Some say style is a matter of posture and posture a sign of all sorts of preconceptions –a bit like shoes. Forget it. Here is an establishment that will inspire you to unfold your spine what ever your background, it is the drinking hall of ballerinas: the Würgeengel – which is German for “your life is not complete until you have see this film by Bruñel” which is English for “El ángel exterminador”. Here you can quite happily enjoy your own company or else meet with a friend or two – and five at the most –, enjoy a good glass of wine and delight in the dark-red velvet interior and the handsomely well-groomed bar staff, flaunting serving skills long since perfected. The atmosphere is electric, time seeps away unnoticed as the people of the night fill the long, dimly lit room. And many hours after the thought of moving on has arisen, you will find yourself still hovering by the door, postponing your goodbyes, locked in excuses and unable to leave, for this bar uncannily lives up to its name. Which is a bummer if you fancy a Radler, cos the hot waiters gently refuse to serve beer cocktails. Snobbery? Surely not.

Würgeengel, Dresdner Str. 122, Kreuzberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_ángel_exterminador

Swabians do alright in Berlin, what with Tannenzäpfle beer and Maultaschen raviolis flooding bars and eateries everywhere. But what to do if you grew up in Hessen, have no regrets about leaving home but still fancy a good old Ahle Wurscht or a Stracke and a nice big glass of Apfelwein every once in a while. A wish easily fulfilled in Frankfurt, Kassel or Marburg, proves hard to come by in the capital of Germany. Apfelwein is not the same as cider; it tastes a bit stale, like apple juice mixed with mineral water and left in the sun for a day. Anyway, to get this fantastic drink in Berlin, you have to follow other Hessians’ word-of-mouth propaganda and so sometimes find yourself in the kind of bar you’d rather not be seen dead in. However, if you’re lucky, you’ll end up in Hubis where the proprietor will willingly mix you Apfelwein-colas all night long. The word is out and now that the Fichtekranz-Company is busy trying to turn “happy apples” Apfelwein into the new scene-drink it’ll soon be served in a bar near you! I’ve already lit a candle for their success. Meanwhile Strongbow is an okay alternative, rapidly growing popular in F’hain under the exotic banner of Irish Apple Beer (Zees Krazy Irlanders).

And moving swiftly from alcohol to its counterpart stodge: …a satisfactory Irish or English fry-up is even harder to find than a good Ahle Wurscht. There is a place on Grimmstraße which usually serves all the right ingredients with a little continental garnish of fresh red capsicum on the side. Apart from that I hear the Irish Pub on Erkelenzdamm is at last making a comeback under the name of Murray’s Bar. As for that nice supper of Grau Brot and Ahle Wurscht you can order it anywhere in Berlin – albeit by post, phone or online. But your best bet is to “befriend” some commuters from north Hessen and infiltrate the sausage trafficking scene. Incidentally, Ahle Wurscht translates as Alte Wurst which simply means old sausage. And Stracke means straight. So what you are waiting for during those long wintery homesick hours, is a loaf of grey bread and an old, straight sausage. 

www.nordhessische-ahle-wurscht.de
www.fichtekranz.de
www.murraysbar.de

I never ever would do karaoke. I hate it so much, that i’d rather be a streaker at the coming up football women’s world cup than humiliating myself on a karaoke stage. not so todays guestblogger, the berlin creative and photographer frank burkhard. he likes his vodka cranberries once in a while and then the nice guy suddenly turnes into the unstoppable dancing singing dervish. read his berlinisbetter gem:

The “Monster Ronson´s Ichiban Karaoke” facility is something that has been suitably oscilating between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain for some time now, coming from a single-box novelty in F-hain, rocking Kreuzberg for some years afterwards, now strangely located beneath the o2-world- void between those two areas, right across the exit of the U-Bahnhof Warschauer Strasse, a territory dominated by winterly berlin grey probably even in high summer.
The place itself is quite big, a dark, black and white rockabilly cavern with splashes of plush electroclash red. Of course the barpeople are tatood up to their punky hairlines.
Think transgender underground pub meets truck-stop-CGGB.
There are differently sized sing-along-boxes for differently sized groups - and a stage as well, for the more fearless among those who are willing to sing it out in public.
While being drunk.
Because, lets face it, singing into a microphone while having an audience  scares the shit out of us all, and a good supply of booze remains the best remedy aside of private singing teachers and stage-fright-workshops, proven by Judy Garland falling of  stages to Amy Winehouse still doing the same some hundred years later.
By the way, tuesday is the two-for-one night - where you, on one hand, pay less for more drinks, but then - because you´re so much enjoying yourself, you gin-soaked idiot - pay a fortune for your cabine in the end, because as it turns out: the end was not before you spent 6 or so hours (at 13? 16? € per hour… can´t really remember…) in that cabin, flicking manicly trough those catalogues in search of the next perfect song…
(Note to self: Look for Scott Matthew´s “In The End” next time around, if just one karaoke place in the whole wide world has that on their list, it´ll be Monster Ronsons.)
The catalogue of Monster Ronsons is impressive, you basicly get EVERYTHING, though the emphasis is definatly on everything rock.

