Photo by Tam Eastley

It’s no secret that finding a job in Berlin isn’t easy. With the highest unemployment rate in all Germany (12.7% compared to a 6.5% national average), Germans and ex-pats alike need to be increasingly creative when it comes to finding a job, or find themselves forced to leave and look elsewhere. While this can be a struggle and a stress, it also accounts for the abundance of small, creative businesses here in the city.

Two years ago, Diana Durdic (a former engineer for BMW) and Tasha Arana (an accessories designer from New York) discovered themselves in such a conundrum. They moved to the city and decided that if they couldn’t find anything in six months, they’d start their own business, perhaps one that merged their two shared passions, fashion and, erm, baked goods.

They didn’t find a job and thus Sing Blackbird was born: a vintage clothing store/vegan café on Sanderstrasse in trendy Kreuzkölln. Two years on, the venture has not only exceeded their own expectations, it’s even caught the eye of the international world from Italian Vogue to Dutch Elle.

The modern-day concept store, nestled between a huddle of Imbiss, Spätkauf and the Maybachufer Turkish Market, fits perfectly with this increasingly trendy Berlin kiez. But settling in Kreuzkölln was purely accidental, says Durdic. “We just wanted something with two doors on the street in order to highlight the store, and also the cafe.”

When they first came upon the location, they were not at all impressed. “I thought [the space] was really trashy,” Durdic says. “But when we started pulling away the drop down ceilings we found these amazing crown mouldings.” Uh huh – they had stumbled upon yet another diamond in the rough in Berlin.

Some well-chosen wallpaper, a splash of silver paint on the ceiling and a few antique birdcages later, Sing Blackbird was opened in September 2010 – and has been booming ever since. The store merges the best of two very different worlds – fashion and food – in a healthy, cost-efficient way. The clothing, mostly from the 70s, 80s and 90s is hand picked by Durdic and Arana and priced reasonably.

“A lot of vintage stores are overpriced,” Durdic tells me, “and a lot of the second hand stores have questionable values.” The two entrepreneurs wanted to fill a niche that they didn’t see represented in Berlin, that of mid-range, well priced, good quality vintage clothes.

Their commitment to quality is obvious: the pieces are hung on the racks delicately and colour co-ordinated. There’s no overcrowding or need to squeeze through a claustrophobic space, overflowing with dusty, smelly, torn fabric corpses. Instead, the selection is well thought-out, well treated, and well-informed.

Photo by Tam Eastley

In the winter they carry sweaters, coats and boots, and in the summer, Berlin favourites like floral dresses. They know their market, and they love it. “Berlin style isn’t as crazy as it used to be when people would just wear anything,” says Durdic. “Now it’s more about a casual street style and basic colours.”

When you’re done browsing, cross over to the other side of the store and pull up a seat – maybe by the window, where you can sip a cappuccino and watch the Kreuzkölln foot traffic. The large array of tasty vegan treats on offer include a justly famed breakfast burrito, vegan pancakes, a tempeh lunch bowl and homemade vegan cake.

Durdic and Arana also tend to involve their friends and the wider community to contribute, interact, and (natürlich) party. The various magazines displayed around the store are mostly creative projects by friends, as are the beautiful and delicate vintage necklaces – and customers are encouraged to bring in their unwanted clothes to swap.

On cold, rainy, and miserable winter Thursdays, Sing Blackbird also hosts movie nights [check the Facebook page for listings]. Previous films have included quirky vintage classics like The Warriors, Badlands, Repo Man and Blue Velvet. In the summer, the team sets up a classic Berlin Flohmarkt on the sidewalk outside and, because no hip, beer selling, vegan cafe is complete without a little bit of music, they’ve also starting bringing in bands, mostly of the soft acoustic variety so as not to annoy the neighbours.

When you consider the quirkiness and success of a venture like Sing Blackbird, you have to concede that perhaps Berlin’s high unemployment crisis isn’t so bad, since it seems, at some level, to nourish Berlin with alternative treasures like this one.

Sing Blackbird
Sanderstraße 11
12047 Berlin
T 030 54845051
Open: 13-19 Daily

About The Author

Tam Eastley is from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. After finishing a Bachelor’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Calgary, she decided to see the world, and embarked upon a nine month trip around Europe and South-East Asia. She moved to Berlin over three years ago and completed a Master’s Degree at the Freie Universität Berlin in English Literature and Cultural Studies. She recently cured a bout of wanderlust with a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway. She is currently a freelance travel blogger for NPR Berlin and a contributor to Slow Travel Berlin. In addition to her journalistic endeavors, she is working on a book of short stories about traveling the world by train. Her interests include culture, literature, travel and roller derby.

Sophia Raphaeline (photo by Ana Dinescu)

In November 2010, one of the world’s best-known travel-guide brands, Lonely Planet, named Berlin’s Another Country among the top ten bookshops in the world. The quirky, thirteen-year-old Kreuzberg institution took its place at number six, alongside legends like Paris’s adored Shakespeare & Company and San Francisco’s iconic City Lights.

Not a few jaws dropped among the Berlin literati. “None of the other bookshops can quite believe it,” says its British owner, Sophia Raphaeline.

Naysayers fret that Another Country’s selection of literary fiction can be spotty, that the shop carries no new books, that the place is just strange. It’s true that Another Country is messy and unpredictable. The shop is appealing—with its black-and-white-tiled façade, dazzling red door, brightly painted plasterwork, colorful shelves, and comfy armchairs—but it does tend toward the slovenly with its full ashtrays and used wineglasses, mud tracked across the floor tiles.

And on Friday nights, when a crowd of regulars holds court in the back room, arguments break out and get passionate. It’s hardly a tidy, curated experience. Like other shops on the Lonely Planet list, though, Another Country is much more than a place to buy books.

Sophia is duly proud of the citation. You won’t see any promotional sign in the window, though, no mention in advertisements or marketing paraphernalia. You won’t find the news on the shop’s website either. Sophia demurs at the idea of truly publicizing the news; that would be, she says, “selling out.” Even so, she’ll tell just about everyone who comes in the door and is not above a good boast.

“Once or twice a day,” she says, “we get people saying, ‘What a great shop!’ We get a lot of Americans doing the Grand Tour, who come here after Paris and say, ‘Oh! This is what we wished Shakespeare and Company was like.’ The shop seems to fit into some archetypal image they have.”

Yet Sophia is something of an accidental bookseller. When the shop began, it was largely to find a use and a home for a personal collection of about 13,000 books. Wary of running a business unsupported, she approached an established secondhand shop specialising in English books about going into partnership. She told the bookseller that about a third of what she had consisted of science fiction and fantasy titles. “And I had wait about thirty seconds for the laughter to fully go away,” she says, “before the answer came: ‘Oh, we only do culture here.’”

She rankles at the memory. As you’d expect of a bookseller, she’s vastly well read, but Sophia abhors any sniff of cultural or literary snobbery. The principle behind her shop is very much one of inclusion rather than exclusion.

