lab to make this yummy treat. Our plan is to do some molecular gastronomy, hey I'm counting using liquid nitrogen as molecular gastronomy. So Ferran Adria! take me as your apprentice please!!



Liquid Nitrogen Wild berries ice cream

400 ml whipped cream
400 ml milk
1 cup sugar
1 package frozen berries
around 1 L liquid Nitrogen



defrost frozen berries in the microwave
mix whipped cream, milk and sugar in a heat-resistance bowl/metal bowl
Using a spatula stir in sugar until it all dissolved
mashed some of the thawed berries and mix into the cream and milk mixture



put in the rest of the berries into the mixture. Don't mash them. They'll give a nice texture and bite for the ice cream.



slowly pour in the liquid nitrogen (watch out! it'll be smoky since liquid nitrogen evaporates very rapidly)



And don't forget to stir constantly to spread the liquid nitrogen evenly into the mixture.



Once it's freezes, the ice cream is done and it's ready to be served.

Lon Men Noodle House

Everytime I write a restaurant review, I try to write as fair as I can and without being bias about the service a restaurant provides. However some places have the most terrible costumer service and I just have to mention it. I really felt that I've been treated unfairly in Lon Men noodle house, and therefore, they win the price for the lousiest service ever. The Taiwanese Lao ban niang (lady owner) was so snobby and treated me as if I was the stupidest customer she ever have. I only asked her what was her most popular dish and whether they made their noodles themselves.

Regardless, I invited my cousin there to taste their tasty gua bao. Still, their service was so bad that my cousin swore that even though they have tasty food, she will never go there again. What actually happened, was that we ordered three different types of meat and since the waiter didn't take the order down, by the time the food came to our table it was chaotic. When I politely commented that my order was not on the table, the lady owner was mad at us and gave us a cold glare and practically throw our foods on the table. I guess, we should keep our mouth shut and let her have her way and she would be happy. But what's wrong with wanting to eat what you order?

Okay apart from the scary & bitchy lady owner, their foods are authentic and edible.

My favorite is their typical taiwanese sandwich (gua bao). This one is filled with deep fried duck with sweet and spicy sauce and my personal favorite, sweet and sour pickled veggies.




Other than deep fried duck, they also offer other fillings such as pork and beef.

Cakes from the chemistry group

While I was doing my research at the TU Berlin chemistry group, once every month, we always have a celebration adorned with cakes and tea. Oh boy, the cakes that I tasted there, were some of the best cakes I've had in my life. The quality of course is because of the freshness. They're all home, made without preservatives! But most important of all, there's so much love that they poured into the cake :P. Well, being a chemist of course help their abilities to mix and bake. Here are some of the highlights:

A moist and sweet nutella cake. One of the most chocolaty cake ever

The green cake made out of chopped spinach. Popeye will love this and because it's spinach (veggies and fiber) it's healthy and it's ok to eat more than 2 slices ;).

Our tablescape and the yellow cake in the middle is a typical German cheese cake

Schnitte-Apfel-Altbaerli

Another look of the Schnitte-Apfel-Altbaerli ... I think this is a very German cake, I can't even find an english name for it, I'll just call it Apple Cream Cake. It's basically, a cake in the bottom with apple pudding topped with whipped cream. sounds really simple, but it 's one of the best cake I've ever ate. It's cakey, sweet and sour from the apple. But the best part is the fresh whipped cream.

A french tart au chocolat

look at the denseness of the chocolate cake ... It's not even a cake anymore, it's more like eating a chocolate bar with cake texture

After eating all these tasty cakes, no wonder I gained some weight =_="

Asia Deli

Let me share a little secret between the Chinese and that is Asia Deli at Seestr. This tiny Imbiss sell cheap and homey Chinese dishes. Most of people who visit this imbiss are either poor students or simply Chinese people who just crave for home-cooked style food. I visit them frequently and try almost every single dish they offered. Most of their dishes are very tasty, with their price (mind you, Everything cost under 10 euro and most dishes cost around 6 euro). Be warned though, if you have MSG-allergy, this is not the suitable place for you.

