I almost forgot to share the movie of the trip!
I almost forgot to share the movie of the trip!
Berlin, Germany – at the center of so much world history, and not only do nations collide here, apparently cuisines do, to!
Leg two of my Euro-Trip 2010 brought Derrick and I to Berlin from 10/3 – 10/7. We stayed in Kreuzburg and Mitte hostels, toured all of the “must see” sites, rented bikes and got a feel for the city, and of course, ate. A LOT.
I’ll keep with my “top three” theme here – showing you my top three meals in Berlin, and you can look for the video highlighting the whole trip at a later date. Here it goes…
Number Three: Street Food – Allow me to group some experiences, here. So much of what we did in Berlin involved a lot of time outside, either walking or bike riding, and simultaneously getting hungry. Not wanting to waste time for a whole meal, we often enjoyed the street-cuisine that Berlin has to offer….Donner (from the large Turkish community in Kreuzburg), Pom Frites with Sweet Mayo, Soft Pretzels, Pastries, you name it. It’s hard to pass up these treats, especially at only a few Euro a piece!

Pretzels and Bavarian Sausage (understand this actual one was not eaten on the street, but you get the idea...)
Number Two: Frei Schwimmer, Kreuzburg
On day one of our time in Berlin, we stashed our bags in the hostel and headed out in the area to Frei Schwimmer, the hidden cafe on a parked barge in Kreuzburg (see sketchy entrance below).
Sketchy Entrance. Awesome Atmosphere. Even Better Food. Below is our view from the table (that’s right, those are swans swimming up to us):
After a successful first time actually needing to speak German to accomplish a task (previously, we had Felix and Nadine as helpers), we read the menu and ordered our meals – a 3PM dinner (hey, it’s tiring to travel!) of you guessed it, Pork Shnitzel for me and Fish and Chips for Derrick – both were phenominal!
We don’t know how we found the place, we don’t know how we ordered the food, but we DO know that Frei Schwimmer is a gem off of a side street in East Kreuzburg, Berlin.
AND Number One: Cafe Nord Sud
Personally recommended to Derrick and I from our Lonely Travel guide book, Cafe Nord Sud was just down the road from our hostel in Mitte, Berlin. 7.5 Euro gets you a three course meal propared and served by the establishment’s proprietor, Jean Claude Malfroy. You can choose from three specials of the evening – no changes, no mixing and matching. And really, why would you? When you have a French chef offering his pairing recommendations, you listen. We even let him recommend a wine for us (which may be perhaps why these pictures are so blurry, but I’m not telling….)
I am so jealous of the sauce-making abilities of Jean Claude Malfroy – I bet Julia Childs would be, too! Derrick and I shared our two meals -
Meal 1: Carrot Soup, Chicken and Mushrooms in an Velouté, and Plum Pie with Merlot
Meal 2: Meat Patte and French Bread (I can’t for the life of me remember what he called this, fail!), Pork in an Espagnole Sauce with Ratatouille, and Rubard Pie with Cabernet Sauvignon
I love this concept – and I may retire to it: Get really good at cooking, and make only three meals per night – charge reasonable prices with little overhead and inventory costs, and watch the money roll in as I please customer after customer who visits my side-street bistro. Step one: Learn French so everything that I say will sound cooler.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of the food of Berlin – 4 days isn’t enough! I’m pretty sure I’ve gained 10 pounds – and it was worth every calorie. Interested in more food options than there are meals to satisfy? Come to Berlin!
Prost!
Kelly
PS – Notice how I didn’t even mention beer in this post? It wasn’t an accident – you just need to come see for yourself
Guten Tag readers! I’m in Berlin right now, reminiscing on my time over the last three days in Vienna (or Wien in German), Austria. Today at a café on a barge in Kreuzberg I decided that I would share the highlights of this trip with you in blog form, and leave all of the pictures for an awesome movie that I’m making…pending my ability to learn how to use MovieMaker on the plane ride home. So, here we have it – Vienna in a Chestnut Shell – and I clarify “Chestnut” shell because those shells are all over the place here!