So much about the shop defies convention. For one thing, a good chunk of its 20,000-odd books are for loan, not sale (bring a book back and the purchase price is refunded, minus €1.50), while about ten percent of stock functions as a reference library, available only to read in-shop. And unlike most bookshops in Berlin, Another Country is permitted to open Sundays, due to its designation under Reisebedarf, or traveller’s aid. Add to all that its considerable other life as a social club, and its curious owner herself.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

The shop’s tall, dark-haired transgender owner, Sophia, dresses mainly in long, dark skirts and cardigan sweaters and describes herself as having the hormonal and emotional tenor of a fourteen-year-old girl – as a person in the throes of a second puberty.

Her story, unlike the more familiar trans narratives, of early-post-adolescent transition or sustained efforts to pass in one’s natal gender followed by transition in middle age, is uncommon. Free of gender-role struggles, Alan Raphaeline lived contentedly as a heterosexual male well into his sixth decade.

But one morning in 2008, at fifty-five years old, Alan woke to find he was no longer a man. Later, that is what he would conclude had happened. I sit on a wooden cube in front of the shop desk while Sophia tells me her story.

“Imagine you’ve done a tab of mescaline,” she says, “and the feeling never goes away.”

Around the middle of 2008, having experienced a serious health scare and come out the other side, Alan went through a sudden, wrenching shift. “I woke up one morning with the strong sense that something was missing,” Sophia says now. “When I hit the streets, everything changed in the way I seemed to see and feel people around me.”

Then-Alan found he was overwhelmed by incoming sense information. He forced his mind back to the night, the days before. Had he taken something? No, he had to admit he hadn’t used a hallucinogenic substance in fifteen years. So what was happening? He began a journey to find out. First the tumble awake to strangeness, followed by consultations with neurologists and endocrinologists, psychological exploration (he was in fact a certified psychotherapist himself).

Neurologists could find no pathology or evidence of stroke; endocrinologists found elevated estrogen levels and lowered testosterone. Sophia cites the hormone upset as likely tied to a long-term medication regimen. She also considers the possibility of disturbed hormone cascade in utero brought on by DES, which her mother took when she was pregnant with Alan.

Late in 2008, after a few months of struggle and investigation, came the realization of the thing that had been missing since the morning when Alan woke up disoriented. It was gender. Alan’s ways of seeing shapes and colors were utterly altered, his ways of knowing things, the character of his anger. He began to conclude that his cognition had been completely reshaped, with “female” neural structures activated and male patterns switched off. He began to find himself thinking thoughts that began, “When I was a guy . . .”

The decision came quickly. Sophia says she could not go back, likening the shift to being freed from a cramped, dark space. Alan became Sophia; she grew out her hair and began electrolysis, undertook hormone therapy, began wearing skirts and brassieres. After a trip to London for the granting of revised identity documents, gender female, Sophia Raphaeline returned to her Kreuzberg shop and held an intimate funeral ceremony for Alan, burning the old documents and putting him to rest.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

Visitors to the shop often assume that its name comes from the James Baldwin novel of Bohemian decadence in 1960s Greenwich Village. It’s a not a bad guess; Sophia (as Alan) came of age during the high tide of the counterculture, and bears its imprint still. But she says the name properly comes from the original source, Act IV of Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta: “Thou hast committed— / Fornication: But that was in another country. / And besides, the wench is dead.”

The layers of subtext are delicious, but on the surface it’s just a good name for an ex-pat-owned bookshop visited by Anglophones who may pine now and then for the territory they’ve left behind; who’d like to use the simple currency of their native speech in a land run on seven-syllable-long, tongue-boggling compounds.

The main impetus in founding the shop, besides creating a purpose for then-Alan’s collection, was to make a place “where people could have the relief of speaking English. The books,” Sophia adds, “were almost beside the point.” Thirteen years on, she is proud of Another Country’s role as community hub, and enjoys helping newcomers to Berlin find their bearings, dispensing tips and advice.

The flagship community event is the weekly dinner and salon. On Friday nights around nine, a buffet-style meal is served among the sci-fi cellar stacks (at 5 euros each, exclusive of drinks). Sophia cooks most of the meal herself in her adjacent flat, catering for meat eaters and vegetarians alike, with dishes like marinated chicken, baked fish, Tex-Mex frittata, sautéed potatoes, and stuffed tomatoes. Twenty or so hungry book lovers tuck in downstairs while on the main floor a corps of regulars shoot the breeze over beer and wine. People linger for hours, the somewhat younger, fresher downstairs crowd playing Scrabble and sharing their stories, talking about books, and the ground-floor regulars settling in the orange glow of the back room among the crime and history titles like it’s their local boîte till the small hours of the morning.

Regular quiz nights and occasional film screenings are also on offer, and Another Country has at times hosted musical events and has had its own writer-in-residence, American Darius James, who took up office in the front window with his typewriter and tapped out stories. A contest is currently on for the best short stories featuring the shop in some way; winning stories will appear in an anthology. In-shop book groups have flourished, as have writing groups, with a new one expected to take shape after the holidays. The activities are organized largely by regular volunteers who help out around the shop or by community members, bringing things full circle.

Sophia’s post as bookseller brings many people to her desk, where she enjoys talking about books and life. She’s grateful for the support and friendship she’s received from the shop community as she makes her way through transition, though she admits, “A few people look at me and they don’t think I’m trans at all. They just see a guy in a dress.”

But she says she’s happy to be in trans-friendly Kreuzberg, in a city as receptive to difference as Berlin, with its vibrant queer, bi, and trans scenes, a place where eccentricities are, if not everywhere accepted and cherished, certainly tolerated. After keeping to her nest in the shop for a few years surveying the internal landscape, Sophia says she’s ready to go out more, explore the scene.

“Yeah,” she says, a laugh humming in her throat, “I want to get out there and be tolerated!”

Another Country
Riemannstr. 7
10961 Berlin
T: 030 69401160
www.anothercountry.de
Open: Tue–Fri 11 am–8 pm, Sat–Sun 12–4 pm

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

Kadó

Kreuzberg's Kadó

Licorice: it’s an acquired taste. A relative of aniseed and fennel, it’s touted for its health benefits and benevolence towards the digestive tract. Its distinct flavor and somewhat odd appearance make it a peculiar confection, but one with a seductive and dark allure. Located on Grafestrasse is Kadó – a whole store dedicated entirely to the unusual candy. It boasts over 400 kinds of licorice with imported rarities from Scandinavia, southern Italy, and Australia.

Licorice aficionados will delight at Kadó’s extensive selection ranging in flavors from salty-savory pieces to sweet and speckled with pastel colored shapes and designs. The shop’s interior, lined with over-sized glass jars and old school apothecary tins-cum-candy-jars, is reminiscent of the shops in Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley, further lending to its quirky charm.

