Berlin 2019

After tearing ourselves away from this precious baby, we made it to the airport with enough time to grab something quick to eat.

I have such a love/hate relationship with Starbucks. It’s brilliant being able to find vegan options easily but having worked in independent cafes it’s soul destroying seeing how busy the likes of Starbucks, Costa and McDonald’s always are, even on a quiet day. It’s such a shame to see people going for the same options day in day out whilst the high street dies.. Anyway let’s put a pin in that for now.

After a bit of a shambles finding the hotel and checking in we were absolutely gagging for some good food and plenty of drink!

Luckily my sister found a cute little place round the corner from us called +84 Vietnamese Vegan Kitchen and we were about to be in store for the best meal of the trip! Wontons, gyozas, bao buns and a plethora of different tofu dishes made the stress of the day disappear in a millennial pink fog.

If it wasn’t for the amount of vegan restaurants everywhere I would have been back there every day! There was so much to choose from on the menu and every dish sounded amazing.

Awake early and determined to start the new day on a better foot, I took my morning meditation to the sunny balcony and felt so calm and ready for the day ahead.

Being the little map navigator my sister is she found us another place to eat, this time for brunch, right down our road.

It was called 19Grams and was a lovely busy little cafe selling delicious smelling coffee and visually appealing brunch. The chai latte was one of the best I’ve had (and made me happy again after the terrible one I had recently in Bolton) and the smashed peas were delicious.

Sweet yet salty, soft but plenty of texture from the seeds and peashoots - I really enjoyed this dish. Made even better by the fact it was served on traditional sourdough bread.

Having been lucky enough to have previously worked in a bakery that won awards for its sourdough I’m often left disappointed but this was almost as nice as the standard I’m used to.

Obviously Berlin is steeped in history so we did plenty of walking about and even partook in a Segway tour which was the highlight of the trip for me and I would recommend to anybody who’s wanting to see as much as they can in a short time.

I really wanted to try a Currywurst and although there were vegan versions about, they seemed to all be cooked in peanut oil (which I am allergic to) so we cut our losses and headed to Brammibals Donuts instead.

Boston cream, cinnamon, banoffee and hibiscus 🤤 Each delicious but the original cinnamon was our winner.

The next morning started with some simple

toast and ginger juice at Karaca. The juice was incredible and definitely made me feel more like myself after all the food we’d been eating.

We stopped for lunch at the Monkey Bar - a panoramic rooftop bar which overlooks the monkey enclosure at Berlin Zoo - which was very nice even though we didn’t see one monkey!

I loved that they served the tapas/mezze plates in a tiered stand. It felt very ‘high tea’ - quite literally - and the falafels and bread were particularly fresh and beautiful.