We arrived in Vienna on Friday after leaving the states and a layover at CDG (Charles DeGalle) airport in Paris. Derrick knew Felix and Nadine from his travels in India last year, and they invited us to stay with them – well, I should clarify – not just stay with them, they planned an entire weekend schedule, chock full of city sites and authentic meals. Here’s the countdown of the top three meals:
Number Three: Heuriger Reinpretct
Heurigers are authentic Austrian restaurants that are traditionally owned by wine making families – this word literally means “wine of the current year” – owners are allowed to sell wine without a license as long as it’s of the current year. We took a train to Reinpretct, and began our spritzer filled feast after meeting up with Tony (Felix’s sister), Manuel, and Marcus. It’s the wine that made the meal – mix it yourself to taste (that is, wine with grape juice and sparkling water), and then add pork and dumplings.
As a side we went for breads with spreads, where I discovered that my 23 yearlong obsession with pretzels and chive/onion cream cheese may have Austrian roots. See pictures of the spread and the company below. Prost!
Number Two: Knuckle at the Schweizerhaus (In the Prater)
On Saturday we went to the Prater for a ride on the highest swing set in Europe, followed by a visit to the Schweizerhaus. By recommendation, we ordered the Stelze (literal translation means “knuckle”, but it’s actually pork thigh) roasted for hours on a spit until the skin caramelizes, and then shared between two people. Mix with pretzels and some fritters and you’ve got yourself a food coma!
Number One: Homemade EVERYTHING from Frau and Herr Audensamer
We left the city on Sunday for some countryside touring and THE BEST MEAL I have had in a very long time. Felix’s mom made our group a traditional Austrian meal:
Oh my goodness, words can’t express, you are just going to have to travel to Austria to find out for yourself. Hopefully the pictures will help do it justice. We proceeded to go on a two hour hike (1/2 of which was uphill), and I nearly died on the way up. This much food mixed with schnapps for “digestion” is basically a death sentence – but somehow the Austrians were trucking up that hill like the meal was waiting for them at the top!

View from the Top of the Mountain (no, the background isn't fake!) - from left: Me, Derrick, Felix, Nadine, Felix's mom, Cristl
Lots of great food, even more great beer, wine and schnapps and I have a few more recipes to try at home! Danke Shoen Austria – and now be sure to look for the slide show – because believe it or not, the trip did have a few moments that didn’t involve food…
Auf Wiedersehen!
Kelly
I’ll begin this post by describing what I’m doing right now – I’m in PJ’s on my couch, eating gnocchi in a chicken vodka sauce with some from-the-garden basil, fresh mozzarella, a crusty baguette, and some sautéed veggies. I’m watching Before Sunrise (my favorite movie, from which I stole a quote “Sweet-Cakes and Milkshakes” to name this blog). In my garage, a yellow rental car that I have for the next 24 hours after an epic car failure on the way home from work this afternoon. Yet, somehow, the whole experience was not stressful – success with AAA (and an amazing 15 minute response time), and the rental car company stayed open late for me. So, instead of being stressed out about my car – I have chosen to sit here and share an awesome food filled, funny night from this weekend…
Four months ago, Ashley, Zach, Dan, Norm, and I ordered tickets to see Aziz Ansari at the Tabernacle. And, after a very intense countdown, our evening of hilarity had arrived. In order to prepare, we wanted to consume a few delicious libations and some hearty american food before heading to the show…so, we headed to the Five Seasons in the Westside.
Located across from the Octane (if you know me by now, you know that I always think of directions in terms of my favorite coffee shops), the Five Seasons is a two-leveled restaurant with their own brews and a view of the city in the distance (see below!)
We ordered a round of brew – hefewizens and porters – of which Zach managed to spill 2 across the table, and some bier cheese with pretzels and bread for dipping. Each of us went the sandwich route, with some mean hand cut fries or sweet potato fries. I went for a burger, but the winning meal of the evening was the Antellope Panini – nice ordering, Ash! I’ll begin this picture stream with the winning order, followed by the rest of our plates…
Perfectly crisped bread with well done meat with a unique flavor and no-toughness. The Antelope Panini is a win, and it’s what will bring me back to the Five Seasons for a second time.