Graefestrasse 20, Kreuzberg 10967, T 030 69 04 16 38, www.kado.de, Tue-Fri 9:30 – 18:30, Sat 9:30 – 15:30, Sun-Mon, closed

Erich Hamann Schokoladenfabrik

Those with a discerning chocolate palate should head to Hamann Schokoladenfabrik, Berlin’s oldest chocolate factory. This family-run shop has remained unchanged in flavor and in its distinct Bauhaus design since its inception in 1928 — but it is Master Chocolatier Erich Hamann’s unique approach to the dark arts that distinguishes it amongst the other chocolate shops in the city. These black beauties are bitter in taste and composed entirely of natural ingredients.

There are no watered-down milk chocolate variations, per Hamann’s insistence that milk chocolate only detracts from chocolate’s original form and taste, rather than adding to it. Customers, however, can decide for themselves if Hamann’s verdict is indeed correct as they choose from a range of schokoladens from the classic dark bars to the more exotic blends filled with praline, ginger, nuts, and marzipan.

Brandenburgische Straße 17, 10707 Berlin, T 030 873 20 85 86, www.hamann-schokolade.de, Mon-Fri, 9:00-18:00, Sat, 9:00-13:00

La Cave De Bacchus

Cave de Bacchus is the oldest French wine shop in Berlin, and its history is as reputable as its thoughtful selection of wines. Owner, Gérard Degouy, originally from Champagne, relocated to West Berlin in 1971 to improve his German language skills. At the request of his compatriots, all of them nostalgic for their homeland’s terroir, Gérard began to import French wine. The hobby soon became a passion and later a thriving business and today – still located in Charlottenburg – the store remains unchanged in its loyal approach to French viticulture and gastronomy, treating customers to a mini sojourn “en France” with its impressive selection of Grand Crus and Chateaux, and not to mention, Gerard’s favorite, Champagne Here, terroir is king, and the selection of other imported goods, such as gamey pâtés, rillettes, creamy fromage, Dijon moutarde, and freshly baked baguettes, all add to the shop’s culinary pedigree.

Westfälische Str 33, 10709 Berlin-Halensee, T 030 892 20 23, www.cave-bacchus.de, Mon – Fri 10 – 19,  Sat 10-14, Sun, closed

Goldhahn and Sampson

Goldhahn & Sampson in Prenzlauer Berg

Cookbooks wield uncanny expectations of magically morphing into a domestic goddess/culinary guru overnight, even though we all know they often only sit on the bookshelf collecting dust rather than tomato stains. Goldhahn and  Sampson is the perfect place to help you realise your culinary dreams and kick off 2012 with a whiff of garlic and home-baked bread.

Located in Prenzlauer Berg, the shop functions as a cafe, shop, and cooking school allowing customers to peruse the latest in culinary goods, gadgets, and cookbooks – of which they have a fine selection – whilst sipping espresso and nibbling at some house-made cake. G&S also offers nightly cooking classes that occur on a weekly and monthly rolling basis: from basic poultry, to modern Italian cooking, to cooking meat, and more, there is something to satisfy the inner gastronome, or indeed inspire a loved one’s cooking aspirations.

Dunckerstraße 9, 10437 Berlin, T 030 41198364, www.goldhahnundsampson.de, Mon-Fri, 8- 20, Sat, 10-20, Sun closed

Bier-Spezialitäten-Laden

Don’t be fooled by Bier Spezialitäten’s cracked and faded façade. Wedged between Berlin’s east-west artery right off the Karl Marx Allee U-Bahn, this store is a beer lover’s dream-come-true. The shop carries over 550 German-style beers from the ubiquitous Pilsner to the heavy Hefeweizen or Weissbier along with some imported libations, such as American craft and microbrews, and Belgium and British ales. The main draw here, however, is the Deutsch bier. Although the collection can prove daunting, the owner is well-versed in his knowledge of German beer and is always willing to assist you in your search of your choice poison – and even crack it open for you to enjoy on your way home.

Karl Marx Allee 56, 10243 Berlin, T 030 249 21 46, Mon-Fri, 10 – 19:30, Sat, 10 – 14:30, Sun, closed

Wald Königsberg Marzipan

Often associated with the other  major Christian holiday of Easter, marzipan’s buttery almond flavor also functions as a darling yuletide confection. A favorite indulgence of the famous Russian composer, Tchaikovsky – think of the Marzipan-themed dance in the Nutcracker’s second act – its Eastern-inspired roots made their way to Austria and later Germany only to become an emblematic German sweet. Wald Königsberg Marzipan’s candy-striped walls imbue this third-generation-owned shop with the charms of a classic 1950’s candy store. Owners Paul Wald and his wife, Master Confectioner, Irmgurd Radant moved to Berlin in 1947, and set up the shop in its present-day Charlottenburg-based locale. Radant’s impressive craftsmanship shines through the glass vitrines that line the store’s countertop, tempting customers with her wide range of almond-inspired concoctions.

Maitre Phillipe (photo by Freddy)

Pestalozzistraße 54a, 10627 Berlin, T 030 32 38 254, www.wald-koenigsberger-marzipan.de, Mon-Fri, 10-18:30; Sat, 10-15:30; Sun, closed

Maître Philippe

Maître Philippe is a cheese and wine shop that’s run on passion and love. Owner Philippe and his daughter Anais relocated to West Berlin from southern France and soon began to import their local gastronomy to the German capital. The art of wine and cheese pairing is given new verve here, with Philippe’s extensive knowledge of French fromage and fine wines guaranteeing customers a crash course in taste and culture.

His philosophy is simple, and rests on his loyal support to small producers. The careful selection of farmhouse cheeses and specialty, small-production varietals is the real charm of Maitre Philippe’s. On a humorous note, ripe, aromatic cheese might not be your first choice if you’re looking for an inconspicuous stocking stuffer, but it makes a wonderful, welcome gift nonetheless. And a bottle of carefully chosen wine is always a safe bet.

Emser Straße 42, 10719 Berlin, T 030 88683610, www.maitrephilippe.de, Sun-Fri, 10-19, Sat, 10 – 14:00 Uhr

Salumeria di Pino

Runner up to Berlin’s extensive Turkish population, the Italian influence also looms large in the German capital as this hot blooded Italian store underlines. Large legs of prosciutto and salami dangle from the ceiling, greeting customers with the aroma of those cured meats most commonly associated with this boot-shaped country. The store is family owned and operated and its selection of imported goods extends far beyond the aforementioned cured meats. There are cheeses, house-made pastas, sauces, olives, wines, and more, giving customers the opportunity to sample and select from a range of Italian delights.

Windscheidstr. 20, 10627 Berlin, T 030  324 33 18, www.salumeria-pino.de, Mon-Wed, 10:30-20, Thu-Sat, 10:30-open end

Five Elephant

Coffee culture has slowly worked its way to the German capital, and now the selection of specialty roasts offered in this city is more varied than ever. Five Elephant Coffee Roasters is the new kid on the block. Located on Reichenberger Straße, the American-run cafe serves a mean devil’s cup, and caters to the German penchant for afternoon cake. The cafe’s real Pièce de résistance, however, is its house-roasted beans – which are conveniently available for purchase and well-suited for the chillier winter months.

