I’ve been back to Adana Grill Haus a handful of times since – and I learn something new every time.

On my last visit, I discovered that taxi drivers like Mesut aren’t the only ones who love this place – film director Fatih Akin and Green Party politician Özcan Mutlu are regulars here. So are German actor Daniel Brühl (of “Goodbye Lenin” fame) and boxer Marko Huck…

Want to read the whole story? Check out my post about Adana Grill Haus on the NPR Berlin blog.

After reading something between Byrne’s lines, and after a Lonely Planet writer told me that Berlin taxi drivers knew “as much about sausage as they do about Nietzsche,” I decided to take Taxi Gourmet to the German capital.

A few weeks in Berlin were enough to prove the Lonely Planet writer right: cabbies were as well versed in philosophy as they were in food. But besides leading me to the best sausage and strangolapreti and künefe in town, taxi drivers like Heiko Janssen also introduced me to their changing city.

Originally from Aurich, a German town of 20,000 in Eastern Friesland, on the North Sea coast near the border with the Netherlands, Heiko came to Berlin in 1988, a year before the Wall came down, “when West Berlin was more like an island for all the freaks from West Germany, for the outcasts of society.”

Heiko Jannsen: music lover, cab driver, tea drinker. Photo by TaxiBerlin.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Heiko joined the squatter movement in East Berlin, did odd jobs and started working on getting his taxi-driving license. It took him several years because “it was too easy in the 90s. Life was really cheap. Beer and food were cheap.”

Meanwhile, eating habits were changing as fast as everything else in Berlin. Taxi drivers like Heiko, whose favorite meal was sausage, potatoes and sauerkraut, started diving into new dishes like Syrian falafel and Thai green curry.

But Heiko held on to some flavors from his home town, especially after he became a cab driver: three times a day, like all East Frieslanders, he drinks at least three cups of Assam-Darjeeling black tea with kluntjes (a rock candy sweetener). Thanks to its seafaring tradition and historic trade with England and the Netherlands, Janssen explained, his region is the only one in Germany with a well-developed tea culture.

As a night driver with an encyclopedic knowledge of the club scene in Berlin, Heiko needs his tea. Before he gets in his taxi, he reads the papers and scans the Internet for fashion, film, and especially music events. Music is his greatest passion.

Heiko, who occasionally works as a DJ at Antje Öklesund (a gallery that a friend opened seven years ago) and is one of two personal cab drivers for the doorman at the world-famous Berghain techno club, drives his cab for the most part to support his love for music. Music is what brought him to Berlin in the 80s, and as much as the city has changed, it’s still making more music than he can listen to: “You can go to a concert once a week in Berlin,” he said, “You have so much.”

Photo by TaxiBerlin

Music is also what led the taxi driver to W-Der Imbiss, the so-called snack bar on the border between the once-grungy now-fashionable East Berlin neighborhoods of Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg, where the taxi driver sat down for lunch with me.

From 2004-2006, Heiko drove his cab and moonlighted at Staalplaat, an avant-garde record label based in Amsterdam that was trying to gain a foothold in Berlin.

When Staalplaat musicians came to Berlin to give concerts, the cabbie broke bread with them at W-Der Imbiss. Back then, the restaurant limited its menu to two or three Indian-inspired dishes a day.

Since Heiko’s days at Staalplaat, W-Der Imbiss has undergone a major renovation. The tiki masks and the logo – the McDonald’s golden arches turned upside-down – are the same as the taxi driver remembers. But the menu has yielded to the new trendiness of the restaurant’s surroundings: besides the Indian subji curry that he wanted me to taste, W-Der Imbiss now offers house-made naan bread pizzas, wok dishes, wraps, soups, salads, and ‘tiki tapas’ that range from grilled goat cheese to kim chi.

W-Der Imbiss may be cooking up fancy fast food now, but Canadian chef and owner Gordon W, who pops up in the open kitchen from time to time, hasn’t forgotten that he’s catering to Western Europe’s most wallet-friendly capital: the most expensive rice bowl on his menu costs 8.50 Euros.

Indian subji curry. Photo by TaxiBerlin

Not only is the place is still cheap enough for a cab driver, but its Indian subji curry (6.50 Euros) was even better than Heiko remembered. Broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, red and green peppers were crisp and colorful, even as they absorbed the spices from their light yellow curry sauce. Made to order, topped with a handful of fresh cilantro, and served with basmati rice and yogurt, the only thing missing in this curry was a little chili pepper heat.