I myself for example was mildly dissapointed by the poor selection of my favorite belters, Barbra, Judy, Liza, Bette (these are namens I shan´t forget) though I was able to overcome that little moment with another Vodka-Cranberry and the discovery of my ability to do Snow Patrols “Chasing Cars” quite well…
Monster Ronson’s - Ichiban Karaoke

When can you say you are? People who just recently moved here don’t have a clue what this kiez-thing really means. They have an address and don’t care about spending their free time going from Mitte to Charlottenburg and later to see a friend in Friedrichshain.

I think it starts when you start saying Fhain or Kreuzi or Prenzlberg or S.P.A.N.D.A.U…. This goes hand in hand with a certain feeling that your (!) kiez is the most exciting neighbourhood in Berlin. This kiezthing – you probably have it in every other city as well. What’s special about berlin is that you can afford to live almost everywhere (well, the square meters differ a bit) – so choose your homebase carefully.

Here’s some Berlin-Musik: 

Hanne Hukkelberg, Berlin
http://www.lastfm.de/music/Hanne+Hukkelberg/_/Berlin

Icke & Er: Keen Hawaii
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYojBDQQXy4

Seeed, Dickes B
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=w9b2j2g42nQ

I’m no big fan of Döner (turkish kebap), to be honest. But rumor has it, that this by now favorite German dish … … was invented in Berlin. And you do get a good one in the city. So it can’t be left out here.

I think Bagdad has a fairly good one, with good meat and the choice of chicken or beef. I prefer beef.

Bagdad, Schlesisches Tor, thanks for the pic to http://berlin.virtualnights.com

It is in Schlesische Straße, just off the subway stop Schlesisches Tor.
There is another Döner restaurant right next to it, don’t go there. I don’t like it out of no reason. (But I have friends who enjoy their Döner there as well - so this is just a very personal statement).

My favorite is a Dürüm Döner with extra cheese and olives (Eur 3,40), but the standard Döner (”Ein Döner bitte”) for 2,50 is great, too.  Concerning sauces on the döner, they salesperson will ask you “welche sauce”, I prefer “Kräuter-scharf” meaning a mix of the spicy and herbal sauces. There is a garlicy one as well. Concerning condiments he will ask you “Mit Salat alles” which means you get lettuce on it, tomatoes, onions and cabbage.

The mentioned rumor has it that the Döner was created or developed in Berlin in the 60s (in Turkey, there is a beef-in-bread-kombo, but it doesn’t have any condiments on it). Who knows whether this is true, but if it is true, the Döner’s origins lay in a Turkish restaurant in Adalbertstraße: it is on the left hand side when you turn in from Oranienstraße and walk towards Kottbusser Tor. They still sell Döner, also to go, and it is - in fact - very good.

in a recent article at de:bug magazine basso was described as the paper reincarnation of a  sultry sauna club. not bad, basso is a magazine, an art space, a gallery and above all it is an attitude towards life that seems to affect mostly bearded gay men above 30. tonight for example there will be a “screening of steven arnold’s LUMINOUS PROCURESS from 1972, when the boundaries between genders were passed with the pioneering lightness of the freshly awakened.” if you are bearded or not, you will like the attitude of that place. http://www.basso-berlin.de

What makes Berlin so special is her pace. Berlin is a city, a capital city, a metropolitan capital city – but fall out of your window and the chances are you’ll not hit anyone. Cycle down a one way road the wrong way and the only danger you’ll encounter is a traffic policeman waiting to smugly lecture you to death. Berlin is slow. Every one strolls – not just the tourists. And in between strolls the citizens like to have a little sit down, stretch their thumbs flicking though a menu, or flipping open a bottle (it is essential to master the technique of opening a beer with a lighter, or your eyebrow). Time is quality. Spend it standing in the queue at the library waiting for the buerocratic registration process to unfold and you will experience the unlikely German luxury of watching time slip by. It will not wait, but so what? Where’s it going to go?  The shops will still be open when you get there.  If you need a tin of soup, toilet paper, a beer or chewing gum at one in the morning, visit your Späti or Spätkauf (late purchase) and place your order. In Berlin a hole in the wall is a little old lady who has opened her downstairs window to sell you a tub of ice cream for a midnight feast as you have no freezer. Just don’t get up early and try and go shopping for cloths or trinkets in Mitte, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg or Prenzlauer Berg. If you need to be up and about before midday go brunching in a café that sells soups and hot chocolate, beer and wine and possibly the furniture your sitting on.  FYI: The german version of english breakfast is the so-called “Strammer Max”: Brown bread with smoked ham and fried egg on top. Or a Bauern-Frühstück: Scrambled egg with onions, mushrooms and sausage. Amazing. And not hurry – last orders are often not until 4 or 6 pm. 