Reichenberger Straße 101, 10999 Berlin, T 030 9608 1527, www.fiveelephant.com, Mon – Fri, 8:30 – 19:00, Sat – Sun, 10:00 – 18:00

Pain au Lait from Soluna (photo by Sylee Gore of Berlin Reified)

Soluna Brot und Öl

It is no exaggeration to say that bread is the staff of life in Germany, and although the recent organic health-food renaissance may make whole grain bread seem like a recent phenomenon, it clearly is not. This wholesome, dense bread dates back to the time of the Gauls and Visigoths and has withstood repeated modern efforts to refine it. The tradition continues today at bakeries like Soluna Brot und Öl.

Owner Peter Klann is a baker of the old world. His Kreuzberg-based bakery’s wood-oven stone near the entrance hints at the quality of loaves that rise here, luring customers in with the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread. The shop offers a range of traditional German style brots as well as some foreign-inspired starches, such as Ligurian Olive Bread or the traditional French baguette. There are also house-made spreads (known as pistes), cheeses, cured meats, leberwurst, and other amiable bread companions available for purchase.

Gneisenaustr. 58, 10961 Berlin, T 030 61671191, www.brotundoel.de, Mon-Fri, 10:00 – 19:00, Sat 7:30 – 16:00, Sun 10:00 – 16:00

About The Author

Molly Hannon is a U.S.-born freelance writer based in Berlin. She holds a Master’s in gastronomy and communications from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, where this fall she will lead a master’s-level seminar about 20th-century food literature and its relationship to contemporary food writing. A contributor at NPR.org and the Dailybeast/Newsweek and an editor at the Berlin city guide Unlike, Hannon writes about food’s cultural influences, narratives, and literary legacies—how they shape civilization and bring us together. She maintains a blog, LesGensFaims, which translates as “Hungry People.”

Photo by s.laqua

The temperature has gone sub-zero and anything you plan on consuming had better taste of cinnamon or come mit Schuss. With Berlin playing host to over sixty Christmas markets annually, there’s no shortage of places for you to get your fix of Lebkuchen and gifts in the frosty open air…

Best Of The Big Hitters

Gendarmenmarkt

The sparkliest of them all, lit with all the double-Dom grandeur you’d expect from a setting in between the Deutschen and Franzozichen Doms. Visitors get a serious visual return on their one-euro investment, as well as access to the culinary delights from covered outdoor versions of upmarket restaurants plus luxurious gifts and handicrafts. Be warned, though – the gifts cost a lot more than the entrance fee. The entertainment is also top-notch, showcasing everything from fire artists to classical and Gospel groups. There’s even real donkeys. If that’s not Christmassy enough for you, you’d best start calling yourself Ebenezer.

Gendarmenmarkt Berlin, November 21 to December 31, 2011, Open Daily 11 am to 10 pm, Admission 1€ for the stage programme

Opernpalais

The stretch between the Staatsoper and Opernpalais on Unter den Linden goes full-tilt jingle bells and twinkly lights with over 200 stands of crafts and treats. This means that you can stuff your face with roast chestnuts, buy all your gifts at the same time, then lose either your lunch, your gifts or both as you take a turn on the carousel.

Opernpalais, Unter den Linden 5, Mondays to Thursdays 12.00 p.m. – 9.30 p.m, Fridays to Saturdays 11.00 a.m. – 10.30 p.m, Sundays 11.00 a.m. – 9.30 p.m.

Schloss Charlottenburg

If it’s romance and grandeur you fancy, then head to the already picturesque setting of Charlottenburg’s castle (Schloss) for one of the thirty-five days that it decks the halls for each year. As well as permanent and temporary exhibitions inside the castle itself, entertainment is served in the form of a Ferris wheel and live music from accordionists, carolling choirs and even the traditional Berlin barrel-organ. The journey westwards won’t disappoint in terms of gifts, either- with over 150 stalls nestled inside heated tents and elegant glass pagodas. There is also a separate children’s market with its own Ferris wheel, swing carousel – even a petting zoo. Even better, the entire park surrounding the castle gets its own special illuminations, allowing for an idyllic stroll through the scenery to burn off all those festive treats.

Schloss Charlottenburg, Mondays to Thursdays 2pm til 10pm, Friday to Sundays from 12pm til 10pm. Closed 24 Dec. Open Dec 25&16 from 12pm-8pm.

Spandau Christmas Market

The journey to the end of the U7 line is worth it to experience the biggest Weinachtsmarkt in Berlin, held in Spandau Old Town. Continuous Christmas cheer is provided by 250 stalls during the week and 400 at weekends, and for guests who like their entertainment seriously live and kicking, there’s a weekly Friday Christmas rock concert plus a manger with real animals on Reformationsplatz. There’s even a medieval plague procession every Wednesday if you’re feeling educational, or to keep things cheery, a St. Nikolai Christmas garden and a traditional craft market.

Spandau Christmas Market, 25th November – 23rd December, daily from 11am to 6pm.

Boutique cheer

Weinachtsrodeo at Postfuhramt 


Christmas shopping with a little extra yee-ha of luxury comes to the elegantly run-down Postfuhramt building in Mitte this year. The building, which previously hosted the CO gallery, will be transformed with booths from Berlin’s hottest designers, artists and boutiques. There’s a gift-wrap service and a relaxation area to ensure your shopping experience is as chilled as the outside temperatures, a mix of classical and electronic music to soundtrack your browsing and a selection of the obligatory sugary and alcoholic goodness to keep you fed, boozed-up and happy. A treat for anyone who doesn’t fancy wearing gloves as they shop.

4^th, 11^th, 18^th December plus the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Advent Sundays: 12-18pm, Oranienburgerstrasse.

Photo by Physis3141

Lucia Christmas market at the Kulturbrauerei

For those who find the traditional Weinachtsmarkts just a little too Teutonic, a visit to the Scandanavian-themed market in Prenzlauer Berg’s Kulturbrauerei should hit the spot. Named after the Nordic goddess of light, the market includes a Finnish sauna for anyone who wants a chance to strip off plus more child-friendly fun in the form of a kid-size Ferris wheel, all held in the scenic central courtyard.

Kulturbrauerei, Schönhausesr Allee 36, Prenzlauer Berg, Underground Eberswalder Str., Mon-Fri 3-10pm, Sat-Sun 1-1opm, through December 22, free

Ecological Christmas Market at Kollwitzplatz

Trust the Berliners to come up with a slightly healthier alternative to the traditional gut-busting Christmas market, and it’s no surprise that this is held in that most bio-loving quarter of leafy Kollwitzplatz. While no one will pretend that a Bratwurst is going to help you detox, all the offerings are made from organic ingredients, including fair trade toys and even sustainable forestry Christmas trees on the third Sunday in Advent.

