Hometown Happiness in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

I thought I'd share a few snaps from my hometown with you.  It's a bustling metropolis by the name of Eutin, and can be found in the very north of Germany.  To be honest, after how hectic our travels had been for a while, Chewy and I were both looking forward to staying in one place for more than 3 nights (and being spoilt rotten by my grandparents). 

Above you can see the beautiful garden, full of veggies and flowers.  My favourite.  As for below, what better way to spend a morning than making jam?

So maybe I was lying about the whole 'bustling metropolis' part.  Eutin is just a small town, and this is the main market square where you can find farmers markets every Wednesday and Saturday.  It's been that way since I can remember, so for at least 20something years.  I think it's a beautiful, historic market square, and thankfully when I showed Chewy around here the sun was shining!

Don't even need to go to Copenhagen to see the little mermaid when we had one right on our doorstep!

After being away from Perth for about 5 months already, the thing I most missed was a home-cooked meal (preferably one that I didn't have to cook myself).  So i thought that my first home-cooked meal deserved a photo, and boy was it a good one.  All veggies fresh from the garden, yum!  The potatoes were dug up just that morning, as were the carrots, and ok ok, the peas had been picked the day before, and I quickly went and picked the parsley myself from the garden just 30 minutes before lunch.  There is nothing like grandma's home-cooking.

Samadhi Vegetarian Restaurant, Berlin

"We cook with fresh vegetables, love, and without stress" professes the menu of Samadhi, and it does not lie.

Amongst the many vegetarian restaurants that can be found in Berlin, Samadhi is one that has great recommendations online.  So guess where we headed to dinner? Oh yes.

 

We had dinner here with Chewy's parents, so I can show you all 4 delicious dishes! Actually make that 5 because we all shared a starter too, the remnants of which can be seen below.  There were 2 rice paper rolls filled with fresh salad, herbs, tofu, rice noodles and bean sprouts, with a hoisin dipping sauce.  In the background you can see the remains of a spring roll with chilli sauce, filled with tofu and vegetables.  I can whole heartedly recommend these starters!

 

So lets move on to mains.  Main number 1 was this beauty below - stewed tofu with ginger in caramel sauce with fresh pineapple, chinese bean sauce, vegetables, onion, pepper, mushrooms and morels.  Even though it may not look like much, it was delicious I am told!

Main numero 2 - gado gado.  I'm sure many of you have had this indonesian speciality before, it is such a simple yet beautiful dish simply consisting of blanched vegetables with peanut sauce.

I decided to have the pad thai, which they were happy to make vegan by taking out the egg.  Pad thai is one of my favourite meals, and this version with fried rice noodles and tofu, salted raddish, tamarind extract, chilli powder, bean sprouts, peanuts and fresh vegetables was one of my favourites ever.  I had it medium spicy, which was just right for me, but you can also ask it to be 'extra hot'.  Go on, I dare you.

Now Chewy's meal may just look like a right old mess, but this fried eggplant in satay sauce with tofu, carrots, chillies, onions and roasted mushrooms was a winner.  It was quite spicy, but really yummy, and the addition of the pineapple was just perfect.

The decoration on the wall I thought was just beautiful.

 For dessert we were all a bit naughty, and headed around the corner for some apple strudel.  Naughty.

 

Unfortunately this is the last of my restaurant recommendations for Berlin, but hopefully I've given you all a few ideas of where to go for some delicious vegetarian and vegan food.  Samadhi, Viasko, Amici Amici, Mustafa's vegetarian kebabs and Grandmeister Burger all provided us with incredible food in Berlin, and it was so refreshing to have so much choice.  Now tuck in and let me know if you enjoyed the food as much as I did!  

Heading off to my hometown in Germany next, so see you in Eutin.

Berlin, Day 4

After a couple of days in Berlin, we decided to do a self-guided graffiti walking tour through the city.  We thought it'd be a great idea to walk from our hostel in Kreuzberg all the way to the Eastside gallery.  We were wrong.  After a solid 4km walk I was starting to get quite hungry, and so we stopped off at this burger place we walked, whose name I just cannot remember.  But here are the burgers - they were brill!

 

How cool are the door tables?

No one can look good whilst tucking into a big old burger, but those veggie burgers were delish.  Well worth it.  And only cost something in the real of €3, so were well priced on top of being tasty - a winning combination if you ask me.

But anyway, moving on from burgers.  We saw a heap of graffiti, and I took way too many pictures to put up on here.  So I shall put up some of my favourites, and if you'd like the locations of more then please let me know and I'll try and help.

We went to the Eastside gallery and the Hackesche Höfe to see most of the above pieces.  After more walking I was once again hungry, and managed to find myself some delicious strawberries, after which we went to the Kunsthalle to have a drink.

 

  

Visiting the Jewish memorial is a must do while you're in Berlin. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

By the time we made it back to the hostel, we were 2 very tired little vegemites in dire need of more sustenance.  So we walked down the Mehringdamm just around the corner from our hostel, and found an absolute gem of a food place called Amici Amici.  They have a proper sit down restaurant, and next door is a smaller bistro/take away version, which is where we decided to go.  Descriptions can't do the food justice, it was heavenly! And the service was hilarious, truly Italian.

I went for the mini pizza (by no means mini) whereas Chewy opted for the focaccia, both of which were made right in front of our eyes.  The focaccia has all sorts of fresh veggies in it, is then drizzled with olive oil and put in the oven, after which it gets a sprinkling of parmesan and some more olive oil and various herbs, and then its goes into your stomach.  The pizza I had was also incredibly nice, with no shortage of mushrooms.  Yum!

So all in all not the healthiest of days, but we walked it all off right?!