"I am my own chief." - Thomas A., taxi driver, TV repairman, cook, and life artist.

He was reading a Ken Follett novel when I poked my head through the passenger’s side window.

When I asked him about his favorite restaurant, he said he never ate out. But for some reason (Was it the way his tummy pushed against his orange dress shirt? Our own desperation after being rejected by three other cabbies?) we sensed this wasn’t entirely true.

“Well, there is a steak house I like,” he said. “It’s in Weissensee. About 15 minutes away – it’ll cost you 13 or 14 Euros.”

My co-adventurer and I climbed in. I noticed a hardcover copy of Einsatz in Atlantic, a novel about a submarine battle during World War II, under the driver’s side arm rest.

Thomas pulled away from the Helsingforser Strasse taxi stand and headed north on Warschauer Strasse out of Friedrichshain, where he grew up, and into Weissensee, where he moved with his wife and two daughters fourteen years ago. He’s lived in East Berlin his whole life.

He started driving a cab in 1987, “during the [Cold] War [when] the GDR [East German government] didn’t have enough taxis but you could become a taxi driver if you had your own car.”

The GDR’s other requirements? You had to have another job (Thomas repaired televisions). And your car had to be a 4-door Wartburg (which you had to wait more than 7 years to get). Is it any wonder there was a taxi shortage?

The day after the Wall fell, Thomas was taking passengers to West Berlin, where he’d never driven in his life. In the years after the Wall fell, the TV repair business went down the tubes, and he drove long haul trucks to Italy, Portugal and Spain, working as a cabbie all the while.

He spent 2003-04 driving a cab for members of the German Parliament, a job he despised for two reasons: he didn’t like having a boss, and he thought his passengers condescending and arrogant.

“They talked about how wonderful things were in Germany. Meanwhile I was struggling, barely making a living.”

If his wife didn’t work as a cook for a recycling company, they couldn’t survive, Thomas told us. She’s the main breadwinner. And since she spends all day in front of a stove, she doesn’t want to go near the kitchen when she gets home from work – which means Thomas does most of the cooking.

“I learned from my mother,” he said.

On the weekends, Thomas and his wife like to barbecue. And when they want to go out, it’s La Bandida, an Argentine steak house near their Weissensee apartment that Thomas calls “our restaurant.”

“I can’t believe a Berliner cabbie is taking me to an Argentine steak house!” I said. I told Thomas about the adventures in Buenos Aires and the steaks the size of his steering wheel.

La Bandida at the cusp of dinner hour. Check out the 'Crazy Hour' advertisement on the window.

La Bandida was closed when he pulled up to the restaurant, got out of the taxi and lit a cigarette – he wanted to go inside with us so he could look at the menu and tell us exactly which steak he liked to order, but it wasn’t to be. The cabbie felt terrible. We told him not to worry about it and made plans to come back the next day.

30 hours later, we met at La Bandida during ‘Crazy Hour,’ which lasts from 6pm-12am, and was far from wild: I counted six customers besides us. The Buena Vista Social Club was strumming a ballad. We chose a table under an ad for Desperado beer.

My co-adventurer and I studied the Argentine-Mexican-Italian menu: there were no empanadas, but we found fajitas, nachos, spaghetti, and four cuts of beef (which came in 180 gram, 250 gram or 350 gram portions), plus the baked potato and kidney beans Thomas had recommended.

I was least excited about the kidney beans, which I’d never seen on an Argentine, Mexican or Italian menu, but they turned out to be the tastiest thing on the plate. Sautéed with speck [similar to bacon], caramelized onions and jalapeño peppers, they were smoky, spicy, and perfect with 180 grams of entrecote.

The steak was good – so juicy it dripped, so tender it almost melted – but nothing like what you’d get in a Buenos Aires parrilla. I was pretty sure the beef had come from a cow that ate grain and not grass – it had that grain-fed unctuousness that we’re used to in the USA. And they’d cooked the meat with a vinegar-based steak sauce, which would be sacrilege in Argentina (where salt is the only seasoning that goes near most beef). I left half the baked potato uneaten – the cloud of sour cream on top was cheesier than it was sour. Not bad, just not good enough to distract me from steak and beans.

