Tag Archives: food
Viet in Berlin: Images from Dong Xuan Center Lichtenberg
Lichtenberg’s Dong Xuan Center consists of 6 hangars, stocked tightly with all the things one might come to miss living far away from a place, where a broth of cardamom and ginger is paired with any meat imaginable and the most delicate of noodles; where a certain kind of manufacturing can turn out plastic and fabric wares for all sizes and ages in bulk; where sweet things might come packaged in banana leaves, wrapped around sticky mango rice like presents. Or this is the impression one might get of Vietnam, when visiting Dong Xuan – a Mecca in the middle of former East Berlin, little Hanoi amidst not so little Plattenbauten…[Read more!]
Happy Weekend Review: An Old-New Christmas Market
Let’s just come right out with it: It’s hard to beat Christmas in Germany. Glühwein, cookies, classic lights, decorations strewn across homes and street corners, a calendar that expects, nay, requires you eat a chocolate per day… it’s simply wonderful. Though I grew up in the US, my family celebrated Christmas the Teutonic way. I have more than fond memories of hiding the Buttergebäck and Lebkuchen in the laundry room from our Opa so he wouldn’t devour them in one sitting, ripping open a human-size Adventskalendar in the course of one night made by our Oma…[Read more!]
Rave: a Colombian Culinary Homecoming
What role do embassies play in the lives of foreign nationals abroad? Beyond pure administration and diplomacy, cultural events that allow for a homecoming, a return to childhood, and a bringing together of compatriots might change how immigrants and expats live abroad and the involvement of embassies and consulates therein. The Embassy of Columbia in Berlin sponsored an event that did something just like this. A few weeks ago in Neukölln, Colombians and non-Colombians united over the genius of duck woven into starch – the duck, a true Berliner…[Read more!]
Happy Weekend: Toi, Toi, Toi, Thai Park
During the summer I’m here almost every weekend, inhaling shrimp summer rolls slathered in peanut sauce, papaya salad speckled with red chili, and iced coffee swimming in globs of cloyingly sweet condensed milk. I may meander the colorful rows for food, but my coffee always comes from the same umbrella: Kaffee Oma’s. [Read more!]
Happy Weekend: “Waiter, my sausage is smiling at me”
In a city as big, gray, and Central European as Berlin, it’s easy to feel anonymous and sometimes even lonely. What better way to meet new people than over an “adult” kid’s birthday or a meal accompanied by language practice and carafes of Italian wine?…[Read more!]
Happy Weekend: Israeli Hummus, Sudanese Tamiya, and Barack Obama?
Happy weekend, folks and happy art-watching, art-critiquing, art-consuming, if you find yourself in Berlin among the packed galleries from Neukölln to Friedenau (that’s right, there is art to be found in the Berlin answer to the suburb, as well). For the rest of us, avoiding crowds and awkward glances from gallerists who accuse us with their eyes of only coming for the champagne, here are a few things that made me giggle or my stomach grumble. They are also things that don’t necessarily have ANYTHING to do with trend or art…[Read more!]
Lens: Lamb on Fridays
The children may eat Milka and Haribo but they will tolerate spice. Broiled fish in chili or ribs of lamb in a bed of sour stew. Onions sweated in pepper and vinegar on oily rice. Pineapple with salt. Dried cod fried in dough. Tamarind in everything. Sour, spicy, and sweet stuck to the curtains. “Africa” – as the boy says – in the carpet, on the tablecloth, in each and every pot and pan, making its way into daily life in the apartment of a Lichtenberg concrete sky-scraper. It is Friday and A is making lamb…[Read more!]
Collidoscope 