My most favourite dish is their steamed dorade with chopped chilli and cilantro. For €8,90 you got a whole fish and even though it's a frozen fish, you barely tasted it because of the cilantro fragrance and the spiciness of the chili.

Another popular dish is beef in ceramic pot. And trust me, the beef are tender and some beef are adorned with some tendons, which not only chewy but also absorbed all the goodnes of the spices and soy sauce. Btw if you like lamb,they also offer lamb for variation.

For the cold dish they have spiced tofu braised in soy sauce. The sauce are sweetish and salty and the porous tofu absorbs all the goodnes.

For a real home style chinese stir fry, I recommend this bok choy with egg drop filled with minced pork. My grandma used to make this egg drop filled with minced pork, and when I saw this at their menu. I was thrilled and the first bite brought back all the memory that I have with my grandma, like Anton Ego when he took the first bite of remy's rataouille.

Stir fried spicy beef tripes ... chewy and bursting with spiciness and garlicky flavour

Stewed pig intestines .. this dish are for those who dare to eat pig innards. I used to hate pig intestine. My mom usually cook dish pig intestine in a clear soup and it outline the piggy smell of the intestine, I never touch that dish. However I love this stewed pig intestines, it's chewy and spicy, flavourful. the Sliced celery give a crunchines to compliment that chewy intestine.

Sweet and sour pork rib. This dish is my spouse favourite dish. Being a person who loves sweet dishes. This dish is really sweet and he loves it. Everytime he came to this place this is a must-ordered-dish.



A simple stir fried bok choy without the egg drop filled with minced pork

Other dishes that I would like to recommend are fish fragrant aubergine (a very mouth watering dish, sweet and sour with soy sauce) Be warned though this dish swims in vegetable oil, water cooked fish or beef (typical szechuan numbing and spicy dish) and if you are advanterous, their spicy pig toe are also wonderful.

Asia Deli
Seestr. 41
13353 Berlin
U6-Seestr.

The Bird

A German TV show called 'Galileo' made a program called 'Kampf der Nationen' lit. it means battle of the nations. Every day the program compares food from other countries and its german counterparts. For example, battle of hamburger, American burger is compared to the germanized burger. Four independent judges (they are all ordinary people and not German or American) tasted and gave marks to the burgers. The Burger with the highsest score wins. One of phD student in our chemistry group got the chance to join the show and to be a celebrity of the day. After he came back the next day, we all excitedly asked him how it went. I'm going to spare all the details about the preparation and about the mundane shooting procedure and just quote his words about the burgers.

German burger is tasty, there's a lot of fresh veggies and topped with many types of sauces, ketchup, mustard, majonaisse and even bbq sauce. American burger is minimalist with only cheese and some bacon. But the patties for the burger is heavenly, moist and juicy and all the flavour comes from the beef patties. Then the crucial question that I asked next ... which one do you give the highest mark? American burger said he without hesitation. So after his detailed explanation I want one american burger too. Not those from McDonald's or Burger King but a real american burger.

Luckily, the american chef who cooked the burger for the show worked in Berlin, so after noting the detailed address of the restaurant off I went to taste the burger at the bird.

The restaurant is surely american. The waitress who came to our table talks German with American accent and looks like she's more comfortable with English rather than German.

And so is the burger, medium grilled, exactly as the phD student has described, juicy with its reddish warm meat in the middle and with lots of caramelized onion, bacon and cheddar cheese. And there's the french fries which are freshly made in their kithcen ... arrghhh if only I can eat this every day without worrying about calories and clogging my own arteries. Well once in a blue moon is enough i guess



My spouse as always stubborn as hell, decides to order a rib-eye steak instead of burger ,eventhough I plead that he order a different type of burger. But the steak was also delicious, one of the juiciest and thickest steak I've ever taste and seen. And I love the garlicky sauteed spinach as the side dishes.