Buena Vista Social Club gave way to techno when I took my last bites – at least La Bandida’s soundtrack was something like you’d hear in a Buenos Aires parrilla. The tourist-oriented steak houses are the only ones that play tango in Argentina, and Thomas’s restaurant wasn’t about to go that route – even if no one on staff spoke Spanish.

La Bandida
Langhansstrasse 144 – Weissensee (near the M13 tram stop at Anton Platz)
13086 Berlin
Tel. 030 925 1623/030 960 64762
Open: Mon-Thurs 4pm-12am, Fri-Sat 11am-12am, Sun 10am-11pm
Would I go back? If I were in the neighborhood, I would. And I’d definitely order kidney beans (kidneybohnen).

The cabbie said he spoke English when we asked him to take us to his favorite place to eat – and he agreed to be filmed along the way for a story for Spiegel TV.

But after a couple of questions from me (How did you find this restaurant? What’s your favorite thing to eat there?), it was clear that we barely understood each other.

Eren met my gaze in the rear view mirror. We were lost. My words didn’t match his. A part of me panicked (There are other journalists in the car!). I could see the apologies in the cabbie’s eyes.

David and Sandra came to the rescue. Thanks to their English-to-German and German-to-English, we discovered that Eren has been driving a cab for two years. Despite working as a hotel restaurant manager for 15 years on the Turkish coast, his English wasn’t good enough to get a similar job in Berlin. He missed the beach and the sea in Turkey. He hated the traffic in Berlin. He wasn’t sure if he would stay, even though his wife’s family lives here.

“It depends on where we decide to send our kids to school,” he said. Where that happened is where he would ultimately end up. They still had a few years to figure it out.

We were heading for a Turkish restaurant in Neukölln when we got talking about Eren’s home town of Konya in central Turkey. He confessed that he missed his mother’s cooking (something his wife didn’t appreciate hearing at all). And he changed his mind about where he was taking us. We were now on our way to the only place in Berlin – according to the cabbie – that makes Konya etli ekmek, a rendition of ‘Turkish pizza’ that comes from his village.

Lahmajun, or what most people know as Turkish pizza, has its origins in Eastern Turkey, he told us. Pide, or etli ekmek, comes from Konya. The cabbie cracked a smile when we made it clear to him that we’d love to try it.

Not every cabbie is going to take the time to park his car, walk into the restaurant and order for you. But that's what Eren did. Even though he was fasting for Ramadan.

Eren parked the taxi in front of Konyali, turned off the car and led us into the restaurant. The manager greeted him with a smile, and he ordered for us: two Konya etli ekmeks (with beef and herbs), a Peynirli ekmek (with cheese and herbs) and künefe (You have to ask for this dessert at the beginning of your meal, the cabbie explained, as it takes them a while to heat it up).

Like a lot of the people in the neighborhood, Eren was fasting for Ramadan, so he didn’t order anything for himself. If it was torture for him to walk into the restaurant, inhale the perfume of the giant doner kebab in the window and watch the baker slide pide into the brick oven, he didn’t show it. After a few handshakes, a few photos and a few smiles, the soft-spoken cabbie was gone.

While we waited for our ekmek, David noticed the chandeliers overhead and the etchings of whirling dervishes on the wall, “I’m seeing this more and more in Berlin,” he said, “Turkish restaurants are going a little more upscale.” It’s a sign, he noted, that the Turkish community is getting more entrenched here, going beyond hole-in-the-wall doner kebab stands.

Konya etli ekmek (with beef and herbs) in the foreground and peynirli ekmek (with gouda cheese) in the back.

Still, our ‘pizzas’ were just 4 euros apiece. Thin-crusted, chewy and heat-blistered, they reminded me a little of a New York slice on the bottom.