Kollwitzplatz, Prenzlauer Berg. Sundays only from 27 November 2011 to 18 December 2011

Photo by Jack Orlik

The workshop stands in a triangle of land carved up by industrial bars of steel: frontiers formed by the S-Bahn and national railway tracks that bring trains thundering past every few minutes.

“It’s a shame you didn’t get to see it in the sun. It can be really quite beautiful”, says Dan Vogel-Essex, gesturing over the scrubland that was once a trainyard. The sky has clouded over, and the thick metallic smell of rain begins to permeate the air.

Dan tells me that the land and its buildings are rented as a community from the Deutsche Bahn, and run by a committee chosen from those working on the site. Despite the relics of defunct urban industry – the shallow impression of the old turntable, and the paved ground, forcing the plants through narrow cracks in the concrete – Dan is right. It does seem quite idyllic.

Dan takes me into a building, and down to the cellar. To the right, dozens of bicycles hang off racks attached to the wall. In the room to our left, there’s a man working on a beautiful blue racer from the Eighties. “This is Stefan”. Stefan says hello, but gestures with his oily fingers that shaking hands might be difficult.

“We started out thinking we could earn money by fixing up old bikes, but I soon realized that that was a whole lot of work for not much cash”. That’s when he decided to start building bicycles from bamboo. He gestures to a frame hanging on the wall – a Heath-Robinsonesque construction bound together with twine.

“That was the first one. It broke pretty quickly.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Everything”.

Photo by Jack Orlik

I ask if there are any advantages to building bikes from bamboo. How does it bear up against metal and glass-fibre framed bikes? “Well, there are no disadvantages,” says Dan. Stefan sidles into view, absent-mindedly cleaning up with a greasy rag: “You have to look at it as a material in its own right.

Every material has its pros and cons. Aluminium is cheap to produce, but it’s hard and uncomfortable. Steel is nicer to ride, but it can bend. Bamboo is free growing, and easy to fix. And it’s comfortable to ride”.

Looking at the near-mint 30-year-old steel frame in the middle of the room, I express my doubts that a bamboo bicycle would last as long. Dan takes me to the racks next door and pulls out two bikes.

“I rode this all winter, and it’s fine”. I’m amazed – the freezing, wet and cold winter months of Berlin have done no damage at all. “Is it varnished?” “No. Stefan varnished one of his, but there’s no real difference”. I lift another bike; it’s as light as a feather. “That one, Light? That’s the heaviest one we’ve made. Try this.”

Dan hands me a bicycle that I could carry with my little finger. As a competitor to traditional metal-framed bikes, bamboo can could hold its own pretty well. But Dan’s not that interested in bamboo, or in bicycles themselves. “They’re not something I dream about at night”.

He likes the idea of offering bamboo bike construction as a high-end customer service, and hopes to be making them as a business within a year. Thinking about them as “a product”, though, Dan says that the bikes lose their fascination. What really excites him is the place they have in an ongoing trend of the 21st century. “The bamboo bicycle is a symbol for a change in our expectations of materials. There.”

What makes the bikes special is their use of composite materials; specifically, Dan’s home brew of resins and natural fibres – the stuff that holds the bamboo bars together. “Lots of people say that renewable energy won’t work, because electricity can never produce the heat needed to smelt metals like steel”. Composites are a solution to this problem, but using them to replace more traditional man-made materials would require enormous changes to the manufacturing processes that the industrial world has grown up with. And, as Dan says, “It takes a long-ass time to change anything”.

Photo by Jack Orlik

The technology is there, though: laser-measuring technology exists that can make minute adjustments to machinery operated on irregular materials; research into the epoxy resins that can be mixed with natural fibres has “skyrocketed” in recent years. Consumers now care about where things are made, how it’s done, and what they’re made of.

For Dan, the popularity of the bamboo bike is testament to this: “In the future, when they look back on history, and they look back at the change from non-reusable materials to natural composites, the bamboo bike will be there as a side note, saying that this was one of the first products accepted.”

Before I leave, Dan takes me upstairs to his office. “This is what I dream about,” he says, thrusting a bunch of papers into my hand. They’re covered in beautiful drawings – hundreds of sketches of one-person cars. Dan tells me that they would be electric, and made of natural composites.

“These are the future. I was so pissed off when the US government bailed out the auto industry. The government halted innovation! I’ve got friends who work for GM. Do you know what they call it within the company?” “No?” “The Titanic.” Walking once more though the post-industrial yard surrounding the workshop, Dan’s ideas seem to echo in the landscape: nature and artifice working together to create something strong, beautiful and slightly futuristic.

www.dvedesign.com

This article first appeared in Issue 5 of The Manzine, a venerable, non-aspirational magazine about the male phenomenon.

DeDeRon - photo by Natalie Holmes

E.M. Forster once described Christmas as a time when “vulgarity reigns”.  Indeed, a century later, cynics are quick to dismiss the festive season as little more than a thinly veiled ploy to ramp up consumerism to ever-giddier heights. Still, for the optimists among us, the act of giving and spirit of goodwill — however clumsily expressed — can still be a way to celebrate the bonds between us.

Purchasing gifts from local or natural sources strengthens the local economy and plays a pivotal role in the quiet transition towards sustainable urban lifestyles. Even in this era of financial turbulence, with Berlin’s creative capital firmly in the black, an abundance of outlets provide plenty of opportunities for shoppers to give something back to the city, while earning an altruistic afterglow that could even, in the right lighting conditions, be confused for a winter suntan.

Vintage & second hand

DeDeRon, as the name suggests, specialises in curiosities from the former DDR, as well as vintage items from way-back-when and newer but equally interesting pieces. Charming turn-of-the-century Christmas tree decorations compete for space with vintage east and west versions of flavoured soda powder – apparently de rigueur at the moment as a vodka mixer. A visit to this grotto will spark the imagination of even the most stumped Christmas shopper.

Furniture

A tree takes a long time to grow, but during that time it becomes a thing as strong and beautiful as only nature can create.  Clearly inspired by this spirit of longevity, Not a Wooden Spoon in Prenzlauer Berg and ShowRaum in Kreuzberg breathe new life into reclaimed wood and other materials, which are reborn as gorgeous, stylish pieces of furniture to be treasured for generations to come.

Kitchenware

Every good kitchen needs a decent set of knives. Holzapfel houses an extensive selection of imported Japanese handmade knives and unique kitchenalia. The showroom in Prenzlauer Berg oozes rustic charm and convincing originality, with a tangibly high quality of goods and an impressive list of clientele that includes master craftsmen from butchers to bookbinders. Kochtail in Mitte stocks a wider and more conventional – but no less impressive – range of kitchen products. Their Made in Berlin range features Berlin gin and vodka along with accompanying online cocktail recipes for the perfect kick start any ‘slow’ party.