The Bird Restaurant
Am Falkplatz 5
10437 Berlin
U-Schonhäuser Allee

www.thebirdinberlin.com

Madang Korean Restaurant

After the Korean food experience at Arirang Korean Restaurant, I was hooked! I opened my eyes and looked around for other Korean Restaurant in Berlin. Surprsingly many Korean Restaurant sprang out in the last few years for example there are Kimchi princess, Yam Yam and Omoni at Prenzlauer berg and also Madang which just opened their doors last year. After reading many positive reviews about this restaurant, I decided that this restaurant should be the next Korean advanture for me.

Madang is pretty tiny restaurant, the decorations were surely choosen with great care. At one corner there's a pretty Korean doll with some clay tea pots and artificial Korean veggies. I just love this small touch which enchantes a homely feeling in a restaurant

Well but a restaurant should not only offer a pretty ambience but also good food. On that day I choose Sam gyeop Sal (Bbqed pork belly with its side dishes) and also some Korean Seafood Pancake.



And here are the complimentary Ban Chan, soy bean sprout, the ubiquitous kimchi, some soy bean simmered in soy sauce and sugar and for the veggies to roll the pork belly they offered either romaine salad or the usual lettuce. and two types of dipping sauce : paprica paste (gochujang) and a sauce consisted of salt, pepper and sesame oil.



And here is the Hae Meol Pa Jeon aka Korean sea food pancake. I love the scallions so I'm in love with this dish right away. Even though it is called as sea food pancake but the most dominant part is the green scallions and they also serve some soy sauce for the dipping sauce.

The food in Madang is surely pricier than in Arirang. But again like a chinese idiom says. for a cent money you got a cent of quality. So even though the food in Arirang is pricier but the presentation of the food are better. I would even say that the food in Madang are dainty whereas the food in Arirang are rough.

Madang Korean Restaurant
Gneisenaustr. 8 10961
Berlin U6/7-Mehringdamm/ M 19

Orange Juices

Do you see anything different from the boxes in the picture above? Okay they are all packaged orange juices but they are different. In Germany there are three different types of orange juices; simple orange juice, directly squeezed orange juice and orange nectar. I'm pretty sure you're confused with all these descriptions. Well, I was anyway. I mean who knows what's the difference between orange juice and orange nectar? They sound similar. So after watching a report on TV about how these orange juices are made, I'm a little bit smarter. So let me try to explain the differences as simple as possible.

Simple commercial orange juice are mostly made by frozen concentrated orange juice. This concentrate are made from freshly squeezed orange, pasteurized and heated until all the water evaporated. This leaves only the essence of the orange juice. This is because it is cheaper for European companies to ship these concentrate from the country, where they are produced to Europe. Imagine the cost of shipping heavy juice water >_<. So after the concentrates arrive at their destinations, packaging companies just need to add water, sugar, some vitamin C, preservatives and voila you got the "same" orange juice.

Still, what is the difference between orange juice and orange nectar? it's in the composition i.e. how much water and how much sugar you can find in the juice or the nectar. Juice should have lower ratio of sugar and nectar is more diluted with water and have more sugar. But how do they taste? That was also my question after I saw the report. So one weekend, my spouse and I went to a German walmart equivalent, "Real" and bought four tetrapak packaged orange juices. We chilled them in the fridge and drink them at the same time to compare them.


The left one is branded orange juice from Hohes-C, the one beside it is a generic brand (TIP) orange juice. I want to compare these two orange juices, because I'm curious if branded orange juice taste better than the generic one. The one from Hohes-C cost twice as much as the one from TIP. The third one is directly squeezed orange juice, which isn't made out of the frozen essence. This is self-manufactured by Real, the supermarket. Last but not least, is orange nectar from TIP (the generic brand).

Let me start with the difference between the hohes-C orange juice and the generic Tip orange juice. Surprisingly, there is no difference at all! Not on taste, smell, consistency & sourness. I even tried to drink some mineral water to neutralize my tastebuds. But still I can't taste any differences. I think I will save my 1 euro next time and buy the generic brand when I crave for some citrus drink.

So how about the difference between orange juice, directly squeezed orange juice and orange nectar? There're major differences. For example, as we poured the juices into their respectively glasses/mugs, we noticed how different their consistencies are. The juices are more concentrated whereas the nectar is watery.