But the top half was all Konya: minced, rare beef seasoned with thyme and sprinkled with flat-leaf parsley. I squeezed lemon over the whole thing, folded it in half, and sampled. Simple and brick-oven delicious, yes. But was ekmek so different from other Turkish pizzas I’ve tried? Not really.

I was less impressed with David’s gouda cheese ekmek – the cheese hadn’t kept the dough from drying out, and thyme – or some sort of exciting herb – was missing.

We washed our ekmeks down with ayran – slightly saltier than Hasir’s version of the yogurt drink, but still tasty and wildly complementary. Everyone except me was finished with their pizza when a server brought our künefe.

I told David and Sandra about the extraordinary künefes I’d tried at Hasir and Gel Gör, “It’s shredded filo with butter and honey, stuffed with Turkish cheese.” A near perfect dessert, I said: rich, sweet, and built on colliding textures.

In the end, Konyali’s version couldn’t really compare to the others. The cheese didn’t have the punch of Gel Gör’s, and it got lost in a thick layer of shredded filo, which didn’t have the crunch that made Hasir’s rendition so remarkable.

“Don’t make a decision about whether you like künefe based on this version,” I said. I think they were a little taken aback by my evangelism on behalf of the dessert. I glanced at the whirling dervish on the wall.

Konyali
Etli Ekmek Salonu
Reichenberger Str. 10
10999 Kreuzberg Berlin
Tel. 030-690-04567

Note: Konyali has been open for just six months. During Ramadan, the restaurant is quiet at lunch time, but when people break their fasts after 8pm, the place gets packed. You may want to reserve or go early if you want to be sure to get a seat.

Meanwhile, if you’re willing to get into a random cab, ask the driver to deliver you to his/her favorite place to eat and write about the adventure, I’d love to share your story with other Taxi Gourmet readers. Email layne@taxigourmet.com for details.

I got into the taxi with my friend not knowing what to expect, somewhat nervous, but I put on an enthusiastic smile and said to the driver: “Okay, I have a strange question to ask, but do you know any good places to eat? Like a not too expensive place?”

“Well there’s plenty right on this corner…” he replied, which there were.

“No, I was more wondering where you like to eat when you’re working?” I said.

He replied, “McDonalds” and pointed over his shoulder.

I said, “No, I’m looking for something that’s not a chain restaurant… where else do you eat when you work?” He looked at us quizzically for a moment, and I broke down and explained that I was writing for Taxi Gourmet.

He laughed and said, “Really, so I’ll be on a website?”

“Yeah!” I told him, giving him the address.

“Well what’s your price range?”

We told him we were looking for something in the $15-$30 range. He thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, there’s a Greek place I used to go to on Cote St-Luc road. They had great pita and salads there, only $5!”

On our way to the restaurant, he told us he’s been driving a taxi for three years, but when I asked him how he got into it he simply replied, “Circumstances…” and I left it at that.

When he isn’t driving he said he liked taking walks, reading…but he didn’t seem to want to elaborate, or maybe he was just unaccustomed to random questioning. He had a wife and kids as well – I was too nervous and didn’t think to ask him more about his family, though.

He told us about some of his more memorable passengers: a gay couple wrapped up in each other, quite literally, some drunken teenagers that got sick, a couple that he had to break up verbally after they went overboard in their affections, and an incredibly lost German passenger who directed him all over the city, racking up a huge bill as they drove around for an hour and a half.

We finally got to the restaurant, thanking the cabbie profusely and giving him a good tip in return for being victim to my first foray into the world of taxi-themed food blogging. I remembered just before getting out to ask his name, which he said was Alex. I introduced myself and my friend and he shook my hand with a smile and a laugh, saying to come back again.

So I got out, still a bit shaky from first-time nervousness, glad that I had succeeded at the first part of my mission. Now for the eating part!

We studied the outside of the restaurant: instead of the Greek place Alex had told us about, it was now called Carmine’s Tuscany Grill. They had a banner announcing a summer pasta festival for $11.95. We decided to go in even though it didn’t seem like the cabbie had been there since they changed owners.

