Yes, I know I keep blogging about food, but - who cares?!! I do. I care about food and here is another tasty source! Prinz, Tip and Zitty are unified in laudations, but also the Food & Wine magazine found this little place amongst 40 cities around the world.

Leo Bettini is specialised on dumplings and pasta in all different variations (and colours!). This beautiful dumpling picture is picked from their website www.leobettini.de.

Leo Bettini, Mulackstrasse 33, 10119 Berlin, Tel. (030) 60 50 74 49, mail@leobettini.de. Opening Hours Mo - Thurs 9:30 - 18:00, Fr 9:30 - 20:00, Sa 12:00 - 20:00.

Of course Greece is not known for pearls, so forget about the headline. But this is a very tiny place (a little bigger than a pearl, though) with very good greek food - to go and to have there. The restaurant in the back part of the location looks just like you were on a greek island with the fisherboats bobbing up and down along the waterside. Well, there is no water, but there are the little chairs and all the stuff on the walls and in the shelves that spread this relaxing taverna atmosphere.

I went there with Holger Volland (one of the other authors of this blog) and he took the picture, that’s why I am ON the picture paying my lunch - and Holger’s, too, because it was his birthday!

Kaliva, Wielandstrasse 37, 10629 Berlin (Charlottenburg), Tel. 3100 4550.

Open Mon - Fr (I believe!).

Just newly opened up end of July this year, the oliv café is often packed (although not at the time I took this photo). It is a beautiful New York style place with some food such as muesli, cake and sandwiches and a really good coffee with a perfect ‘crema’. It has no “oliv” sign up at the outside yet, but never mind, you find it at Münzstrasse (corner Almstadtstrasse), not far from the adidas flagship store and Alte and Neue Schönhauser Strasse, the place to shop in Mitte. oliv is open on Sundays also. Aus Liebe!

If you walk Lehmbruckstrasse in the other direction (coming from Yuki, see post below), then you will find Bäckerei Böttcher, who serve perfect bread, rolls, but also Wurst and Boulette, for those who need a hefty snack. The bread, and that is special about Böttcher, is extremely fresh and heavy, and I once heard a person saying he does come all the way from the west of town to buy bread here. The rolls have the excellent reputation to be genuine “Ost-Schrippen” (even newspapers wrote about it) (read all about rolls and Schrippen in a massive article at Wikipedia). This means, they are still baked like in old GDR times (yes, we are in the former east sector here), so there are not too many chemical tricks in the dough (that’s at least what I believe) but rather straightforward baker skills plus an unbeatable freshness. They also serve special bread - I forgot the name, probably something like 1. FC Hintertupfing Bread - where 10 Cents of the price go to a football club no one has ever heard of (and no one ever will, except the bakery’s clients).

The Lehmbruckstrasse in Friedrichshain first seems to be a bit of a forgotten place. But wait what this street has to offer! First of all there is the lovely Yuki Café where Yuki serves homemade cake and a variety of tasty sandwich creations. Besides this she has very good coffee and an exquisite music taste as well - today there was quiet, tragic piano music. The café, in every case, is seldom crowded, which makes it a perfect spot to take a break from the business hectic at lunchtime. The only thing you have to care about is not to talk about business secrets, because it is likely to have a competitor company’s employee sitting at the next table. With a little bit of luck you might run into a film star like Til Schweiger (oh my God), who’s film company is located around the corner. If you have difficulties to find Yuki, then watch out for the store next door - for some reason this one places about 10 washing machines on the pavement every day which is a real visual pleasure for the ambience.

So there were 3 reasons to come to Lehmbruckstrasse (Yuki, washing machines and Til Schweiger), but there is more to come.

Lehmbruckstrasse 15, 10245 Berlin Friedrichshain, +49-30-21805884, open from 7:30 until 7 p.m.

When I came to Berlin, a mere 5 years old, the Tiergarten was my playground. The perfect roundup for a day of play always was a visit to Café Buchwald. More attracted to one penny sweets i only learned to love their excellency as a patisserie after a severe education of my tastebuds. Today Café Buchwald has been running for more than 130 Years, serving the best cake and tarts in town. I especially recommend the Baumkuchen, already enjoyed by Germanys last King. Pure Bliss! Surrounded by elderly female sugar junkies and young families with penny sweet addicted kids its the perfect place for renourishment after one of those long sunday Tiergarten walks.

Bartningalle 89 / Holsteiner Ufer, Tiergarten

Build in 1960 by the german architect Werner Düttmann and located in the Hansviertel close to the central Tiergarten the Akademie der Künste (West) is the perfect hide-away for a relaxed lunchtime in summer. The Masala-Huhn is delicious, the cake is homemade and the service is the personification of slowdown. If you have time to spend and if you like sitting surrounded by dozens of cheeky sparrows waiting for a piece of bread falling from the table then the Akademie is your place.