Food and drink

Five Elephant cake and coffee shop have just contracted their first micro lot of naturally processed, direct trade coffee sourced from the Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza project in Brazil. The first delivery will be arriving in time for Christmas, so a detour off the beaten path to this corner of Kreuzberg is well worthwhile. Once you do get there, instant gratification awaits in the form of Philadelphia cheesecake, which Time Out recently described as ‘positively transcendental’. Buying a cookery class as a present for your nearest and dearest is surely the gift that keeps on giving.  Deli-cum-Slow Food haven Goldhahn & Sampson offer, in addition to their sumptuous selection of foodie delights, a range of evening sessions for all abilities. Alternatively, if there’s a chance such a gift will hit a nerve with your special someone, the high-end chocolate making class on 18th December includes luxurious packaging and a bow. If you want something done properly, as they say…

Eco Showroom - photo by Natalie Holmes

Spa & wellness

Why do we always make new year’s resolutions when we know they never work? Each December we fall for that tantalising illusion of newness ahead, as if that arbitrary date upon which we load so much meaning has the power to absolve our actions and strengthen our will. It takes more than a change in the calendar to shake us out of bad habits, which is why there are few better gifts to give than a break from the old routine. A massage at Shiatsu Loft in Kreuzberg, for example, provides a subtle but lingering excursion from the everyday, as Wyndham Wallace found out recently.  

For the full works, Liquidrom is a wellness centre in the city centre offering extensive thermal baths, sauna, steam rooms and spa treatments. Prices are slightly higher than other, similar places, but you can easily spend an entire day in this aquatic utopia – a perfect antidote to the post-Christmas desolation of deepest darkest winter.

Ethical miscellany

Luxus International rents space by the shelf to local designers; stepping inside is a technicolour treat. The innovative concept gives artists an opportunity for their products to reach the public, and for shoppers looking for unusual gifts the resulting diversity on offer is a dream come true. In a similar vein, Supermarché in Kreuzberg stocks Hirschkind’s organic, Fair Trade and recycled items, from kitchenware to children’s clothing, all beautifully designed and reasonably priced. PR company Sieben & Siebzig represents designers and manufacturers of sustainable products, including clothing and natural cosmetics. Their office is Mitte is ingeniously fronted by Eco Showroom, a platform for showing off their clients’ wares.  They currently have a stunning, limited-edition collection of Finnish clothing, available until the end of December.

Books

The trusty book is a still a stocking staple. Picking out your favourite books for your favourite people is reason enough to look forward to the festive season. Dialogue Books in Kreuzberg just made the best part of shopping even better, with their late-night Christmas shopping evenings. Each Thursday in December enjoy complimentary mulled wine and mince pies, along with a tasty 10 per cent discount off everything and free wrapping service. If space is an issue, trade in old books at Fair Exchange and save some cash in the process. The cavernous second hand bookshop has some great titles and, as the name would suggest, a fair policy on exchanges.

You can find more Slow-style Xmas shopping tips by reading last year’s wonderful guide, written by Berlin Reified‘s Sylee Gore…

About The Author

Natalie Holmes lives and works in Berlin. She loves learning German, birdwatching and travelling by train, in between working as a freelance travel consultant and aspiring writer. A keen environmentalist, Natalie writes about sustainability and responsible travel on her blog, The Horseshoe Nail.

A vinyl record. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

What is RSD? What’s the idea behind it, and how did it come about?

The international RSD has existed since 2007 in the USA and Tamara Deike (Ponyup/Items & Things) suggested the idea to me to create a RSD in Berlin for the first time ever. The idea about RSD Berlin is that local music fans and those in town for BerMuDa will be able to join in something unique to Berlin, while also scoring special releases from labels that are strong here in our city, and perhaps discovering new music as well.

Berlin has some amazing record shops and is unique compared to other cities around the world because these shops are still thriving! We hope to showcase our stores, shine the spotlight on music that is hot here in Berlin, and bring the fans back to the record shops, a place for community and exchanging our love for music. Also, you can check the recent news about labels, stores and releases on our Facebook page and the forthcoming blog.

You’re a record store owner yourself (Oye Records). Is this another way to draw the clients back in the stores?

They never went away. It’s about giving the music lovers something back, and I am still surprised how big the feedback from the labels/producers is! You never can force someone to go to a record store or to play vinyl. It’s just about having so many people who still love this vinyl thing. Looks much better in the club when you play vinyl and the quality is still the best (not the loudest!). Also sometimes we have in-store gigs for some releases (i.e. DJ Kicks with Soul Clap/Wolf+Lamp or Man Recordings). Our monthly late-night shopping with tons of second hand vinyl just started and is really successful.

Do you see a future for vinyl? What does the future hold for record stores?

The time when records stores held the holy grail of music and information about DJ music is definitely over, but people still love to go to a record store and spend money for music. Especially when you buy a vinyl album, most often now you get MP3s or CDs for free! But you have a nice cover and information about the band/producer in your hand, something that is forever! So, real music fans spend money for records because they wanna support the artists. Otherwise, you still can recommend new music to the customers and have good conversations about the music scene and party scene as well. A lot of tourists interested in music come to the record store to get information about the hottest parties in town and buy a record from Berlin artists/labels as a nice gift or for their collection.

Oye Record Store by Lisa Kortenhorst

As a successful DJ yourself, you’ve created events like the radio show you do for Sweatlodge Radio streamed straight from Oye. Are these the kind of ideas that today’s shops need to do to pull the people back in?

I would say definitely yes. Every two weeks, we have an OYE radio show on Sweatlodge Radio, where we present the recent news from our store, a wide range of music, and this is a lot of fun for us and another way to reach the music fans out there beside Facebook, our newsletter, etc. Also we have some residency nights: every first Friday of the month at Kater Holzig called OYE Night, first Saturday at Klub der Republik called OYE Allstars, second Thursday at Farbfernseher called Deep Riot.

This is a chance to give some unknown DJs a chance to play and also we book well-known DJs because we love their style and records. Altogether, you can call a record store a network for music lovers, promoters, DJs, collectors, producers and label managers. It’s always more fun to communicate face to face with other people. Real Life = Real Music.

This interview was re-published with kind permission from SLIM Mag. To read more about Oye Record Store click here. For a map of all stores and venues participating in Record Store Day Berlin, visit the official website here.

Photo by Peggy Schatz

By definition, Bibliotheca Culinaria is a second-hand bookshop specialising in cookbooks. But if one reads between the lines — or has a chinwag with the owners, Swen Kernemann-Mohr and Johannes Mohr — it becomes clear that Bibliotheca Culinaria is much more.

For 30 years these men from the Rheinland, who previously ran a flourishing florist, indulged their passions: cooking, and collecting cookbooks.  Many of the finds stem from regular visits to flea markets. “Over the past 25 years, I have spent an hour and a half each day reading cookbooks,” says
Johannes Mohr.

Swen, on the other hand, prefers to use his free time more practically — he likes to cook. He allows himself to be inspired by recipes from their large collection and sometimes spoils regulars (or special guests) of the shop with a piece of freshly baked apple cake.

