Light Meals and Weekend Treats from an English Woman in Berlin
Something terrible has happened this last month. Our favourite Thai restaurant has temporarily closed down! OK, so the staff have simply just gone back to Thailand for their holidays and the restaurant will be open up again soon. I guess I should be grateful that it isn’t another story of a restaurant closing down because the food is either too spicy for the sensitive German palate or too expensive for the rather frugal average German….
As much as I appreciate living in central Berlin and having easy access to a wide range of good restaurants and different cuisines the one thing that still upsets me is the lack of good Thai or Vietnamese food in Berlin. And what is more upsetting is the fact that every street is full of restaurants serving up Thai or Vietnamese dishes but are sadly generally awful. I am talking about dishes that are bland, lacking in spice and just some kind of generic coconut curry or a simple noodle dishes smothered in a cheap peanut sauce or topped with some mango and chillies….
I love peanut butter, it is one of my guilty pleasures where I can happily take a spoon and eat it straight from the pot. Anything with this delicious, nutty butter gets my attention and is probably why I have always been a fan of Chicken Satay! One thing that I miss about the UK is going out for a Chinese and Thai. I put both Chinese and Thai in the same sentence because apart from a few varied dishes on the menus, in Britain they typically serve up similar food. We all go for the mixed starters where both have Prawn Toast, …
Thai is one of my favourite cuisines – it is fresh, tasty and quick to make. And while there are a couple of good Thai restaurants around you just can’t beat making your own! I always stop by a local Asian store such as Asia Mekong to pick up plenty of fresh coriander and sweet basil. My cupboards are full of various spices which means this dish can be quick to prepare….
I don’t usually cook with egg noodles when making a Thai curry and instead tend to use rice noodles. But this Burmese influenced Thai dish is a popular street food and is so easy to make at home. Any kind of Thai curry sauce tends to be like a soup and this works really well with the egg noodles as they do not end up soft and like mush. …
I love Asian food. It can be light, fresh and reasonably healthy. I also find it quick and easy to make 
Finding fresh spices and ingredients can be quite limited in a German supermarket. You can of course find your standard root veg and basic salad ingredients but finding anything that may appear ‘exotic’ is a no go I am afraid.
If you are hoping to find some thai sweet basil in your nearest large supermarket you can forget it – standard basil can sometimes be hard enough to come by!
Yet cooking with these spices and herbs can really make a dish that something special and more importantly it is healthy and fresh. The good thing about Berlin is that there are a few local Asian stores dotted around the city. One of my favourites is Asia Mekong located here at Hackesher Markt:
Henriette-Herz Platz 1, 10178 Berlin
You will find all packets of spices you can imagine, pastes, fresh herbs and vegetables and packet and tinned goods. Also, for any of those missing a cup of ‘proper’ tea over here in Berlin they also sell PG Tips….
I love mixing different spices together and having a real fusion meal. That is one of the things I love about British cooking in that we make use of 
all the spices out there and incorporate it with our own style of cooking. This is the same in the US with Tex Mex as a prime example. Fusion cuisine is an important part of British cooking – just look at coronation chicken (a creamy curry chicken in mayonnaise) which was first made in 1953 for the Queen’s Coronation to celebrate all the different spices from the Empire. …