The other night we went for Il Casolare,  a  punk pizza at Admiralsbrücke in Kreuzberg, to enjoy the sunset. And as always a group of English people (young, dynamic, hip and all the rest of it) plonked themselves next to me. I pretended not to understand and so listened in to their chit-chat. Two of them had been here a while and the other three were newbies. So it was all about sharing or showing off the knowledge. Turns out all the stuff I explored a few years back is still available (but we found it first…)  Such as the Weinerei in Prenzlauer Berg. You go, eat soup from a cauldron, sandwiches from a pile and drink wine from bottles stacked around the room. And then when you leave, you pay – what ever you see fit! You end up paying over the odds, I mean, when was the last time someone trusted you? Worth its weight in gold. (Did I mention in my day you had to climb through a hole in the wall to get to the loo… ) Meanwhile my pizza arrived and I learned that smoking will continue throughout Berlin, if only to combat the current perfume explosion – albeit with certain restrictions (for details contact the government). So where to go to relax and gulp down some unadulterated smog?  It used to be Görli for us, said the girls next to me. But recently the police have set up clandestine BBQ treasure hunts with each illegal sausage pierced on their squad car antennas winning them 20 Euro in coppers. But drinking is still legal, so grab a beer and gaze into the crater, imagining it filling with water. And be sure to share your empties out equally among the bottle-collectors. 

PS. If you really want good pizza visit “Rocco und seine Brüder” on Lausitzer Platz in Kreuzberg. www.roccoundseinebrueder.de

Sorry for getting carried away into drinkage and interior-designage in my last posts.

I’m back on the topic now!

Today’s quick special: Grillhähnchen (rotisserie chicken).

There are many really disgusting places and SARS has cleaned up the city from (in my opinion) too many places (unreasonable panic).

But the good joints have survived.

A good one is tender, juicy and has a definite taste to it: either by a good seasoning on it’s skin, or, in my absolute favourite place, by a real charcoal fire below our feathered friend while it is fried. On top of it, chicken is a really healthy snack (without a side of fries).

So let’s start with the classic version: DAS HÜHNERHAUS, Skalitzerstraße Corner Görlitzer Straße. It’s a snack stand, not a walk-in place.

They have a pretty spicy and delicious seasoning on the skin and the chickens are grilled long enough so that the skin is really crispy (nothing worse than a not crispy thus greasy skin! more white than red! bäh!). Order a half one with a side of salad (marinated with lemon juice and olive oil) and some of their special spicy sauce. Simple and good.

Hähnchenhaus Skalitzer Straße: thanks to Qype for the pic...

While this one is in the heart of Kreuzberg, for the very best one you will have to travel to Neukölln:

I don’t know the name, but you can’t miss the Fast-Food-Style Restaurant on Sonnenallee Corner Reuterstr. (very close to Herrmannplatz).

I think it’s originally Lebanese - well, there are very proud Lebanese men working in the place. The chicken is cut open and placed flat in an iron cage, then hung into a special construction circulating it above various charcoal fires. The whole place is designed like a fast-food restaurant, so you order by menus (they come with delicious bread, hummus, fries, salad, etc.) and get the chicken along with it.

I didn’t find a picture, but writing this post I realize that I have to go there very soon!

BTW: as for dessert — try the bakeries along Sonnenallee when you walk back to Hermannplatz. They have some of the best turkish cockies and fresh&juicy Baklava.

A nice place for the evenings is the cinema Sputnik in Berlin Kreuzberg: http://www.sputnik-kino.com/.
It has the reputation being the highest cinema in the capital, because it is located in the 5th floor of an industrial complex from the 19th century. There is no lift available, so it´s good for your fitness climbing all the stairs…
The atmosphere is very homely and comfortable. One of the cinema rooms is just as big as a normal sitting room.
Especially appealing is the view over the roofs of Berlin. The program changes regularly and contains mainly modern international films of a high standard and demand.

cinema sputnik