And for the rest of our meals – burgers and pulled pork sandwiches – I came to the Five Seasons because I had heard good reviews about their burgers. I will say this – not the greatest burger ITP. And so we have a discovery here - I will ignore whatever reviews are telling me in this case – the reason to attend 5 Seasons in the West End is for the antelope, the view, and the beer.
And for Aziz – everything we had hoped it to be – and maybe even a little more. The Comedy Central Specials don’t cut it – stand up is so much funnier without the censorship! Aziz is Bored, but Kelly certainly wasn’t – and with that I shall leave you, because my cousins may be reading this, and I basically disapprove of their hearing anything that he said. And THAT is the sign of a good standup show.
Eat Well, Laugh Harder, Friends.
Kelly
It’s me Saturday – a sort of theme for the month of September – I woke up, went to yoga, cooked lunch, and had every intention of heading to Danneman’s – my favorite coffee shop, conveniently located in the O4W just down the street. I drove over (not the best idea to walk given the dodgey-ness of the blocks between my house and Danneman’s), and as I pulled into the parking lot – I saw brown paper taped to the windows!
Well, quickly I had to change my plans, and I have now ended up at the Dancing Goat Coffee Bar in Decatur (second favorite coffee shop ITP), dying to research what happened to my favorite “Third Place” – IE: the place that you go to when you aren’t going home or to work. I ordered my iced vanilla latte and opened my laptop, and headed right to http://dannemans.com/wordpress/
Some coffee to fuel my research…
There I found out that Danneman’s has closed for reconstruction to become a coffee bar/actual bar called “Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium” – I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s funny how pro-change I can be at work and how set-in-my-ways I become when it pertains to my third place. But alas, I bet Grant Henry know’s what he’s doing, and I trust him with my coffee-shop of choice. So now, I must settle for one of the other ten amazing coffee shops within ten miles of my apartment — it’s a tough life, haha…
In the MEAN TIME, en route to Decatur for my second choice coffee shop, I stopped for gas next to the Videodrome on Highland Ave where the guy in the DeLorean (yeah, you read that right) next to me was like – “oooh, guuurrlll, you have GOT to try one of these popsicles!” One of the things I love about Georigia – strangers have a tendency to talk to you as if you have been best friends for years…I played along….”Is that from the King of Pops?” ”Yeah man! The cookies and cream is the greatest thing I’ve ever tried…” A tempting idea….
I have seen the King of Pops hanging at that corner before, always with a line five people deep on sunny days, but I remained skeptical to purchase a homemade ice cream pop from a cart…and then today I realized, “Who the heck am I kidding? CLEARLY no one has been killed by these pops, and I ate a very sketchy chicken sandwich at Six Flags last night – this can’t possibly be more dangerous..” So I rifled through my change and procured a $2.50 cookies and cream pop (thanks for the recommendation DeLorean man) I think it was the a combination of how quickly the pop melted and how delicious it was, but that thing was finished by the time my tank was full!
The King of Pops – a travelling deliverer of joy for all of the ATL. And that’s my kind of Saturday.
More to come when the ‘Church’ opens…
Kels
Last week when I returned from vacation there was only one thing on the mind: Vietnamese Food. Jess picked me up at the airport, and conveniently on the way back to the O4W was the East Atlanta eatery, So Ba. We could catch up while chowing down…
We decided to share dishes – beginning with an appetizer of Goi Cuon – Shrimp & Pork Spring Rolls in a rice paper wrap – see through and delicious (perfect to hold me over after my flight).
While eating our starter, we plotted a murder mystery party that we would host at Jess’s place that Friday, and we sent a suspicious text message to all invitees to help cause chaos: “Prepare yourselves and clear your calendar: this messages serves as a pre-invite to an evening of mystery, hosted by Rut and Kels at Casa de Reiley at dusk on the 10th day of the 9th month of 2010…reply with your enthusiasm and further direction will follow.” Some murder plotting and some Vietnamese – the perfect evening out. Then for the main courses…. Com Tam (jasmine rice) of the ribs variety (AKA: Com Suon Bo Nuong) and Bun (rice vermicelli) of the pork and shrimp variety (AKA: Tom Thit Nuong Cha Gio).