We weren’t as impressed with red lentil soup (5 Euros, with a side of naan), which was spicy enough but short on aromatics. But the side of naan bread – brushed with ghee (clarified butter) and sprinkled with sesame, dried cilantro and thyme – was perfection from the tandoori oven: chewy, soft and still warm.

Red lentil soup and incredible naan. Photo by TaxiBerlin

Naan pizzas are the most popular item on W-Der Imbiss’ post-renovation menu. A few bites of olive naan (6 Euros), topped with house-made olive paste, sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan cheese and fresh arugula, helped us understand why.

W-Der Imbiss is just one example of how much Berlin has transformed over the twenty-plus years since the fall of the Wall: fast food is getting fancier, squat houses are disappearing, and underground clubs are becoming more and more difficult to find. But for Heiko, “The city still has more possibilities than any other German city, more possibilities for experience.”

“Berlin changes all the time,” the taxi driver said, taking a last bite of curry, “Luckily.”

W – Der Imbiss
Kastanienallee 49, 10119 Berlin (Mitte)
Tel. 49-30-44-35-22-06
Open: 7 days, noon-midnight
Eat this: Indian subji curry, 6.50 Euro; Olive naan, 6 Euro

A version of this article was first published in Sabor Magazine, December 2011. All photos by TaxiBerlin.

Here are my five favorite New York-based, taxi-assisted food finds from 2011, courtesy of a few wise cabbies, and some very food-savvy passengers:






1. Chicken tikka masala and roti: When I lived in Astoria, I must have walked by Roti Boti twenty times before cabbie Abdul finally convinced me to try it. They were out of his favorite chicken biryani when I went, so I curbed my disappointment with chicken tikka masala. Loaded with ginger and fresh thyme and plenty of the tomato cream sauce that makes this dish so delicious, Roti Boti’s chicken tikka masala is one of the better versions I’ve tried in New York. Basmati rice might be chicken tikka’s more logical sauce-absorbing companion, but roti is an even better foil: Chewy and warm and oven blistered, it will make you want to try everything that touches the tandoori here.
(Roti Boti / 27-09 21st St (near Newtown Ave) / Astoria / Tel. 718-278-7888 / Open 24 hours / Chicken tikka masala, $9; Roti, $1 – Map it )

2. Oxtails with rice and peas and sweet plantains: Oxtails at this Spanish Harlem storefront are smothered in simple brown sauce and fatty in all the right places. Sweet plantains leave no grease on your fingers. But rice and peas, simmered in coconut milk, are maybe the most remarkable part of this dish. Save room for rum cake – which showcases its star ingredient without letting it take over. There’s a reason Walkers Woods sells out of this dessert every day. It’s the same reason Max and Gillian and daughter, the passengers who told me this is their favorite Jamaican restaurant in New York, make the trek here from the Bronx as often as they can.
(Walkers Woods Caribbean American Restaurant, 2135 2nd Avenue (at 110th Street) / Tel. 212-996-2310 / Open: 8am-11pm / 7 days a week / Oxtails, $10 with two sides – Map it )

3. Steamed catfish in black bean sauce: Hop Shing may be known for dim sum, pineapple buns (Bau Lo Bao) and roast pork buns (Cha Siu Bao), but the cab driver who led me to this classic Chinatown restaurant steered me in a totally different direction. His ‘Lam Chops’ were on the menu, but his favorite steamed catfish in black bean sauce wasn’t. “If I walked in here tomorrow and ordered steamed catfish in black bean sauce,” I asked the waiter, “Would you make it for me?” Yes, he assured me, they would. So you should try it. The bone-in catfish could sometimes be fresher, but the black bean sauce – with fresh ginger and garlic and scallions – is something you’ll want every grain of rice to soak up.
( Hop Shing / 9 Chatham Sq (near East Broadway) / Chinatown / Tel. (212) 267-0220 / Open: Mon-Thur, 7am-9pm; Fri-Sat, 7am-10pm; Sun, 7am-9.30pm / Steamed catfish in black bean sauce, $10.95 / Map it )

4. Lamb Burger: I forgave the hassled mother who blew her top at me when the credit card machine in the cab stopped working when I took my first bite of the lamb burger she’d recommended. Cooked to a juicy rare, flecked with fresh mint, topped with pickled onions, tomatoes and barely-there harissa, it is Mediterranean glorious. Its airy bun doesn’t fall apart, but it doesn’t totally do the burger justice. The side of skin-on herb fries (seasoned with flat leaf parsley) does.
(Vareli / 2869 Broadway (at 111th St.) – Morningside Heights / Tel. (212) 678-8585 ‎/ Open: Sun-Wed 11:30am–11:45pm; Thurs-Sat 11:30am-2am / Lamb burger, $14 – Map it )