There was a five minute wait to be seated, but the place was full on a Monday night, which was a good sign to me. Our young waiter was courteous and fast, leaving us just the right amount of time to look over the menus and decide what to order.

The menu had a medium-sized selection, all Italian, and it seemed like the classic stuff: pasta, chicken, seafood, pizza, and some veal and beef. Some of the more expensive chicken and fish dishes ranged from $12 straight up to $25.

I had the house salad. At first I thought they had forgotten to put vinaigrette on it, but when I tasted it I realized they had just perfected the balance of vinaigrette to salad – there was a barely noticeable sheen of dressing on the lettuce, adding just enough flavor. My friend’s leek and potato soup was light even though it had a cream base and “well worth $2.95.”

We’d both decided to take advantage of the summer pasta festival. I had the veal canneloni with rose (tomato and cream) sauce and mozzarella, and he chose Gigi’s pasta plate: mixture of pancetta, prosciutto, mushrooms, and shallots sautéed in a rose sauce.

Both were delicious: the veal in the canneloni wasn’t at all the texture of ground meat I was expecting, and I scraped up every last drop of my sauce, while my friend was sold after his first few bites of pancetta and prosciutto-flavored pasta. The parmesan and freshly cracked black pepper went really well with it, too. We didn’t have wine or dessert, preferring water and being too full for anything sweet.

As I headed home to wallow in a food coma I thought about the evening. I was quite pleased at the success of my first mission and was already looking forward to the next one.

Carmine’s Tuscany Grill
5525 Côte St. Luc Rd.
Montreal, Quebec H3X 2C6
Tel. (514) 484-7525

Sara Berg Johnson has the enviable task of living and eating in one of the world’s greatest food cities: Montreal. Later this week, I’ll share the story of her very first taxi adventure in La Belle Ville. Three cheers to her for working through her fear and ending up in front of a mouth-watering plate of cannelloni.

This week’s Berlin dispatch is going to be an exciting one: a guest adventurer from a publication I can’t mention yet is coming along for the ride. I can’t wait to tell you about it – and see where we end up.

In the meantime, I wanted to tell you about the best döner kebap I’ve ever tasted – in Berlin or anywhere – which happens to be near an especially busy taxi stand that’s in front of Curry 36, which happens to serve the best curry wurst I’ve tasted in Berlin so far.

But I digress: if you’re anywhere within a 50-mile radius of Berlin, you owe it to yourself to stop by Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebap (Mehringdamm 32, 10961, Kreuzberg) and do as follows:

1. Stand in the line that never disappears. Inhale the smell of roasting chicken and red peppers. Watch the fat drip onto the fried potatoes. Ogle the fresh vegetables in the window.
2. Order the chicken döner with fried potatoes and carrots, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and dill, feta cheese, lemon juice and all three (yogurt, herb and spicy) sauces.
3. Bite into synergy, colliding textures, and the layers and layers of flavor that happen when a really great cook knows how to coax the best from each of his ingredients. Cardamom and cumin here. Flatleaf parsley and dill there. Feta here, slowly cooked chicken there. Or, as Jonathan Gold would say, engage in “umami on umami violence.”
4. Bask in the afterglow that only the most sublime foods can produce.
5. Marvel at the fact that ecstasy can be yours for less than 4 euros.

Recently I was trying to explain to someone that you don’t have to speak the local language to go on a taxi adventure. My friends Ryan and Christine can attest to this - they had quite the food quest in Jordan with a cabbie who spoke six words of English.

Still, I don’t think this guy was convinced. “I don’t speak German,” I told him, “So the adventures in Berlin have all been reliant on my cabbies’ knowledge of English. I also asked a Berliner friend to write ‘Please take me to YOUR favorite place to eat’ in German in case the cabbie speaks no English.”

As I was getting ready to start my last taxi adventure, I realized that I hadn’t yet put my friend’s translation to the test. Instead, I’ve been approaching random cabbies with Sprechen Sie Englisch? – and moving on when they shook their heads and waved their arms ‘no.’

