Time for my first in-country blog post. And what better thing to talk about than… FOOD! The food is incredible here, but the thing that I think is the most telling about Berlin is something called “Street Food Thursdays” in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg. Every Thursday, a bunch of food places (not necessarily restaurants—some of these places make their living travelling to different food fairs throughout the week! There are many such fairs in Berlin) set up shop in an old warehouse. It’s cramped and completely crowded, but it is so worth it. The food is consistently amazing, whatever stand you stop at—and trust me, you’ll want to stop at a few before you leave.
There are also pretty twinkle lights!
And here is the seating area.
Why this is so typical Berlin is because the food is almost invariably international—with a few German hits (like my personal favorite thing I’ve tried there so far, Maultaschen—a kind of German ravioli). All in a row you could pass a stand that sells Indian naanwiches, another that sells English meat pies, then Japanese oyaki, only wines, and an artisan ice cream stand whose flavors (like peanut butter and jelly, and salted dark chocolate) are completely written in English. It is truly a sight to see—and smell! Despite the incredible amounts of people cramming through the aisles between stalls, it smells incredible! And everybody seems very happy to be there (why would you not be?), so it’s kind of like a big food party every Thursday. If you see somebody walking around with something that looks good, you ask them how it is and where they got it—they’ll be happy to respond! And don’t worry, there are new stalls every week, so you can keep going back!
The Maultaschen stand, which is actually quite a big stand, compared to some.
And here is what the Maultaschen look like! I only ordered two, but you can get as many as you like.