Because in my family, IT'S ALL ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME.
And jessie_ohki said she just can't see all the dieting postings in her flist, anymore on twitter. (I think it was jessie_ohki. Was it?)
So. A post about eating out with my family.
Just a little introduction: in my family, we seem to really, really, really like to go eating out. My sister heitidei recently said that "this family uses really everything as an excuse to go eating out" and I'm leaning towards agreeing with her. We do it for Christmas, we do it for saying good bye to family members going on long trips, research cruises or studying abroad, we do it for welcoming family members back from said trips, we do it for New Year, we do it after or before culture (trips to the opera, theatre, whatever), we do it after going to the museum... in short, we seem to it all the fucking time.
Like, you know, this weekend.
Friday: Long March Canteen, Chinese. (also, just me with rareb, Morgenland that also has the best brunch I encountered in Berlin until now)
Saturday: Café Voland, Russian/Georgian (the one that's a country, not a federal state in the US). (also, my sister, brother in law and rareb, Fleury, a cute French café)
Sunday: Alex, vaguely American.
Long March Canteen is, like, really hipster (for hipsters with like, a ton of money) and nothing like the usual Chinese cuisine that you can find in Berlin (and that is usually more Vietnamese than Chinese). There are long black tables and a vague look and feel of a Chinese canteen rather than the plushy, red and gold atmosphere you get in Chinese restaurants. No numbers on the menu, either but lots of fancy food. Mom invited heitidei, rareb and yours truly there for International Women's Day and we had a really interesting experience of eating out.
We took a couple dishes to sampe and share, such as Chinese crabs, baozi, tofu and Chinese eggs (the ones with jellified egg white and blue egg yolks), chicken and water chestnuts and yeast balls filled with chocolate for dessert and fried banana and it was awesome (no one in the party wanted take the jelly fish carpaccio, though. Really don't know, why :)). Nothing for eating there every day but I strongly recommend it if you want to try something new and are not afraid of unusual food. A bit pricey but I really do think the prices are justified. I expecially recommend the baozi (then again, I really love baozi in general) and the desserts.
Café Voland was quite a contrast with it's hearty servings and down to earth cuisine. Dad took the family (Mom, heitidei, brother in law, yours truly) and rareb there because rareb spent a couple months in Russia last year (last year? Was it?) and I suggested we take her out somewhere they have authentic Russian food. Dad really likes Café Voland and when he says it's authentic about Russian food, it's authentic (he spent five years in Ukraine to get a degree in mathematics) so we went there.
We had a few plates of assorted appetizers for the table, such as pickled vegetables, Moldovan garlic bread, bliny (Russian pancakes) with smoked salmon, Georgian cheese with walnuts, that sort of thing. I took the pelmeni with mushrooms and smetana (a kind of creme fraiche) for main course and the pavlova as dessert and man, those were some really nicely sized servings :D I loved that they put enough on the appetizer plates that everyone could have their fair share of them and I found my serving of pelmeni and mushrooms really generous and very, very tasty. I also liked the Georgian chicken with mustard sauce and bliny filled with spinach Mom had and Dad's pork Poltawa. There could have been more of the pavlova but then again, I probably wouldn't have been able to eat more of it, anyway so it was alright.
On Sunday, Mom, rareb and I went to the Bourke-White exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau which I really loved but wished they'd had more photos there (Bourke-White really is the overachiever of overachievers among female war photographers in WWII and a fucking photographer goddess and I kind of might be worshipping her) and afterwards slipped and cursed our way to Alex at Sony Center Berlin (some idiot had the genius idea to put plates of slick metal on the ground at Sony Center which always results in people staggering and slipping their way to the cinema and restaurants in weather like today (snow and minus Celcius degrees, I'm not kidding you)). I like Alex for being a chain restaurant without feeling like one, despite the corporate identity furnishing and printed menues and everything.
They have nice food, great cakes and the waffles Mom and rareb had (Mom with heated cherries and whipped cream and rareb with canned peaches and ice cream) looked really delicious (and, in Mom's case, also tasted delicious but I since I'm respectful of other people's food, I didn't pester her in letting me have a bite). I had a non-alcoholic cocktail and a BBQ burger that I both liked. The burger was kind of enormous (for me, anyway) and really, really tasty and the cocktail had basil leaves in it (I like unusual ingredients in my cocktails, just no alcohol. No, this is not weird.) and really, what more do you want from a chain restaurant?
So, anyway, we really like to eat out. Usually not on weekdays but holidays, weekends and vacations are fair game (we're going to spend Easter here. Don't ask. Dad got fired after over 20 years and received a bit of a pay-off...) and we're all loving it. If I ever end up in a relationship after all (not going to happen, I'm sure of it), prospective boyfriend will have to endure lots and lots and lots of good food, weird food, foreign food, probably not so good food not cooked by me (baking is a different story) and possibly my family as company as well. God, I love my family.
PS.: Also baked peanut cookies for work on Thursday (for International Women's Day on Friday. Guess who ate almost all the cookies.). After ginger bread scones the Thursday before that. Possibly going to back mini-tartes this Thursday. I'm gonna have to go looking for my camera to start doing bad pictures of my baking again, don't I?