Today is going to be different, I decided. I opened my notebook to my friend’s translation and headed to the nearest taxi stand.

The first taxi driver in line was reading the Tagesspiegel when I poked my head in the passenger’s side window and asked him if he spoke English.

Nein.

I showed him my notebook: Bringen Sie mich bitte zu Irhem/Deinem Lieblings Platz für gutes Essen. He read. He furrowed his brow. He looked up at me and said, “Ich bin türke!”

Somehow I made it clear to him that this was a good thing.

When I climbed into the passenger seat, I realized I’d forgotten my German phrasebook at home. But you’d be surprised how much two people who can’t communicate can communicate.

Thanks to sign language and 47 words of German, I learned that Kenan was born in Istanbul, has been driving a cab in Berlin for three years, living in Kreuzberg for 15, and is a father of three kids (ages 15, 11, and 9).

“No English, no problem!” the cabbie said.

I had to agree, especially when he told me that the place he was taking me was “small money” and “for me the best.” We headed down Oranienstraße, and I wondered what the undiscovered gem could be.

I tried to hide my disappointment when Kenan turned left on Adalbertstrasse, stopped in front of Hasir, and threw me a triumphant grin.

I didn’t have the heart (or the German) to tell the cabbie that I’d already eaten there, and that I was hoping to taste something new. When I asked him what to order, he said “alles super.”

I thanked him in German. He said goodbye in English. And I decided to stop fighting the fact that Hasir is actually the best Turkish eatery in Berlin – at least according to the three Turkish cabbies I’ve met so far – and enjoy the chance to dive deeper into the beloved restaurant’s menu.

Fifteen minutes later, I was working my way through a plate of Şiş Yoğurtlu (lamb shish kebab with yogurt and tomato sauce on top of buttered Turkish flatbread). Yes, it was delicious, even though it was seasoned a little too cautiously for my taste. I tried to liven up the bare bones tomato sauce with red chili flakes and eat a piece of grilled green chili with every bite of juicy, tender lamb.

The glass of ayran I ordered at the last moment was my favorite part of the meal. Yogurt mixed with water and salt may not sound like an appetizing drink, but it was a perfect – and I mean perfect – complement to the kebab. You’d be hard-pressed to find a beverage that amps up flavor and soothes the stomach as ayran does. No wonder it’s popular all over the Middle East.

Next time a cabbie brings me to Hasir, I’ll order it again.

Hasir Restaurant
Adalbertstrasse 10 & 12
Kreuzberg 10999 Berlin
Tel 030 616 59 222
Website (with other locations): www.hasir.de

Bratwurst and sauerkraut.

Four days of blutwurst, fleischwurst, rindswurst, weisswurst, leberwurst, bratwurst, musical cheese, apple wine, potato salad, apple strudel and a beer festival in Frankfurt/Offenbach got me thinking that sounds (HWAAAA! HUUUUH!) would be more useful than adjectives to describe German food.

Taxi adventures in Berlin will recommence tomorrow, assuming I’ll be able to move by then.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to feast your eyes on some of the bounty of the Rhine-Main region – which borders the German state of Bavaria and has a food culture that could be described as fierce – I’ve posted some photos on the Taxi Gourmet Facebook page.

In Argentine folklore, the gaucho is a sort of estranged cowboy, a rebel who lives off the land. I have an Argentine writer friend who once made a brilliant observation about the taxi drivers of Buenos Aires being the new gauchos.

“Their cabs are their horses,” she explained, “Their passengers are the cattle, the streets are their terrain, and their desire for freedom is at the center of it all.”

The more cab rides I took in Buenos Aires, the more I agreed with her. Over and over again, taxistas told me they’d chosen their profession because they couldn’t stomach the idea of a traditional boss or a 9-5 schedule. Driving a cab allowed them to come and go as they pleased – or even disappear.

After riding from Brandenburg Gate to Wilmersdorf in Roland’s cab a few days ago, I realized that the new gauchos are not confined to Buenos Aires.