Over the years, the private cookbook collection grew to a library of about 15,000 books. Around ten years ago, the decision was made to take the books to Berlin and turn the collection into a used bookstore. Don’t let the “library” in the name confuse you; all the works that sit in the Culinary Library are for sale.

An online shop has been consciously avoided, because the direct contact between their books and potentional readers is important to Swen and Johannes. For this reason the shop, aside from the flourescent lights that iluminate in the back room, has an intimate feel. The large, inviting antique sofa and coffee machine next to the “counter” (a desk) is specficially set up for casual chats, talking shop, and leafing through the numerous cookbooks .

The bright back room is joined by a small series of winding rooms that are stocked from skirting board to ceiling with books. A whole wall is reserved just for cookbooks out of the GDR (former East Germany). Among many others I found two classics still on my own cookbook shelf, which were also on the bookshelf of almost every GDR household: ‘We cook well’ from the 60s and ‘Cooking’, published by a female publisher in the 80s.

Johannes explains that only a modest amount of cookbooks came out of East Germany (little wonder, considering what ingredients were available), but they were mostly excellent as they had to be approved by the state and standards were high. He said “Gifts of the Sea”, for example, was constantly sold out. It’s also worth mentioning that the classic ‘Our Cookbook’ (1957), was even published in braille.

Photo by Peggy Schatz

The front room also hosts the key treasures of the collection — cookbooks and historical texts that sometimes date to the 18^th century. Johannes says he’s most impressed by the change in society that is evident when one reads different editions of the same book. Unfortunately there was not enough time to sufficiently peruse these old gems, but the illustrations that I did see were artworks and made me hungry for more detailed reading.

The newer cookbooks are sorted according to topics, which makes browsing easier. Despite expectations, the most sought after books are not the historical ones, but rather books from the 1950s – 1970s. These are often bought for nostalgic reasons, because people like to replace a copy that has been destroyed or lost over the years, or find something that reminds them of Mama.

The customer base is broad – young to old, from all walks of life. But, interestingly, more men than women. People from the neighbourhood, tourists, cookbook-enthusiasts, and also cooks and chefs from across Berlin come to the Bibliotheca Culinaria.

A few key finds picked out for us by Swen and Johannes were:

• The books of arguably the most well-known author of cookbooks in the 19^th century Henriette Davidis
• The most published paperback, ‘What Men Like To Eat’
• ‘The Last Dinner on the Titanic’ – a book with collector value for Titanic fans
• A book of food art by Salvador Dali
• A book published in English in Israel for Yemenis, in which there is a recipe for ‘GRRD’ (penis of ram or bull)
• 2 books by Sophia Loren (the older, signed one is Swen’s favourite)
• ‘We mix’ – a cocktail book from the GDR
• ‘Cultural history of Eating and Drinking’, a classic, that represents Johannes’ favourite book
• ‘Exotic Cooking’ from the former Berlin restaurant Ritz with draconian recipes for ‘Hedgehog in cabbage’ or ‘bear paw’
• ‘The Joy of Eating’ by Herbert Heckmann
• A complete series of ‘The Electric Cooking’ published by Berlin’s electricity company BEWAG

Even now the new Berliners Swen and Johannes regularly visit jumble sales and antique stores, on the hunt for books that are missing from the collection. Books are only purchased if they are pre-1945, with the exception of books from the GDR, and complete collections of cookbooks are especially sought after. It should be noted that the offering of English language books is relatively limited; but a visit to Bibliotheca Culinaria is nonetheless recommended for anyone who understands the languages of food, cooking and collecting rare and beautiful books.

Bibliotheca Culinaria
Zehdenicker Straße 16
10119 Berlin
T: 030 47 37 75 70
Tue-Fri 11 – 19, Sat 11 – 16, Closed Sun & Mon

About The Author

Peggy Schatz is – as the name implies – a lovely person, culinary networker, blogger and founder of the international gourmet calendar. To read her original article in German and visit her Multikulinarisch site, click here.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

To any casual visitor, it’s obvious: Berlin, in many ways, is a mess. Despite twenty years of rebuilding and gentrification, of whitewash and polish, you’ll find prairie-size empty tracts just west of shiny new Potsdamer Platz and grimy, windowless buildings in Prenzlauer Berg. Decay and regeneration, subtle processes in most places, here are on brazen display.

This layering of past and future, loss and hope, is thrown into sharp relief at the derelict former East German industrial site in northwestern Lichtenberg, where the Dong Xuan Center has sprung up over the past six years. Forged by the former East Berlin immigrant Vietnamese community, itself largely discarded and neglected by both old and new governments, the center opened its first hall in 2005 and has expanded ever since.

Today’s complex includes four main sheet-metal, hangar-style shopping halls (roofs jauntily topped by rows of wing-like solar panels), an administration building, and several satellite spaces in darker, semi-derelict edifices left over from the industrial estate. The overall effect is visually confusing, the parking area studded with mini-billboards, dirt-tracked in parts, bright indoor shops embedded in a landscape strewn with defunct factory buildings and discarded pallet racking as well as an obligatory-for-Berlin fake beach.

More than 12,000 Vietnamese live in Berlin—comprising the city’s second-largest minority—including about 5,000 naturalized citizens. Some 9,000 Vietnamese live in the eastern districts, with 4,000 in Lichtenberg alone. The Berlin diaspora is divided between those who emigrated to two different countries, a legacy of Cold War alliances, particularly in the Vietnam War between the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese and the Soviet-backed North Vietnamese. From the 1950s on, the GDR accepted North Vietnamese guest workers and students, typically on five-year contracts.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

The FRG accepted some 30,000 South Vietnamese asylum seekers after the fall of Saigon, many of them ethnic Chinese so-called “boat people.” The contract workers in the East were kept structurally isolated from society and had little knowledge of the German language, whereas West Germany provided advantages that helped its immigrant group to integrate well into mainstream society.

After reunification, the situation for the North Vietnamese in the east was bleak. Their jobs in industry were gone, and they had few options for earning an income. Some turned to the black market, particularly the sale of smuggled cigarettes, which continues today. And despite repeated government efforts to return this group to Vietnam, few went back, preferring to become self-employed—running flower shops and small groceries, mainly—in order to qualify for residency.

The same economic pressures on the North Vietnamese migrant group eventually helped to create the Dong Xuan Center—named for a market in Hanoi, whose name means “Spring Meadow”—which, six years on, has grown into a vibrant hub of commerce and community for the Vietnamese of the former East Berlin.

The center is as close to Little Saigon as it gets in Berlin. Adverts and personal notices taped to the walls flutter just inside the doors. The four main halls host retail and wholesale traders whose wares include textiles and clothing, leather goods and shoes, jewelry, gifts, toys, books, beauty-salon supplies, and groceries, plus hair and nail salons, travel agencies, and restaurants. The administration building houses Vietnamese legal and medical practices, business and tax consultants, interpreters, and driving schools. Altogether the complex provides income and employment for about 800 people, with about 250 business owners, predominantly Vietnamese.