Photo by Amy Cao

5. Chicken in a Pot: When I asked cabbie Saliou Seck what he would eat if he only had 24 hours in New York, chicken in a pot at Ben’s Deli in Midtown Manhattan was his answer. At $17.99, it’s more expensive than most dishes that cabbies recommend, but if you’re short on cash you could easily split this soup/stew with one or two other people. Abundance isn’t the only thing going for it: the broth has the intensity of flavor that comes with slow cooking, you can cut the chicken with a spoon, peas and carrots are cooked to crispy, and the matzo ball is so delicate it almost disintegrates in your mouth. The tough dough on the kreplach is the only unimpressive ingredient in a soup that “cures everything,” according to the sign above Ben’s door. Maybe he’s not exaggerating.
( Ben’s Kosher Deli / 209 W 38th St / Phone: 212-398-2367 / Open: Dining Room Daily 11am-9pm; Take Out Daily 9am-9pm / Chicken in a pot, $17.99 – Map it )

Photo by Amy Cao

“If you had 24 hours left in New York, and you could only eat one thing, where would you want to go before you took off?” I said.

“Do you like kosher food?” the cabbie asked.

Before Saliou Seck became a yellow taxi driver four years ago, he sold jewelry on 47th Street, in New York’s Diamond District. Born in Dakar, Senegal, he emigrated to New York in 1998 and started driving a taxi when the U.S. economy took a nose dive. When people could no longer afford to buy jewelry, he could no longer make a living, he said.

Coming from a long line of jewelers, Mr. Seck – who speaks English, French and Wolof – still keeps a finger in the family business. Every year, he returns to Dakar to sell silver that he buys in the States. Every week, he eats the kosher food that he now craves thanks to his ex-colleagues on 47th Street, most of whom were Jewish.

From Yassa to Matzo Balls

As we fought the traffic in Midtown Manhattan on the way to the restaurant he had in mind, Mr. Seck told me that his wife – a Senegalese woman he’d met in New York – was a great cook. Her specialty is yassa, Senegalese-style chicken marinated in balsamic vinegar and lime and stir-fried with onions. No restaurant could match it, he said.

When he’s hungry for kosher chicken, the cabbie stops at Ben’s, which is where he delivered me when our ride came to an end, assuring me that this was his favorite Jewish deli in New York.

Photo by Amy Cao

A restaurant of ballroom dimensions in the middle of New York’s Garment District, Ben’s opened in 1996, taking over what was once Lou G. Siegel, a high-class kosher restaurant founded in 1917.

With the blessing of the original Siegel’s builder’s son, Ben’s owner Ronnie Dragoon redesigned the space, installing Art Deco sconces, a ceiling mural with Jewish dancers and a mustard jar in marble on the floor. Booths line the walls in the full-scale dining room, and a glass-enclosed deli counter spans the entire western wall of the restaurant.

“We have an agreement with the bank,” the sign behind Ben’s cash register reads, “They don’t sell pastrami sandwiches, and we don’t cash checks.”

After I slid into a booth and scanned the menu for the chicken Mr. Seck had recommended, a server brought a dish of half-sour pickles (cured in-house) and a plate of cole slaw (crunchy, refreshing and lightly dressed).

Ben’s menu is a collection of Eastern European classics that make up owner Ronnie Dragoon’s family legacy: pastrami and corned beef, Romanian-style kosher steaks with fried onions, chopped liver, and kasha varnishkes. Venturing out of Jewish deli territory are wraps, Hawaiian chicken, and rotelle primavera. Unlike most delis, Ben’s bakes all its rolls, cakes, pastries and knishes in-house.

“To some, delicatessen is something you put between two slices of bread,” Mr. Dragoon writes on the Ben’s Deli website, “To me, it’s a calling.”

I was tempted to try ‘The Stuffed Cabbage that Made Us Famous’ (with beef, rice, and ‘a touch of seasoning’), but I decided to follow Mr. Seck’s recommendation and stick with chicken.

