July 2011

A plate of summer Spargel in all its glory.

Spargel. I love Spargel. Almost every restaurant I’ve dined at in Berlin has had Spargel—asparagus—on the menu. It comes spritzed with lemon butter or dripping in Hollandaise or in a cream of Spargel soup—it’s all good. And I can’t get enough of it.

If I am very fortunate, the restaurant where I’m dining has weisser Spargel—white asparagus. And it is so good that on two occasions I’ve had a plate of Spargel and a glass or two of Reisling and nothing else (a Pinot Grigio would probably be a better match, but come on—I’m in Germany).

And it’s also fun to order. Last night, at a very tony restaurant in Mitte, I sat down, refused the menu, and said, “Ich möchte die Spargelcrèmesuppe, bitte.”

It made me feel happy saying it—Spargelcrèmesuppe. And it was the best bowl of cream of asparagus soup I’ve ever had.

Taking the train to Hackensher Markt. Photo by David Lansing.

I am on a train with my friend Wilfred Seefeld, headed for Hackensher Markt, one of the first neighborhoods to get gentrified after The Wall came down in 1990. I tell Wilfred, who was born in what was once East Berlin and escaped with his parents when he was 7, the story about how I was supposed to meet a friend in Berlin back in the ‘70s but chickened out because I was afraid I’d miss the train stop and end up in East Germany.

Wilfred says that the train stop from the Zoo Station, where we started, to Fredrichstrasse used to go through the Wall and in to West Berlin but the GDR wouldn’t allow the West Berlin conductors to bring the train into the last station in East Berlin, so an East Berlin conductor would get on the train before the last stop (LehterStadt U-staion), take it into the East Berlin station, turn it around, and get off at the first stop.

“And this went on until 1990,” he says.

He also tells me that there were a number of underground stations along what is now Potzdamer Platz. “We used to call them ‘ghost stations’ because they were there—but they weren’t used. The trains wouldn’t stop.”

We both look out the window, thinking about this, and then Wilfred says, almost in a whisper, “Berlin is an interesting city. But it’s strange history also makes it very tiring.”

The Cafe Pasternak in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood.

I think one of the best ways to see the city—any city—is just to get lost. I mean, completely lost. That’s what happened to me yesterday when I was wandering around Mitte and kept taking a series of ring-roads where nothing at all was familiar to me. What I usually do in this situation is stop and look up, hoping to see something way up in the sky. In Berlin, the most obvious geographical point to get your bearings is the city’s tallest structure, the 1,200-foot-high television tower—called the Telespargel, or toothpick, by locals—not far from Museum Island, but I couldn’t even see that. What I did see, however, was an old brick water tower poking his head above a crown of trees, so that’s where I headed.

Walking up quiet streets in various stages of gentrification, I passed by a ravaged hulk of an old building still showing the brutal scars of fifty years of neglect perched next to an ornate neo-classical five-story building with Jegendstil facades, completely restored.

Hungry, I looked for a place to eat and came across Café Pasternak directly across the street from the water tower. The chalkboard outside advertised “Russian and Jewish cuisine”: chamud, a traditional lemon soup with vegetables; latkes with smoked salmon and horseradish; kreplach, dough pockets filled with beef, melted butter, and sour cream; and kosher Bordeaux wines made by Baron Rothchild.

The water tower across the street from the restaurant.

I sat outside, facing the water tower, and ordered the latkes and a Maccabee, kosher beer from Israel. My waitress, Magdalena, told me she’s a Polish student studying law here in Berlin. Between jaunts from the bar to the sidewalk tables to deliver Maccabees and lattes to a very thirsty group of students, she sweetly answered my questions about the restaurant and the neighborhood. The restaurant has been here for over ten years, she told me, although it used to be next door, and is owned by a Russian Jew émigré and his wife.

When I asked her about the water tower across the street, she said, “Some bad things happened there. The SS used the basement as a torture chamber and the story is that they stuffed the bodies into the pipes in the cellar.”

And now, I ask her?

“It has been converted into a kindergarten and studio space for artists.”

And so I drank my Israeli beer brought by a Polish student in a Jewish restaurant owned by a Russian émigré, staring at a water tower that once housed the horrors of fascism that is now an art gallery and school. And here in Berlin, it all seemed perfectly normal.

One of the many food kiosks at KaDeWe, this one specializing in lobster and champagne.

I am wandering around Berlin’s über department store, KaDeWe, looking for gummi bears for a friend. Don’t ask me why, but my friend insists that the Germans make the best damn gummi bears in the world. Even better than the Japanese. I don’t mind this mission. Actually, it’s a good excuse to head up to the food hall on the 6^th floor where I plan to have lunch.

Let me just say this: I can be indecisive when it comes to food and the many food bars spread over the food hall, which, to my mind, is much better than the one at Harrod’s, offer an enormous choice. So while I’m half-heartedly searching for the gummi bears, I pick up a few bars of Valrhona chocolate and then spend the next half hour trying to decide what to eat. Some of the front runners:

So many sausages, so little time.

–Round, chewy hard rolls (Brötchen) filled with tiny North Sea shrimp along with a Beck’s.

–Emerald Irish rock oysters on the half shell and a glass of Pouilly-Fume.

–Breaded fillet of Havelzander on braised cucumber with a pepperbutter sauce and aquavit.

–Antipasti plate of Italian salami, olives, baby artichokes, red and green peppers, pickled vegetables and chianti.

–Mushroom omelette (called Kartoffel) with a dark Köstriker beer.

–Scampi with risotto and Pouilly-Fuisse.

–Quiche Lorraine and a glass of Sancerre.

–Sausages (Wurst) and a Löwenbrau.

In the end, I settle on a plump sausage sandwich, although even here the choices are difficult: Do I want the currywurst, Rostbratwurst, eisenbock wurst, or the Münchner Weisswurst? And a light or dark beer?

So many choices. And I still haven’t found the gummi bears.