May 2025
We’ve been to Berlin (population: 3.7 million) on numerous occasions in ‘two nights here, three nights there’ kind of fashion. But, still, we’ve seen enough of the city and sites & have a general understanding of the city. Not having an urgent need to be tourists, we were there again in May for 3 nights just to reconnect with some relatives. 3 nights translates to 2 full days when you travel, and that meant basically eating with the family members during this trip. So you will see mostly food pictures here.
It was an uneventful 3 hour drive from Hamburg. We had a home exchange loft in the yellow area above, Wrangel Kiez, which is on the eastern edge of the old West Berlin. The Wikipedia description says, “the area has undergone gentrification, but remains known for alternative lifestyle and counterculture.”
My Hamburg cousin’s son, So-ang, chose a Turkish restaurant for dinner. We happened to be near one of the Turkish areas of Berlin, the city where the largest ethnic group is the Turks.
In Korean culture, adults treat the youngsters when you go out. But, as the youngsters turn into adults, they are expected to treat their elders. It’s a delicate question as to when this change occurs. When we saw So-ang’s mom in Hamburg, she specifically mentioned we should let him take us out to a nice restaurant since he was doing quite well financially. So I told him, “hey, you are in charge!”
He went to town and ordered all sorts of delicious things. Clearly, he knew what he was doing. The boy was no longer a boy.
This restaurant, Hasir Ocakbasi, had only 3.5 stars on Google reviews – people mostly complaining about the high prices. But we didn’t find it expensive at all – 10 to 20 euros per dish. We would go there all the time if it were in Los Angeles.
The ice cream here was excellent – quite surprisingly – sitting among bustling Turkish restaurants. We bought some baklava from a bakery and went home. Berlin is very serious about baklava, we found out. Delicious!
Next morning I had arranged a 3.5 hour walking tour of the city for my brother, his wife, and two friends who tagged along. Most free walking tours last 1 to 2 hours, but 3.5 hours? That would cover all the major sites for the first time visitors, I thought. But it was raining in the morning. The two friends went to a free concert at the Berlin Phil, and my brother, who had been to Berlin before, took his wife on a quick personal tour. This left us with a quiet morning on our own.
We popped over to an Italian restaurant right around the corner from us. A huge surprise! One of the best Italian meals we ever had outside of Italy!
Then we walked around the neighborhood and witnessed the funkiness of the area.
Dinner was with another cousin’s son and daughter. The cousin was out of town, but the kids were willing to see us! They picked an Austrian restaurant & we ate great schnitzel.
The next day we went to Potsdam and spent most of the day there.
We went back to the Italian restaurant next door for our last meal in Berlin. So good!
Small Wide World 