Michelin & the Street: Berlin

BERLIN Too much currywurst, is simply too much currywurst. And I don’t get it. Previous to landing in this awesome city we’d had this late-night dish built up as Berlin’s answer to the kebab so we thought we’d do our duty and eat it as often as possible, in our search for the city’s finest. Nup, I’m not convinced. It’s a plate of chopped up bratwurst (usually pretty withered too as these are train station fayre) doused in tomato sauce and curry powder. Now I’ll admit that the first currywurst we had was probably the best – from outside Gesundbrunnen underground station. There was a queue (it was lunchtime) and the bratwurst was bursting from its natural skin. However, subsequent sausages were dry in the mouth or with chewy artificial casings so I left Berlin not too concerned that I’d have to stick to kebabs after the pub in Sydney.

Of course the beer was fun to taste and the Rieslings were too, however what I really fell in love with was herbal liquors and liqueurs. Shots of Kuemmerling are sold in packs of twelve tiny green glass bottles in the supermarkets and are supposed to be good for digestion. They are actually very convenient for slipping a few in your handbag before going out to bars where the drinks are bound to be a bit pricey. We stayed with a friend whose extremely cool band mates caught us drinking Kuemmerlings in the kitchen and were very amused as they’re what German oomas drink. However, we suspect we may have kicked off a little revival of the drink – at least amongst the indie kids scene, because Kuemmerlings are cheap, powerful and quite easy to drink. They might even be good digestifs as well.