When this arrived at our table, I had every intention of halving the portion and taking the rest for lunch at work the next day. Yeah Right. As soon as I took one bite I was a goner – perfect spice-level, perfect stick-y-ness of the rice, perfect tenderness of the ribs. Oh my gosh, I am having a hard time typing this right now, my stomach is growling. Did I mention the atmosphere? – 1/2 patio & 1/2 indoors, So Ba is an awesome find at any time of year – and I’m foreseeing many a fall evening chilling out on the patio.
So Ba. So Good. And what of the murder mystery party? Well, let’s put it this way, I was NOT the murderer, but the majority of our guests guessed it was me. I guess I’m just a BIT suspicious…maybe the text message set the tone for their votes. See pictures below – what a blast!
Believe it or not, when I was on vacation last week, I did leave the beach for one day – but fear not, it was in hopes of avoiding a hurricane while simultaneously consuming delicious food – in Philly!
David invited me into town after we met at a work conference in DC (you may recall this post from a few weeks ago) – promising some amazing Camida Mexciana. David lives in Society Hill right across from a restaurant that hosts a murder mystery every weekend (this sparked an idea for a party that Jess and I threw Friday evening – photos to follow in a future post). We walked down South Street and then towards Washington Ave to visit Taqueria La Veracruzana.
Located in the Italian Market area of Philly (down the street from Pat’s and Geno’s), Taqueria La Veracruzana almost blends in with the surrounding restaurants with it’s red, green, and white awning and neon lights in the window – but don’t let it’s ubiquitous exterior fool you, the food inside certainly sets this eatery apart from the others.
To start, all patrons receive warm tortilla chips with fresh, unique salsas – one that is really spicy (and green), and the other that is even more spicy with a smoked aftertaste – I was more a fan of the smoked salsa, and thankfully my fresh squeezed carrot/apple juice neutralized the kick.
Warning from David – DO NOT be fooled by the deliciousness of the salsa and eat too many chips, you HAVE to save room for the HUGE portions of the main courses. This was prooved in the pictures below.
We split main courses – First - Enchiladas de Mole – chicken enchiladas with a dark chocolate sauce. This sparked some serious research on my part for how to make my own Mole sauce – I am working on procuring the equipment necessary and will report back with my findings. MOLE = HEAVEN.
Second – Carne Asada – Steak and Cactus with beans, peppers, rice, and tortillas. As you may know from my Bone Garden post, Cactus as a side dish may be my favorite food discovery of 2010.
This induced a near food coma that could only be worked off with a walk around Philly and a bit of alcohol later on in the evening – I love finding the locals only eateries in new cities.
Although I grew up only about 30 minutes from Philly, my time in close proximity was well before I was old enough to drive – and thus, my knowledge of Philly is limited to taking the High Speed Line into town to see the Nutcracker at Christmas and fabric shopping on South Street when my mom and I were re-doing a room in our house. And now, the 20-something version of Kelly is realizing that Philly actually is pretty cool – thanks to David for the tour!
A few more items from vacation that I’d like to share – my ‘rents and I went to the boardwalk in OC and basically proceeded to eat the most unhealthy meal I’ve had in years – we just bought whatever fried items that we were attracted to and ate while watching street performers – see photos of my two favorites below:
That’s all from vacation, Friends – Happy Sunday and happy eating!
Kelly
*I wrote this in the airport on the way to NJ for vacation, and then I proceeded to go internet-less for the duration of my time off – glorious, but sorry the delay!*
It’s 8AM on a Wednesday, and instead of sitting at my desk on the flight line at work, I’m sitting at the end of the C Terminal on the flight line of the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. These planes are significantly less cool than my planes, but I’m not complaining – I’ll be taking off in one of them in an hour headed home to the Philly area for a long (long!) weekend this Labor Day.