Photo by Amy Cao

Ben’s ‘Chicken in the Pot’ – half a chicken stewed with a matzo ball, noodles, kreplach [a thick-skinned dumpling with ground beef], peas and carrots – was advertised as ‘a real nostalgia trip to the days of your youth!’ At $17.99, it was more expensive than most dishes that cabbies recommend, but when the server brought the pot to the table, I realized I was getting a bargain: the soup could have easily fed three people.

Abundance wasn’t the only thing going for the dish: the broth had the intensity of flavor that comes with slow cooking, the chicken fell off the bone, peas and carrots were crispy, and the matzo ball was so delicate it almost disintegrated in my mouth. The tough dough on the kreplach was the only unimpressive ingredient in a soup with the power to heal – and earn fans from as far away as Africa.

Ben’s Kosher Deli
209 W 38th St, New York, NY 10018, Phone: 212-398-2367
Hours: Dining Room Daily 11am-9pm; Take Out Daily 9am-9pm
Average Main Course Price $15.00
Web: www.bensdeli.net

A version of this article was first published in Sabor Magazine, Summer 2011. All photos by Amy Cao.

Taxi jam on Skalitzer Strasse, Berlin (Kreuzberg).

If you ever get in a random taxi in Berlin – or anywhere in the world – and ask the driver to take you to his (or her) favorite restaurant, you can usually divide your adventure into two parts: the taxi ride and the restaurant the cabbie recommends.

Sometimes the journey in the taxi is the best part of the adventure. Sometimes it’s the food.

In the case of last week’s adventure with Huseyin — whose family comes from Izmir (on the west coast of Turkey) and who’s dating a Chinese-Indonesian girl who’s taught him to love the flavors of Asia — the journey overshadowed the destination.

* * *

During our trip from east Berlin to his favorite noodles in west Berlin, Huseyin told me how much he likes his job – even though he studied civil engineering, he’s sticking with cab driving: “Every day,” he said, “You meet different kinds of people, from different countries. They’re all in love with Berlin.”

Like any great city, Berlin is constantly changing. He’s seen “more tourists, more hotels, more new clubs” since he started driving a cab here four years ago.

Though some of his passengers – especially people from what used to be East Germany – insist that things were better before the Wall came down, for this cabbie, Berlin is, and will always be, home — high unemployment and all.

Though he and his girlfriend haven’t found any decent Indonesian food in Berlin outside their own kitchens, Huseyin recommended two restaurants on Kantstrasse – one Thai and one Taiwanese – when I asked him about his favorite thing to eat in the city.

* * *

Thai green curry at Sakorn.

Kantstrasse, in the west Berlin district of Charlottenburg, is known for having a high concentration of Asian restaurants and import stores. Though I haven’t found any really outstanding flavors here yet, I’m convinced that there’s delicious food somewhere on this street, so I was thrilled that Huseyin gave me what sounded like good leads.

Last week, I tasted the cabbie’s first recommendation: Pad Thai at Sakorn, a Thai ’snack bar’ with lime green walls and a Buddha shrine, where every dish costs 5 Euros.

I had high hopes for this Pad Thai – especially after catching a glimpse of the ladies in white shower caps who were preparing it – but it turned out to be a greasy, over-sweetened disappointment.

A couple of days ago, convinced that I’d ordered the wrong dish at Sakorn and determined to try out Huseyin’s second restaurant recommendation, I dragged a co-adventurer back to Kantstrasse for what I hoped would be a good Asian feast. He could order anything he wanted, I told him, except Pad Thai.

Thai red curry at Sakorn.

We started with red and green curries at Sakorn – both swimming in what looked like broken sauces, both populated with vegetables that were either under- or overcooked. My co-adventurer took two bites and said, “There’s no love here.”

He was right. I transferred my hopes to Huseyin’s second recommended restaurant: Lon Men’s Noodle House. We moved on.

* * *

Lon Men’s, where they serve cabbie Huseyin’s favorite noodle soup in the city, advertises hand-made noodles and house-made dim sum, Taiwanese-style. You can smell the beef broth the moment you walk in – and watch the cooks work the dough and stir the pots in the tiny open kitchen near the door.

None of the dishes on the misnumbered menu costs more than 7 Euros. Even though it was past peak lunch hour when we got here, almost every one of the 10 or so tables was full, and practically everyone was face-deep in a bowl of noodle soup.

I ordered wanton noodle soup (4.20 Euros) – since Lon Men’s is also supposed to be famous for dumplings, I wanted to try those, too – and my co-adventurer got a small bowl of vegetable noodle soup (2.90 Euros).