It wasn’t just the steely eyes or the black leather vest that made me think of Roland as an urban cowboy. It wasn’t even the fact that he’s been riding and racing horses since he was six years old. It was his whole what-the-hell approach to our journey – and his obvious attachment to his independence.

Roland didn’t give a fig that we were being filmed by a TV crew from a German news show called RTL:

And he made it very clear as we went deeper into our conversation that his entire professional life was organized around a single principle: his freedom.

At one time, he owned three taxis, but he got rid of them when he realized he could make the same money – and deal with less paperwork and get away to Portugal three times a year – leasing a cab from someone else.

When the Wall came down, Roland was living in East Berlin. How did he learn the other half of the city?

“I’ve been driving for 25 years. I learned by doing. It’s normal. Every week you learn something new in this job. I love it,” he said.

Tell me all about it, I said. That’s when I confessed that I drive a cab in New York.

“Oh really?” he said, “I have a girlfriend who drove a cab in New York. She drives a cab here now.”

“What?! Your girlfriend is a cabbie? I’ve never known a cab driving couple. That is so cool! How did you meet her?”

It wasn’t quite that poetic in the end – the ‘girlfriend’ actually turned out to be a female friend of his. But I still thought it was pretty cool that he’d fallen in love with one of his dispatchers, moved to West Berlin and had a son with her. In the end, though, he married a doctor’s assistant – in one of the three restaurants he recommended to us.

Roland told me right off the bat that his kitchen was the best restaurant in town, but when he does eat out, it’s at one of several places near his apartment in Wilmersdorf (an upper-middle class neighborhood on Berlin’s west side).

Being the sap that I am, I was leaning toward the Italian place where he’d had his wedding – and where he told us they make good garlic soup and spaghetti aglio olio (with garlic, olive oil, and shrimp). But there was also a Mexican place owned by two Turkish sisters called Alcatraz. Then there was Soley’s, where the owner was Persian, the waitress Venezuelan, and the food “fresh and different every day.”

“Okay,” I said, “We can’t eat at all three places, even though we’d like to. Which one is the best?”

“Can I ask my wife?” he said.

My co-adventurers and I giggled as Roland pressed a button on the steering wheel, put his wife on speaker phone, and explained our dilemma.

After a few mystified seconds, she said “Alcatraz” and told us to order the chicken and avocado salad. But the restaurant was closed when we drove by, so we ended up at Soley’s. Despite the fact that we were all dripping with summer sweat, Roland insisted we try the fish soup and told us we “couldn’t go wrong with the fajitas or the nachos.”

I was willing to trust the cabbie on the soup, but I couldn’t cross my Mexican food snob line to fajitas or nachos. Could they be any good in an empty restaurant that was also attempting Spanish tapas and cheeseburgers? I didn’t want to find out. I stuck with the fish soup and ordered chorizo to follow.

Roland was right about the soup. Somehow, squid and shrimp and mussels were all remarkably fresh (how was this possible? The Baltic Sea is two hours away). The light, tomato-based broth stood back and let the seafood shine. Potatoes gave it heft – fresh lemon and flat leaf parsley injected a little brightness. All in all, a good way to spend 6 euros – I don’t know if I’d make a special trip to Wilmersdorf for it, but I’d definitely stop by if I were in the neighborhood.

The cook’s light touch with the soup didn’t extend to the chorizo. Like a lot of sausage in Berlin, it had fallen in the deep fryer. I don’t know if it’s suicidal tendencies that move people to deep fry the wurst here – sometimes it works (in a currywurst context). But sometimes deep frying actually masks the subtleties of a sausage, which is what happened with my poor chorizo. The spiciness was great, but hot oil had scalded the sweetness out of the red pepper, giving it a bitter aftertaste.

Maybe Roland was right: I should have ordered fajitas after all.

