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Some friends invited me for lunch here and I was very impressed.

The food is very fresh, very bio and the price is very OK. The lunch deal is 6,50 EUR (if I remember correctly) and included a small salad and ravioli today. The portion is also of decent size, definitely to be full afterwards.

Service is very, very friendly. They even moved an extra table outside for us 'cause of the nice weather.

The menu changes every so often, lunch deals are different every day. Cooking-wise, it’s pretty old school German food with a new school touch.

Pretty nice place. Like the beer and so on. Price-wise def. on the bright side.

They also have free wifi!

When I visited some friends in Leipzig, we ended up going to Werk 2 on a Saturday night. It was surprisingly fun.

Paid 5 bucks at the door, which was not to bad and made our way in. Music was alright most of the time, drinks are not really cheap, but also not expensive and the only thing I really didn’t like was the fog they push on the dance floor -- for whatever reason.

One thing I noticed about this place (or maybe Leipzig in general) is that even though most of the girls are pretty there’s also not too many (or one) that sticks out from the crowd -- either way. Everyone gets their hair done every week, they all shop at H&M and also frequently go tanning.

Anyway, regardless. This is a fun place to hang out for a while on a Friday or Saturday night. The people had fun, lots of dancing going on.

There’s no doubt, that you can get Kebab at a lot of places in Berlin, especially in Neukölln and Kreuzberg. But are most of these places any good? Not in my book. At least that’s why I didn’t have Kebab in over three years.

We went to Antep Sofrasi per recommendation today. We, that was some family visiting (my aunt’s husband is from Iraq) and me. He did like it so much that I am sure they are visiting Berlin more often now.

Well, aside from that there’s not so much I can add which hasn’t been said before…

Except that, this place is far from being cheap. But even though you pay 8-10 EUR for kebab on a plate while at other places you’d get the same dish for 3-5 EUR, you’re more likely to come back here.
The food is really outstanding, fresh, great cooking, spices and everything. Most importantly - you don’t feel sick when you finished it (which was my #1 reason to not eat kebab for so long).

The service is also pretty friendly, and it’s nice to sit outside this place and watch all the people on busy, busy Kottbusser Damm do their thing.

I totally forgot - this place has kunefe. If you never had it. Get it next time. It’s a sweet desert, fried. Just beyond delicious.

Update: Had to go down to 3 stars.

First of all, I never waited that long, at least not that I remember. The people working there are all pretty friendly too. But food-wise, not that great.

The meat, I’ve had better. It’s a frozen paddy and it cannot match those at other Burger joins in FHain and XBerg. Then, the cheese. Really disgusting. :( The people who had a cheese burger and are not complaining about the manufactured cheese -- what is wrong with you? Even McD and BK do it better.

The last 2 burgers I tried, especially the vegetarian burger, were so juicy that they fell apart before anyone touched it.

There’s just something about putting veggies on a burger that’s apparently non-trivial. Yeah, this is finger food, but this is an extreme and I just hate to make a mess.

Last but not least: oversalted. There’s like a crust around everything, which makes you buy drinks.

The bottom line, I never had cramps and I can ignore the obnoxious Prenzlauer Berg crowd. That’s not why I changed my rating from five to three.

The food is just not great when you had the competition. People get confused when they see Neuland on the door -- must be good. But that’s not all. Cooking a burger requires a little attention to the product. Can’t just push a paddy in a bun.

I really suggest that the die hard fans here check out Burgeramt, Burgermeister, Fritiersalon or even Yellow Sunshine instead.

----
Marienburger is a burger joint in Winskiez (or something). The menu is pretty comprehensive, price-wise it’s not as good as Friedrichshain, but still alright.

So far I had a Chilliburger which was pretty hot and dripping, and a Haloumiburger, which was goat cheese and pesto. Both at least a 9/10 on a scale of awesomeness. The fries they serve with it are pretty good too.

All in all, they serve burgers - meat and vegetarian (not really vegan as far as I can tell) - and that’s what they are good at. The people are so friendly it’s almost creepy and you have doubts you are still in Berlin.

Drinks are most def. pricey (small beer 3 bucks + deposit). It also reminded me why some people work on the bar and others don’t. For starters, it takes a certain skill level to do cocktails and those guys didn’t have it.

Then, it seemed like they are tired of it all and treated guests like an annoyance. I only saw happy people when I saw them close down for the night.

All in all we were one of a few customers on Friday night. Most def. the biggest crowd. And even though we had been there for a good while, had spend money on drinks and so on, we still got kicked out because of two lousy bottles of champagne.

Yeah, point taken we didn’t buy those two bottles there, but we had plenty of other drinks (beer and cocktails) all night.

If none of us had not showed up, there would have been zero cash for them. So yeah, they could have been way more relaxed.

Pretty sweet place. During the week also plenty of space for groups. Affordable, etc..

There’s smoking upstairs.

Relativ nettes Restaurant, im Sommer kann man auch draussen auf der Terasse sitzen. Die Bedienung ist nett.

An der Qualitaet vom Essen koennte man etwas drehen, da der Durchschnittspreis mit 12 EUR/Gericht ziemlich hoch ist.

Die vegetarischen Optionen waren eher mau.

Unfortunately for Lemongrass, I’ve had a lot, lot better thai food. This one can’t really live up to anything. Service is very friendly, the food is pricey and so far I’m not convinced of the taste since for example they don’t season very well, or maybe not at all.

A friend also had his chicken medium, and you don’t really want chicken medium. ;-)

Point taken, it’s one of the better Thai places in Friedrichshain, but you know what they say: among the blind, the one-eyed is king.

They serve a pretty mean steak here. Supposedly it’s Angus beef from MN, which you can’t get anywhere else (correct me if I am wrong) and which is very pricey (~12 EUR/100g), and probably the best steak I’ve had in Europe to date.

Meat-wise, if you know Luger’s in NYC -- The Bird comes very close. It could be closer if the sides were better and the place had a bit more style, which is where Luger’s primarily excels. ;-)

The sides I got with my steak (fries and spinach) were OK, but not spectacular. Nothing particulary wrong with them besides the sauce. I absolutely wouldn’t recommend using their steak sauce because that’s a pure waste if you put it on this fine meat.

Anyway, if you’re in the mood for steak -- there really is no better place in this city. I can’t comment on the Burgers or whatever else they have, but the steak is beyond good. I know some folks who go there at least once a month because it’s so good. You just gotta be able to afford it, I guess.

Besides the food, The Bird is a pretty “convenient” East-Coast type of bar. No western glory. ;-) The waiters were nice and also pretty informal. The place looks always crowded and busy so you better get a reservation.