Kreuzberg and finally FOOD

Photo of Kreuzberg, which is supposedly the Turkish ghetto. We thought it was the most charming area! There are loads of fantastic restaurants and lively streetlife. Berlin is generally rather economically depressed, but somehow Kreuzberg seemed the liveliest and most interesting area to us. We decided we'd like to live on this street overlooking the river.

And the FOOD!

The street food in Germany is wurst (sausages with mustard, very yummy and nothing like a hot dog!) and pommes frites. "Kaffee und kuchen" is another German custom I really love - afternoon coffee and cake. I love apple struedel, kase kuchen (means cheese cake, but lighter and more lemony) and plum schnite! All the bakeries were really amazing- fantastic bread!

Berlin had fabulous restaurants. One traditional gasthaus we tried was Restauration Gambrinus on the corner of Linienstrasse and Oranienburger strasse. We had jaegar schnitzel (mushroom sauce) and fantastic salads with pickled shredded white cabbage and beets on top of regular mixed salads- excellent! Another good place was Assel on Oranienburger strasse, which was also fantastic. The area around Oranienburger strasse, just north of Alexanderplatz and Hackescher Markt in East Berlin, was very lively with lots of cool spots to check out. Another typical German dish is gulash which I had a great place under the S bahn in Hackescher Markt. Also came with celery cream soup, which was zuper!