Food Archive | My Travel Journal-Blog

I love to taste new dishes from foreign countries or enjoy meals I already know from my past vacations (it brings back good memories). That’s why I was very excited when I heard about the food market at the ‘Görlitzer Bahnhof’ in Berlin.

From Switzerland to Peru …

In Berlin, you have the opportunity to choose between various food markets. I went with a friend to the Markthalle Neun (Eisenbahnstraße 42/43, Berlin-Kreuzberg), near the Görtlitzer Bahnhof (U1, U3) to sample some foreign dishes. The market opens every Thursday from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. You can find a wide variety of food from all over the world, ranging from Switzerland to Peru, from Vietnam to Italy. There are different stalls offering dishes from specific countries.

Summer rolls

Our first dish was summer rolls from Vietnam. They are rice paper filled with tofu, peppers, cucumber, rice noodles, Chinese cabbage, and fresh herbs, served with peanut-hoisin sauce. They were really tasty. My friend bought something like samosas filled with meat from an African stall.

Naanwich

It was really difficult to decide what to eat because there were so many creative dishes that looked so delicious. In the end, we decided to eat a Naanwich, which combines the words Naan bread (typical Indian bread) and sandwich. So, you can already guess that it’s Indian food. You could choose between meat (12-hours cooked pork) and tikka cheese (paneer), combined with salad, various vegetables, coriander, and mint yoghurt sauce, all wrapped in bread. It was not easy to eat, but it was really good (I actually love Indian food).

Fluffy waffles filled with Mousse au Chocolat

My friend decided to try some of the wines they offered. I wanted to save my money for dessert. I forgot the name of the dish, but it was a special kind of waffle (very fluffy), rolled up to resemble an ice-cream wafer and filled with Mousse au Chocolat. You could choose between different fillings such as Baileys, strawberry, banana, Nutella, or just the classic option with sugar and cinnamon. The evening was very nice, and we plan to come again. After the market closed, we went to the nearest bar to drink a beer.

Official page: Markthalle Neun

In Japan live about 2 per cent of Christians. For sure, it would not be the first country you would associate with Christmas. But this fact doesn’t keep Berlin from organising a Japanese Christmas market. What you can find there? Please scroll down …

At the weekend of the second advent, I visited the Japanese Christmas market together with my flatmates (sometimes we’re Asia nerds). The market was in a big hall in Alt-Treptow in Berlin. The first look wasn’t really Christmassy (neither the second). There were a lot of different booths with typical Japanese stuff like soft toys, pictures, little action figures and accessories. We did also find hand-made kimonos and self-made art. The vendors were different people from Germany or Japan, who came to the market to present and sell special things.

And of course, there were many different booths with Japanese food. Berlin is also really famous for offering a lot of Vegetarian and Vegan food, so there were also a lot of possibilities to have dishes without animal products. Of course, they had a lot of meals with rice like Japanese Curry or Thuna Don. The last one is a rice bowl with marinated tuna Sashimi. Other little things were Yakitori (chicken) or different crepes with Salmond-Teriyaki, Kimchi-Cheese or Matcha-Atzuki. They also sell all kinds of Hot Dogs with specific dishes like Kimchi, Wasabi and Teriyaki. Okonomiyaki reminded me of a big pancake, I think you could compare it with each other. Of course, you could eat typical food like Sushi and Japanese soup. They also sell Zenzai. It’s a sweet red bean soup.

It was really hard to choose only one dish from the big offer. I decided to try Gyoza. It’s thinly rolled pieces of pastry filled with meat (pork) or vegetables (vegetarian). If you know the German “Maulentaschen” you will know, what I mean. You eat it with soy sauce. It was really delicious, but I waited for one hour to get them because the food needed a lot of time and many people wanted to eat them. But I was lucky because the seller gave me one Gyoza more. Thanks to the hospitable Japanese.

Click here to find more blog posts about different Christmas markets in Berlin

First written on Monday, December 14th, 2015, you have read the blog post Japanese Christmas Market in Berlin on My Travel Journal-Blog.