Wir sind Berliners

We (Mike Jappy and I that is) are just back from Berlin, great city if you have never been and well worth the visit. Seeing as we are on a food website we'll stick to the culinary side, especially if you like beer and red wine.

On landing in the capital we did what every self discerning tourist should do and headed straight to the pub to sample the local delicacy, Currywurst. This particular item can be found across the city, we were fortunate in that our first experience was in quite a posh little pub not far from the Brandenburg gate.

Currywurst is the German equivalent of Tikka Masala, basically you take a piece of meat (in this case a pork sausage) stick it in a tomato sauce (in this case pretty much tomato ketchup), and then sprinkle it with curry powder. Sounds rank but tastes lush, mine was served with kartofflen which is basically tatties fried in bacon and onion.

Mike opted for a German goulash but I can tell by the way he was eyeing my sausage that he had currywurst envy! This was addressed forthwith at breakfast the next day where croissants and coffee were replaced with pilsner and meat, a patter which was repeated often.

I can't actually remember what we ate that night, but it was in a very nice restaurant in an area called Hackerscher Hof, a little market a bit like Covent Garden. The reason for my lack of memory was a cocktail bar called the Newton where Mike sampled a great caprihnia and I drank an adios mutherfucker which pretty much does what it says on the tin.

This was a pattern that was repeated over the next few days – beer...meat...cocktail...meat...beer....sleep, one major highlight was a bar just off Alexanderplatz where you serve your own beer and order the food (currywurst x 2) from your table via a touch screen. Its called the pub and that's exactly what it is, if someone ever opens one in Scotland they'll make a fortune.

On our final night we opted for steak as our colon's still appeared to be functioning (does it actual do anything?) There are some great steakhouses in Berlin and this was no exception, Argentinian meat with a bottle of wine for 30 bucks, pretty hard to beat.

In short would I go back.. absolutely, do I want sausage casserole this month, not really but there will be a posh version of the famous dish appearing on the site real soon.