My Berlin Food Journey – Part 6 German food in Germany!

This is my last instalment of My Berlin Food Journey and I saved the best for last. German food in Germany!

German food doesn’t generally have the best name for itself because it’s a bit stodgy. It’s pretty heavy, rich food using a lot of butter, cheese and sour cream to flavour dishes more than herbs and spices like other cuisines. Preserved foods i.e. pickled cabbage, sausage, etc. are very popular.

With German food being so heavy we didn’t eat a lot of it while we were out there but for a special treat one night we went to Augustiner am endarmenmarkt a well-known Bavarian-style beer hall serving South German cuisine.

Augustiner am endarmenmarkt
Charlottenstraße 55
10117 Berlin
Germany 

The restaurant is affiliated with Augustiner-Brau, a brewery in Munich that was established all the way back in 1328. It is the oldest independent brewery in Munich. I had a really nice Augustiner Pils which I talked about in my post My Berlin Food Journey – Part 1 Snacks and Drinks.

Food wise we ordered some really great stuff. In true German style it was very rich and heavy but tasty, tasty, tasty.

We got the typical German favourites
Beef goulash with Augustiner dark beer, Swabian egg noodles and sour cream

The Original: crisp knuckle of pork in one piece (1000g) with Bavarian cabbage


Cheese noodles Allgau style with leaf spinach

And for dessert the warm apple strudel with vanilla sauce

I thought the food was really good but in saying that I ate this much of it

And a few bites of the strudel and was soooo full. We shared the dishes between four of us and there was still some left! Definitely a lot richer and heavier food type than I would normal have but I really enjoyed trying it out. 

I would recommend it for sure. Not for every night but a nice treat one night to get a good authentic taste of German food. It is a must!

Well that's it for my series on Berlin, hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed eating and drinking it all!
 

My Berlin Food Journey – Part 1 Snacks and Drinks

In the middle of July I took a trip to Berlin. It was a really fantastic break away and has maybe even claimed the top spot as my favourite European city.

It was everything I expected the city to be and more! There were a lot of highlights including the East side gallery, chilling in Tiergarten, checking out the amazing street art and learning the history of the city on a walking tour. I also got to travel with a good friend and catch up with some friends who have moved over there, which was probably the best the highlight.

Coming a close second though has to be the food. From the traditional German cuisine, to the amazing Turkish food, the oddness of currywurst and of course some sweet treats. A definite journey for the taste buds.

I will be doing a series of post from my time in Berlin, hope you enjoy!

Part 1 Snacks and Drinks

I have to start with currywurst. What can I say about it, it was….a sausage *smiles*. Basically currywurst is a pork sausage that is steamed, fried, sliced, and then served with ketchup and curry powder. It is a favourite fast food option in Berlin and seemed to be everywhere.

 
As you can probably tell I wasn’t really a fan but it wasn’t horrible either.

I was travelling with a friend who was vegetarian and we were completely shocked to actually find a place that did a vegetarian (it was actually even vegan) form of the currywurst. The sausage is made of seitan, wheat protein, water and herbs. It probably doesn’t taste like the original Currywurst but it was really nice to be able to include her in this German tradition and it did of course have the famous Currywurst sauce. You can find it at the Original Berliner Currywurst.

We didn’t quite see it as the culinary treasure the Germans seemed to see it as, but when in Germany…

One thing we did really like was the street food markets and the amazing pastries they did. We had a Poaca for breakfast one morning which is actually a Turkish snack. It’s a pastry served cold with different fillings. We had spinach and feta in ours. It was really tasty.

I will delve more into the massive Turkish influence in food over in Berlin in a future post but boy do they have some good Turkish food.

Another breakfast favourite was the pretzel. Can’t got to Germany and not have pretzels. We saw a lot of the bike carts going around and selling the huge pretzels but to be honest I wasn’t game to get one from there. They didn’t look overly hygienic. We opted for a suggestion from our hosts and headed to The Brezel Company.

 
My friend got a plain one and I got a cheese one and they were soooo good. Really fresh and tasty. The service was quick but also really friendly and although we didn’t sit in, it looked like a nice place with a good laid back atmosphere.

 

We also got a chocolate covered one for later in the day. This wasn’t as good as the original or the cheese but again when in Germany…

 

We all know I am not a big drinker but you can’t go to Germany and not have beers.  When in Germany...
I think the first few beers I had weren’t even German actually *smiles* but they tasted good.

The best one though had to be the Augustiner Pils I had in the Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt restaurant. This one was German for sure. It was a dry, slightly bitter, slightly sour tasting beer and I really enjoyed it, especially with the rich heavy German meal we were eating (to be blogged about at a later date).

One drink I kind of got a little bit addicted to was the Fritz-limo and Fritz-Spritz. Thank goodness we can’t get them in the UK!

Fritz-Kola was started by two friends who wanted to create a new kola brand better than everything offered by the big soft drink companies at the time (2002). They got popular very quickly and the rest is history.

I tried the apple, sparkling grape, apple cherry elderberry and orangeade. Funnily enough I never ended up trying the original Kola.

 
They were really nice and refreshing, still tasting really fruity despite being a soft drink so probably fairly artificial. I really liked them and had a lot more than I should of but when in Germany... *smiles*

Well that is it for this addition of My Berlin Food Journey. Keep your eyes open for the next instalment, coming soon.