And of course, if I’m not thinking about work, I’m thinking about food…anticipating the awesome food that I’ll be eating this week – today started with some classic diner food at the Majestic Diner down the street with Joe (back in ATL for a few days after a 24,000 mile road trip around the US – thanks for the company and the lift to the airport, Joe!), and lunch will be comprised of ice cream from Coneheads (my family’s ice cream parlour – I will have a lunch completely consisting of homemade ice cream – be jealous), and a dinner outside at the shore cooked by my amazing family – London Broil with corn on the cob and a good beer. A long run on sentence of food that made me realize something – I’ve shown you my adventures eating-out in this blog, but I haven’t even hinted at eating-in.
So, as I sit here listening to 500 Days of Weezie – a remix if the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack that incorporates a Young Weezie overlay – a crazy combination, I realize that it’s been about 500 days since I became a self-proclaimed foodie. A foodie who cooks as well as enjoys the cooking of others. And now, a 500 day resolution. I will share more of my cooking life in combination with my restaurant life.
I try to always take a picture of the meals that I make; normally I snap a phone picture in case I need ideas when I’m at the farmers market. So now I shall share these pictures more often. I guess if this is going to happen I need to buy more glamorous plates for presentation purposes. So, allow me a few posts with plane-Jane plates and I promise to find some cool ones soon.
Here are my top three dishes I made in the last few weeks … In general I name the meals after the mood that I’m in:
“Protein, Please” Steak and Kale with Sherry (with a wheat roll and snap peas/asparagus stir fry) – inspired from my Ethiopian favorite -tibs, with some egg whites added to add some fluffiness and extra protein. I decided to add the egg whites because I made this when I had just gotten home from a conference in which the food was a bit dodge-ey, thus, I felt a little protein deprived. I basically had no idea what I was doing when I made this – I just kind of threw ingredients together, a good revision would be to add onion to the stir fry for a hit of extra flavor.
A note on not knowing what I’m doing while cooking – In general when cooking, I start with a pan of olive oil and garlic, and I kind of improvise from there based on the main ingredient that I have and what looked extra fresh at the farmer’s market (my favorite: the Dekalb World Market). And of course, usually it involves pouring some type of alcohol into the pan. Pardon my lack-of-recipes — but hey, that’s what makes cooking fun!
“Have to eat the mozzarella and basil when it’s fresh” Chicken and Tomatoes: I went to the farmers market last week and bought a TON of fresh mozzarella – and the best way to waste fresh mozzarella is to not eat it. I ate a significant portion of it with a still-warm baguette as soon as I got home. What a dilemma! I needed to eat ALL of the mozzarella on the day that I bought it, darn! This chicken was phenomenal – sliced into smaller tenders and simmered with basil (from my basil plant that I just accidentally killed), garlic, onion, and white wine, then baked with fresh Roma tomatoes and a mountain of mozzarella. This turned into several meals for me that week – always a great leftover in the middle of the day!
“Headin’ to Europe” Shrimp and Peppers: I bought a plane ticket Monday to Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg for the beginning of October, and I celebrated with some wine and a shrimp pasta dish. Shrimp over wheat penne with scallions and green peppers. One of my cooking philosophies – Green peppers always add just the right amount of flavor and an even better amount of crunch to any pasta dish or salad. I buy 2 jumbo ones every time I go to the market, and I just add it to everything. In this case, shrimp and scallions in a (you guessed it) white wine-butter-cream sauce. The perfect mix of healthy and unhealthy. One note, I used frozen shrimp because I was being cheap – it’s just not the same. New goal: skip the coffee shop once per week and use the cash saved to buy fresh shrimp.
More to come on this Europe trip – I am too excited to properly verbalize my plans right now!
I hope you like this new spin on SC&MS – Still bringing you restaurants, but adding a hint of cooking along the way.
Eat well, friends – I shall share food adventures from NJ shortly!
Kelly
I spent the last week up North in DC for a work conference, but pre-conference, I flew in early and spent the weekend with Dave (one of my good friends from NJ) for some sight seeing, concert attending, and (of course) eating!