Next we conduct a taste-test: The orange juices are very concentrated, sour with a hint of bitter aftertaste. I prefer to dilute them so that the flavour is not too intense. The nectar is extremely watery and very sweet. And lastly, the directly squeezed orange juice is definitely more watery than the normal orange juice, yet not so pungent from acid. It has the right amount of sweetness but unfortunately it has a unnatural smell/aftertaste. We thought it might have come from the vitamin C additives.

Prices: I forgot to take note of the exact price but I still remember vaguely about the price but I'm sure the most expensive one is freshly squeezed orange juice around €1,30 for 1 L, the second expensive one is Hohes C with €1,40 for 1,5 L, next comes the Orange juice from TIP with €0,60 for 1 L and the cheapest one is orange nectar €0,90 for 1,5 L.

My personal favourite one is the freshly squeezed orange juice because it's a beverage that I can directly drink without grimacing either because of the acid or the sweetness. The artificial vitamin c doesn't bother me much. My spouse's personal favourite is the orange nectar, because of the sweetness (he loves sweet beverages, his most favourite drink is super sweet iced tea) and also because of the watery consistent which he said are very refreshing.

Okay the above opinion is my own personal opinion, I'm not paid by any of the companies and it's only small independent experiments. If you are interested and want to know more, a company in German called StiftungWarentest made a very through research about these stuffs.

Smoked Salmon Latkes

The idea for this dish comes from a game called Cafe World on Facebook (*sheepish*) yes! I play a lot of games on Facebook. As you can see, one can always learn even from games :P. All the dishes that you can "prepare" in this game are well known dishes such as Hamburger, Pie, Chasu Ramen, Shumai dumpling. They do have some fantasy dishes like "dino drumstick". I know all the dishes they have until I came across "smoked salmon latkes". Since I was curious, I asked Mr. Google, and I got 36.000 hits with pretty pictures and recipes.

After reading some recipes, I got the Idea, it's more or less fried potato cakes with smoked salmon. So I gave the recipe my own twist. :)

Here is the latkes


And here's the Latkes with smoked salmon and cream cheese


Smoked Salmon Latkes with Cream Cheese

5 large potatoes, grated
1 egg
1 green onion
1 package smoked salmon, take out 3 sheets and sliced finely, keep the rest for the rosebuds
cream cheese for dipping
salt & pepper

Mix the ingredients evenly and using a Tablespoon form round potato cakes and fry this potato cakes directly on the pan.
Put the fried latkes on a plate and decorate them with the smoked salmon and cream cheese

Tandur Lasan

After I read a post at berlin.unlike about Tandur Lasan and read how nimmersatt rave about this place. I was excited and went there the next weekend. Exactly as berlin.unlike has described. It is a hole in a wall and they made flatbread as fast as a machine would do. I was naturally impressed by the freshness of the bread. Remember? Everything which is freshly made, taste better! And Gosh, How it was freshly made, my bread with sesame seeds & goat cheese (€1,00 but no picture) made by order and came out directly from oven. I also bought 4 flatbreads (€1,20) to take home and if they are good covered even after few days, they are still very soft and pliant.

Here is the row of unleavened bread


The man behind the oven


As I was fascinated by the rows of the breads, my spouse noticed this

and insisted that we try their restaurant on the same day, so off we go to the U-Kottbusser Tor and ate their Kebab & soup

I ordered a Kebab Kubideh (€5,00 with a soup as appetizer), I escpecially ordered Kubideh, because I love Kubideh from El-Reda and I want to compare them. Unfortunately the Kubideh here is a dissapointment. The kebab was hard and too salty for my taste. The rice was not silky and succulent but more like hard and dry. However the bread with the soup was good. I ordered okra soup and with lots of chilli flakes, it was great. My spouse prefer the complimentary lentil soup and he said it was alright.



Here is the picture of both the okra soup and lentil soup and of course the tandur bread


Tandur Lasan
Flatbread
Kottbusser Damm 6
10967 Berlin
U8-Schönleinstr.

Restaurant
Adalbertstr. 96
10999 Berlin
U1/U8-Kottbusser Tor

http://lasan.net/index.html