Soley’s
Prinzregentenstrasse 53 – Wilmersdorf
10715 Berlin
Tel. 030 850 72 290
Web: www.soleys.de

When it’s not hilarious, it can be enlightening: thanks to my Berlin landlord’s copy of Fodor’s New York Citypack Guide (3rd Edition), I learned that Wigstock is celebrated every Labor Day and that there’s a Russian bath around the corner from Astor Place (at 268 E. 10th St, and you can even get beaten with soapy oak leaves if you so desire).

When I skipped to the section on taxis, the Fodor’s guide was even more entertaining:

“Taxi drivers are notorious for (a) knowing nothing about New York geography, (b) not speaking English, and (c) having an improvisational driving style.”

After I finished cracking up, I wanted to point out a couple of things to “the lively London-born Kate Sekules,” who wrote this masterpiece:

1. Driving is by nature improvisational.
2. If you don’t drive improvisationally (i.e. maniacally) in New York, you get nowhere.
3. All New York cabbies are required to pass an English test. We may not all speak perfectly, but we certainly know enough to get you from A to B.
4. On a similar note, every single yellow cabbie in New York has passed a rigorous geography exam, and we sure know more than nothing.

Finally, Kate Sekules, you forgot one very important detail: New York cabbies often have fabulous taste in food, and the intrepid traveler shouldn’t hesitate to turn to us for restaurant recommendations.

I didn’t bother to hide my delight when he told me “we have many favorite restaurants in Berlin”:

Was he for real? Could the kunefe at his chosen restaurant actually top the otherworldly version at Hasir? I had to find out.

But first I learned what it takes to become a cab driver in Berlin:

By the time I walked into Gel Gör, I was just as ready to taste the kofte (sausage) as I was the kunefe. Especially after chatting with the manager and learning that they use only veal to make the sausage and butcher the meat on site.

Kofte beneath its supporting cast of vegetables.

On his advice, I tried the kofte on toasted French bread, topped with red chili sauce, sumac, tomatoes, arugula and a squeeze of lemon.

I liked the freshness of all the ingredients – and all of the spicy, sweet and sour they added to the sandwich – but I loved the kofte.

Tender and grilled to perfection, it reminded me of cevapi (as Ergan said), but it was richer than the tasty version I remembered from Cevabdzinica Sarajevo in New York. I almost didn’t want the rest of the sandwich to interfere with the sausage. I could taste the care – and the refusal to compromise – that had gone into making it. The manager wouldn’t to tell me what spices they use.

Kunefe is heated to order at Gel Gor.

I sipped Turkish black tea while I waited for my kunefe (shredded filo, butter and honey sandwiched around soft white cheese) to cook, still trying to imagine how it could taste better than Hasir’s rendition of the dessert.

In the end, I didn’t think it was better, but it was definitely different: the cheese was sharper, the honey milder, and the shreds of filo in the crust were so fine they almost dissolved on my tongue. This last detail might be what separates good kunefe from great kunefe – it takes a special machine to make the filo so transparently thin. Because of the need for this machine, Gel Gör outsources its kunefe to a Turkish baker who lives in Bremen in northwest Germany and devotes all of his pastry-making skills to the dessert.

He might be insulted if he reads this, but I’d like to see him go head to head with whoever’s responsible for the kunefe at Hasir. I’m not sure who would come out the winner.

Gel Gör Inegöl Köfteci
Kottbusser Damm 80
Kreuzberg – 10967 Berlin
030-69582753
Open: 24 hours
Kofte sandwich: 5 Euros
Kunefe: 3 Euros

“Your English is better than my German,” I said.

The taxi driver laughed. We were on our way.

During our ride from Friedrichshain to Kreuzberg, Ergan told me about what he had to do to get his taxi license in Berlin (with a 2-part test and a thousand streets, it sounds a little harder than in New York), revealed that he also loves the Turkish food at Hasir Restaurant (maybe it’s not a tourist trap after all?) and let me in on his favorite place in the city for kofte (veal sausage) and kunefe. Is it even better than Hasir’s heavenly version of my new favorite dessert?

Stay tuned for the answer to this question plus some fun video of the adventure that I’m trying to figure out how to edit.