Good and affordable on the streets are the kiosks selling wurst and other varieties of food that you can stand and eat on the pavement and, naturlich, the best beer in the world. There is good chicken, lamb, and beef to be had all over the metropolis, but you can’t find decent goat-gosht for love or money. Despite this array of four-footed non-veggery, walking around a supermarket, you could be forgiven for thinking that Germans are a bit pork-obsessed: the meat shelving seems to be 70% for pig products and 30% for the rest. In any case, the city is certainly focused on meat, which is happy-making for the carnivore in you.
After a few days of narrow-spectrum eating, your hopes rise when you get invited to dinner at someone’s house in a salubrious neighbourhood, say in the west of the city. You spruce yourself up, you buy some decent wine, and you take the S-bahn in the late afternoon sunlight. You take this train till the station where the line has broken down (a common occurrence this summer), and then you walk the rest of the way. Berlin does a great line in impassive doorways, whether to artist’s garret or apartment-palace, and building entrances take pride in indicating nothing about what lies behind them. You press the bell with the correct name, and you’re let in (‘Come on up, it’s only five floors!’). Inside the door, you could be confronted by two grand marble stairways sweeping up in stereo. You call up using your phone to make sure you don’t climb five floors on the wrong side, and then you start your ascent. Ten minutes later, you’re there, being greeted by your host. After completing your small triathlon, you are hungry, but you keep that hidden. Your host is reputed to be a great cook, and you’ve often heard that good things come to those who wait.
The apartment has a great view: other old burgherous apartments on a leafy street, a historical church with a raised train line behind it; or a secluded courtyard with tall trees and modern sculpture in the gardens. The decor of the vast space is superb: a corridor lined with old Tibetan tankhas; or a living room populated with large mid-20th century abstract oils; or tasteful modern furniture, old chandeliers, rich kilims and chatais underfoot; without fail, bathrooms as big as your bedroom back home. Wandering around with your glass of wine, you try not to ogle the dining table designed by some legendary Dane or another, but you can see the thing is loaded with food like an aircraft carrier parading warplanes at an official ceremony.
Thankfully northern Occidentals like to eat early, so you’re soon summoned to the table. And then you hear the dreaded words, ‘It’s all vegetarian, I hope you don’t mind?’ The statement-question is pronounced warmly and cheerfully. Unsurprisingly, nobody actually says they mind. And there you are: at one dinner, African stew but vegetarian; at another meal, an immersion into the Yotam-Ottolenghiverse, complete with fennel and black rice, tabbouleh, roasted vegetables, all kinds of toppings; at yet a third feast, only half-Yotam, half-Japanese but, ja, ganz vegetarisch. Sometimes these meals are surprising and superb. Sometimes you lift the forkful of chickpeas thinking, ‘Betey, terey yeh choley toh bade hatt ke hain!’ And sometimes you fiddle with the sad grey droop of a half-Yotamed slice of aubergine, hoping that your local doner-wallah will still be open when you get home.