I hadn’t spent enough time in DC previously to experience it’s great restaurants – the search was a bit overwhelming (for example, when we decided we wanted Ethiopian food, Urban Spoon had 5 recommendations for just Adam’s Morgan alone) — I can get used to this city! We’re going out of order here in order to cut to the food, let’s skip ahead to Sunday evening…
Brother Brian came down to DC for the day on Sunday, and after visiting Union Station, the National Portrait Gallery, the Building Museum, and the National Cathedral, we were ready for dinner! Off to Etete on U Street for some traditional Ethopian food. If you’ve been following devotedly (thanks!), you know Ethiopian may be my favorite cuisine. There’s just something about sharing a plate amongst the table and eating with your hands – so much more intimate than traditional plates and silverware.
We ordered two trays (which turned out to be far more than we needed) – a vegetarian for Brian, and a combination of Beef Tibs (sauteed steak) and Kitfo (stewed ground beef). See awesome pictures below!
Notice the bottom of the photo – for those of you who have not eaten Ethiopian before, it traditionally comes with rolls of spongey bread for you to use in picking up the meal. I am totally fascinated by this bread – the first time I ate it, I went home and researched how it’s made – see YouTube video below. I’m considering investing in one of these kilns, also in an apartment that will let me cook with one: How to cook spongey bread!
Prior to this meal, I had a felt a cold brewing, and all it took was one bite of the kitfo to destroy my ability to hold back sickness. The spicyness led my eyes to tear uncontrolably – thanks to Brian and Dave for being so cool about my sickness-breakdown! What helped me out? The honey wine…
So what happened the rest of the weekend? Well…
- A little bit of food sampling, including some pretty popular DC chains – Potbelly’s and Chop’t
- A lot a bit of sight seeing – Dave is an AWESOME tour guide, we share the same feelings on “owning our location” – and thus he took me to all of the free DC spots: the Air and Space Museum (where I got up close and personal with a CF6 engine – the new engine that’s going on my C-5 – tear), the Old Post Office for the best view of the city, around the National Mall, around Capital Hill, and many more exciting sights.
- And a perfect bit of hipster music – We went to the MGMT concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion with Keiko (friend from NJ) and her friend Laura (who I met for the first time, but we quickly discovered that we have mutual friends at Pitt – Kevin and Steve) – small world! See picture below of our view (I luckily was able to buy tickets to the sold out section based on some sketchy online searching that worked out very well). This concert has spawned a hipster playlist that I’ve been listing to non stop for the last week (as I type right now Devandra Banhart plays on my GrooveShark)
This trip to DC was filled with lots of great food, even more great sights, and even better times with friends (and siblings!) I’m now seriously considering a move up there next year for work – we’ll see how it goes!
Eat Well,
Kelly
We left our comfort zones on Saturday afternoon, heading outside of the perimeter and into Kennesaw (where we were greeted with a crazy lightning storm)…I got lost on the way, and I pulled off of the road to a turn around where I found Jess sitting in her car waiting out the storm. Crazy coincidence!
Enough about the strangeness of the journey…onto the food!
We met at 4:00 for an early dinner/late lunch at Big Pie in the Sky
You may recognize this place from the Carnivore Challenge on Man vs. Food…(in case you didn’t recognize it, the windows are adorned with a MvF tribute)
We didn’t go for the Carnivore Challenge, mainly for the sake of our arteries, but instead chose to split a 30” (with slices “bigger than your face”)…see below…
Tons of cheese, baked to perfection, and a challenge – my kind of pizza. They’ll even split the check when you order for a large group!
It’s nearly impossible to walk after eating, so plan on hanging out for a while. We hung out in just enough time for the storm to return, and spent about 10 minutes trying to “tough out” the horizontal rain before running inside. The storm only added to the adventure…a great time all around!
It’s always busy, very delicious, and a good time. If you’re in Kennesaw, take a pit stop (or couple of hours as it turns out) at Big Pie in the Sky.
Eat Well, Friends!
Kelly