So. A post about eating out with my family.
Just a little introduction: in my family, we seem to really, really, really like to go eating out. My sister heitidei recently said that "this family uses really everything as an excuse to go eating out" and I'm leaning towards agreeing with her. We do it for Christmas, we do it for saying good bye to family members going on long trips, research cruises or studying abroad, we do it for welcoming family members back from said trips, we do it for New Year, we do it after or before culture (trips to the opera, theatre, whatever), we do it after going to the museum... in short, we seem to it all the fucking time.
Like, you know, this weekend.
Friday: Long March Canteen, Chinese. (also, just me with rareb, Morgenland that also has the best brunch I encountered in Berlin until now)
Saturday: Café Voland, Russian/Georgian (the one that's a country, not a federal state in the US). (also, my sister, brother in law and rareb, Fleury, a cute French café)
Sunday: Alex, vaguely American.
Long March Canteen is, like, really hipster (for hipsters with like, a ton of money) and nothing like the usual Chinese cuisine that you can find in Berlin (and that is usually more Vietnamese than Chinese). There are long black tables and a vague look and feel of a Chinese canteen rather than the plushy, red and gold atmosphere you get in Chinese restaurants. No numbers on the menu, either but lots of fancy food. Mom invited heitidei, rareb and yours truly there for International Women's Day and we had a really interesting experience of eating out.
We took a couple dishes to sampe and share, such as Chinese crabs, baozi, tofu and Chinese eggs (the ones with jellified egg white and blue egg yolks), chicken and water chestnuts and yeast balls filled with chocolate for dessert and fried banana and it was awesome (no one in the party wanted take the jelly fish carpaccio, though. Really don't know, why :)). Nothing for eating there every day but I strongly recommend it if you want to try something new and are not afraid of unusual food. A bit pricey but I really do think the prices are justified. I expecially recommend the baozi (then again, I really love baozi in general) and the desserts.
Café Voland was quite a contrast with it's hearty servings and down to earth cuisine. Dad took the family (Mom, heitidei, brother in law, yours truly) and rareb there because rareb spent a couple months in Russia last year (last year? Was it?) and I suggested we take her out somewhere they have authentic Russian food. Dad really likes Café Voland and when he says it's authentic about Russian food, it's authentic (he spent five years in Ukraine to get a degree in mathematics) so we went there.
We had a few plates of assorted appetizers for the table, such as pickled vegetables, Moldovan garlic bread, bliny (Russian pancakes) with smoked salmon, Georgian cheese with walnuts, that sort of thing. I took the pelmeni with mushrooms and smetana (a kind of creme fraiche) for main course and the pavlova as dessert and man, those were some really nicely sized servings :D I loved that they put enough on the appetizer plates that everyone could have their fair share of them and I found my serving of pelmeni and mushrooms really generous and very, very tasty. I also liked the Georgian chicken with mustard sauce and bliny filled with spinach Mom had and Dad's pork Poltawa. There could have been more of the pavlova but then again, I probably wouldn't have been able to eat more of it, anyway so it was alright.
On Sunday, Mom, rareb and I went to the Bourke-White exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau which I really loved but wished they'd had more photos there (Bourke-White really is the overachiever of overachievers among female war photographers in WWII and a fucking photographer goddess and I kind of might be worshipping her) and afterwards slipped and cursed our way to Alex at Sony Center Berlin (some idiot had the genius idea to put plates of slick metal on the ground at Sony Center which always results in people staggering and slipping their way to the cinema and restaurants in weather like today (snow and minus Celcius degrees, I'm not kidding you)). I like Alex for being a chain restaurant without feeling like one, despite the corporate identity furnishing and printed menues and everything.
They have nice food, great cakes and the waffles Mom and rareb had (Mom with heated cherries and whipped cream and rareb with canned peaches and ice cream) looked really delicious (and, in Mom's case, also tasted delicious but I since I'm respectful of other people's food, I didn't pester her in letting me have a bite). I had a non-alcoholic cocktail and a BBQ burger that I both liked. The burger was kind of enormous (for me, anyway) and really, really tasty and the cocktail had basil leaves in it (I like unusual ingredients in my cocktails, just no alcohol. No, this is not weird.) and really, what more do you want from a chain restaurant?
So, anyway, we really like to eat out. Usually not on weekdays but holidays, weekends and vacations are fair game (we're going to spend Easter here. Don't ask. Dad got fired after over 20 years and received a bit of a pay-off...) and we're all loving it. If I ever end up in a relationship after all (not going to happen, I'm sure of it), prospective boyfriend will have to endure lots and lots and lots of good food, weird food, foreign food, probably not so good food not cooked by me (baking is a different story) and possibly my family as company as well. God, I love my family.
PS.: Also baked peanut cookies for work on Thursday (for International Women's Day on Friday. Guess who ate almost all the cookies.). After ginger bread scones the Thursday before that. Possibly going to back mini-tartes this Thursday. I'm gonna have to go looking for my camera to start doing bad pictures of my baking again, don't I?