I have grown to be quite a foodie over recent years and therefore the prospect of going somewhere new to discover cute cafes and delicious lunch spots brought me great pleasure. I recently went to Berlin for a four day city break and ate some great food; I am going to share with you some of the places that I would recommend. What I loved about all of the places was the reasonable prices, mostly under €10 for a main meal and the wide variety of options available for all dietary preferences.
Swing Kitchen
This is the only 100% vegan place that I am going to talk about; however, it was definitely worth a mention. Their counter was very well laid out with clear black-boards showing all of their options for burgers and salads; they even had a separate printed English menu too which was great. I went for the classic cheese burger. I was amazed by the size of the burger when it was handed to me wrapped in brown paper. It was so huge that I could only finish half of it; even cutting it in half was a struggle! I was so pleased when the soya patty and vegan cheese came accompanied with so many veggies: tomato-concassée salad, red onions, yellow turnip, carrot, bell pepper and red cabbage.
Starbucks
On one of the evenings, we just wanted a quick bite to eat that we could take away back to the hotel room. Starbucks was just the most convenient place; however I was impressed with their new winter salad bowls. I chose the vegan one that came with barley, pomegranate seeds, carrot, tomato chickpeas and hummus. They also warmed it up too.
Spreegold
This is possibly my favourite cafe that we went to. They had so many different options from pasta to salads, full breakfasts to open sandwiches. The location was spacious and open, with individual tables and bench seats down the centre. I went for the vegan veggie bowl: vegetable pasta, pumpkin seeds, cherry tomatoes and hokkaido hummus. The kitchen was visible and therefore it is obvious that all of the food is made fresh to order. The food was also presented in interesting dishes.
Dean & David
This was a location where it was possible to build your own salad bowl. I enjoyed the salad even more as a result of being able to include some of my favourite things: sweet potato, peanuts, sweetcorn and edamame beans. The food was a great quality and although it was light, it was filling at the same time; it was fresh and simple.
Steel Vintage Bike Café
This is one of the more unusual locations that we ate in. It is located not too far from the Brandenburg Gate and seemed to be the destination for rare, classic and vintage bikes. All of the artwork was bicycle related and bike frames were hung up in the windows and on the walls, almost acting as a show room for their products. This place seemed to be most popular for their hot drinks; however the food was also good. I simply went for the scrambled egg, feta and cherry tomatoes that also came with a bread basket.
Frai Foods
This cafe was located in the food court at Bikini Berlin which had been designed with the Instagram generation in mind; everything is photo ready with greenery and interesting seating throughout. Although Bikini Berlin is located in a heritage-listed building complex at Berlin’s Zoo, it is modern and forward thinking inside. The pop-ups located down the centre are pushing innovation and offer a personal approach. The food court is no different. There were stands for pancakes, curries, salad, noodles, burgers, etc. I chose to get my food from Frai because they offer a fully vegetarian menu and there was the opportunity to create the perfect dish for your requirements. I went for one of their set options of a veggie bowl because I wanted to try tempeh for the first time. It had quite a sweet taste but was balanced by the cauliflower rice, broccoli cheese, beetroot and Greek yogurt sauce.
Spooning Cookie Dough
I have always been a secret fan of cookie dough so when I discovered a cookie dough shop, I had to go. The shop is very small but its interior is very tasteful and cute; it looked like an American ice-cream parlour. We were presented with several different flavours of cookie dough to choose from: original, the classic, cookies and cream, caramel, double chocolate, brownie peanut crunch and a few more. It was so hard to choose as they all looked divine. I ended up selecting the classic (plain cookie dough with chocolate chunks) and the double chocolate. It seemed odd eating cookie dough like ice-cream; however it was extremely delicious and satisfying, even if it did get a little sickly at the end.
Rachel
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