Families travel here on the weekends to buy gifts and groceries, raucous groups sing karaoke into the evenings. Men gather around large tables to share a meal, drinking beer and spirits, while clusters of mothers spoon phô into their children’s mouths.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

Weekends can be hot and crowded, though. The crush of the crowd can make it all a bit overwhelming: the humid, synthetic smell, buyers shouldering through the narrow, concrete-floored passages bulging with bins of cheap shoes, knock-off toys, “designer” toilet seats, and racks of plastic bathmats touted as having “fresh taste.”

Weekdays make for a mellower visit. On a warm June day a few friends and I settle in at Duc Anh Restaurant, at the front of Hall 3, at an outdoor table shaded by a marquee and bordered by potted trees. We order Saigon beer with our meal, while ogling the juicy-looking orange cocktails popular at neighboring tables. Two of us are vegetarian, a species not devoutly catered to here, and we eat passable stir-fries of tofu and vegetables, a touch oily and with no distinguishing flavors or notes.

The success story of the table is bun cha nuong than, grilled, marinated pork belly in broth, served with a plate of pure-white rice noodles, herbs, salad, lime, and a handful of daintily sliced but deadly chili peppers for the brave to sprinkle on top. We spend a pleasant breezy hour on the “terrace,” ending with sweet mugs of Vietnamese coffee as we enjoy a view of the “beach” in the distance: an ocean scene has been painted on a brick wall and sand has been dumped there, along with beach chairs and umbrellas.

After lunch we hit the shops in Hall 3, bypassing rubber-chicken squeak toys, red pleather cowboy hats, polyester formalwear, and 2€ plastic clogs to check out flouncy cotton dresses and peasant-style tops comparable to the stock at high-street shops like H&M, and a shade lower-priced. Between us we snap up a few pretty patterned scarves, and in one shop, one of us makes a beeline for the sequined red mini-dress of her dreams, navigating piles of summery blouses and dresses stacked on the floor. On special for 10 euros, the spaghetti-strap sundresses are tempting, and we make plans for a future visit to delve further into the selection. It’s turned into a surprisingly girly outing.

A good last stop is Hall 3’s Asia Supermarkt, an impressive space well-stocked with a foodie’s dreamscape of Asian greens, fruit, and vegetables fresh off the plane–baby pak choi, spiky durian and jackfruit, mountains of packaged herbs, delicate, thumb-sized mini aubergines, plus woolly, coconut-like eddoes, green cherimoya fruit, and deep purple mangosteen.

The market also stocks legions of noodles, rice, frozen shrimp and fish, woks, steamers, dozens of varieties of dried mushroom, and a meat case heavy on pig and not for the squeamish: pork belly, trotters, pig’s ears and hearts glisten beneath the glass. The Vietnamese groceries here all sell homemade bahn ran—deep-fried rice-flour balls filled with a paste of mung beans and coconut milk and rolled in sesame seeds—a tasty, sweet take-home snack.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

In the rear of the lot, the foundation is being laid for a new building, as the Dong Xuan Center continues to expand. Yet in another few years, the center could have a very different personality. District regulations specify this former Industriegebiet as a wholesale and distribution zone, and Dong Xuan’s mixed use is in violation.

If the center is restructured to allow only wholesale operations, many traders will be out of work and a vital source of goods and community connection will be lost. In opposition is the very different concept put forward by the center’s developer: continued expansion over the next ten years to feature cultural, recreational, health, and educational institutions as part of an “Asia town,” including apartments, a hotel, and a pagoda. This plan would add up to a thousand new workplaces.

But with the pace of decision and change in the city famously slow, the center may continue on its own idiosyncratic path for some years before the community, city, and developers come to agreement. In the meantime, the stubborn shards of industrial decline and the upstart, prefab, solar-paneled halls of the Dong Xuan Center will coexist, a perfect Berlin tableau.

Dong Xuan Center
Herzbergtraße 128–139
10365 Berlin Lichtenberg
Open: Wed–Tue 9–21

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of http://www.atlengthmag.com. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

Photo: Peggy Schatz

There are almost as many food markets in Berlin as there are districts – each one embedded in its Kiez like a pearl. There are big, shiny ones like the ones on Kollwitzplatz in Prenzlauer Berg and Winterfeldtplatz in Schoeneberg, plus smaller ones that are barely noticed and some wonderfully unique ones in between.

One of the best known – and most-loved – markets in Friedrichshain takes place every Saturday on Boxhagener Platz, known also for its Sunday flea market. The action on a Saturday revolves less around discounted vinyl, jewellery and vintage curiosities and more around quality food, supplemented by a smattering of mostly second hand clothing stalls.

The culinary offerings are undoubtedly the main draw: a recent visit revealed a diverse and wonderful spread of ingredients from giant tomatoes, wild garlic, king oyster mushrooms, rhubarb and pots of herbs to artichokes, broccoli, asparagus (imported), leeks, multiple types of potatoes, fresh raspberries, papaya, pumpkins and avocados, not to mention stalls hawking fresh water fish, smoked meat and sausage, eggs, cheese, mustard, honey, specialities from the Spreewald and Thuringia…

Photo: Peggy Schatz

At ‘Einklang’ we found fresh wild garlic growing out of a water-filled stainless steel basin; a father and daughter team presented their pesto variations (wild garlic pesto, walnut pesto etc.), each one more delicious than the last.

Two men from ‘La Bruschetta’ were beaming with pride as they sliced a giant loaf of bread, grilled the slices and slathered them with – among other things – grilled vegetables, tomato, parmesan and fine olive oil.

There were ketchup and sauces ranging from mild to “owa” and sour at Eckart (I enjoyed the mango sauce the best, although the sauces were, for the most part, too sweet for my tastes); a stand with more than 100 types of liquorice (if you like that kind of thing); a plethora of jams at Bock & Gardener, homemade tarts and quiches at ‘Tartes de Tom’ and American snacks from Stacey at ‘Got Dessert?’. We even found some pretty crockery at ‘Mago Keramik’ and ‘Meine Freundin’.

Photo: Peggy Schatz

The goods at the Saturday market and the thoughtful way they’re presented are in stark contrast to Friedrichshain’s reputation as a grungy hangout for the disaffected, appealing to a broader, more inclusive mix of students, families and tourists.

In fact the abundance of lounging and playing space makes it very suitable for families, and with plenty of restaurants, cafes (like Datscha, Macondo or Kaufbar) and shops (Cupcake or Proviant for example) scattered throughout the streets surrounding the Platz, it’s easy to spend a good few hours here shopping and
browsing…

Wochenmarkt am Boxhagener Platz (Market on Boxhagener Platz)
Grünberger Str. / Gärtnerstr.
Saturdays 8.00 til 14.30
Map

About The Author

Peggy Schatz is – as the name implies – a lovely person, culinary networker, blogger and founder of the international gourmet calendar. You can see more photos of the Boxi Platz market (and more) on her Flickr stream…