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