In both soups, one-dimensional beef broth was the backdrop for overcooked noodles that didn’t have the springiness of being hand-made. There were hardly any vegetables in my co-adventurer’s vegetable soup. I counted just three bland-tasting wontons in mine. Napa cabbage was the best part.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

Noodle soup at Lon Men's.

He raised an eyebrow.

I watched a steamed pancake stuffed with meat and vegetables sail past our table.

“Should we try that?” I said, “It looks good!”

He shook his head. I relented. We were obviously on some kind of gustatory losing streak. Better to taste another day.

*                                *                                  *

Have you tried dim sum at Lon Men’s? Do you have any favorite restaurants on Kantstrasse in Berlin? Feel free to fill us in…no taxi license required.

Sakorn
Kantstraße 105, 10627 Berlin (Charlottenburg)
Tel. (not listed)
Open: Mon-Sat, 11am-8pm (closed Sundays)
Recommended: You tell me – haven’t found anything here I like yet.

Lon-Men’s Noodle House
Kantstraße 33, 10625 Berlin (Charlottenburg)
Tel. +49 315 196 78
Open: Daily, 12pm-12am
Recommended: Maybe dim sum (Taiwanese sandwiches filled with shrimp or pork – numbers 33-35 on the menu)

Normally when a cab driver delivers me to a restaurant and recommends an underwhelming dish, I chalk it up to a mixture of bad luck and the law of averages. Not every meal can be great – even a professional restaurant critic will tell you so.

But why all this hot air around a bad plate of Pad Thai? Why don’t I just admit that taxi drivers don’t always know what they’re talking about when it comes to food?

Because there are things about Sakorn that lead me to believe that Huseyin – who for the past four years has been driving a taxi in Berlin and dating a Chinese-Indonesian girl who taught him to love noodles – wasn’t wrong to steer me to here. Even if he did recommend Pad Thai.

At Sakorn, every dish costs 5 Euros and every other customer speaks what sounds a lot like Thai. I watched the staff greet at least two regular customers in Thai, one of whom was carrying a suitcase (Either he couldn’t wait to go home before eating here, or he wanted this to be his last meal before he got on the train – either way, a good sign, right?).

As at restaurants in Thailand, at Sakorn, a statue of the Buddha is surrounded by fresh flowers and lit candles (though here his place is on a shelf in the corner above the drink refrigerator).

Another good sign? There are only 15 items on the 8×10 photo menu – and they use actual Thai eggplant in their gaeng daeng red curry.

But the real reason I think it’s possible to eat well here are the three ladies in white shower caps in the kitchen, who cackle (no exaggeration) as they cook. How can women making dishes from scratch, and having fun while they’re at it, put out forgettable food?

Maybe they thought over-oiled, over-sweetened, over-cooked Pad Thai was what I, a non-Thai, was after. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t be interested in tamarind or chili peppers. Maybe, as at most of the Chinese restaurants I’ve been to in Berlin, they cook dishes according to what they think I want, instead of throwing in what they assume might be unfamiliar flavors.

I wasn’t even halfway through my Pad Thai when I put down my fork, vowed to come back and order something else.

Stay tuned for more on this Thai restaurant and the cabbie who brought me here.

In the meantime, if you’ve been to Sakorn and figured out their secret, please tell us about it.

Sakorn
Kantstraße 105, 10627 Berlin (Charlottenburg)
Open: Mon-Sat, 11am-8pm (closed Sundays)
Recommended: TBD

Taxis on the Galata Bridge in Istanbul. Photo by TaxiBerlin

Istanbul was the climax of September’s great adventure in the Balkans with the coolest cab driver in Berlin.

Hungry and determined to eat well on the cheap, we went without a guidebook and found three places to eat and drink that I would recommend to anyone traveling to, or even living in, Istanbul:

Balkan Lokantasi cantina in Istanbul. Photo by TaxiBerlin

1. BALKAN LOKANTASI: The food at this self-service cafeteria in the Sirkeci quarter near Istanbul’s main train station is cheap (spend 5 Euros and you’re full), simple and full of flavor – especially the eggplant dishes and the tomato rice.

If you don’t recognize any of the food on offer, the guys on staff are happy to explain what everything is – and if you’re as nice to them as they are to you, they’ll offer you a glass of Turkish black tea on the house. (Balkan Lokantasi, Hocapasa Mah. Hocapasa Sk. No 12 / Sirkeci, Istanbul).

Salt fish at Iskele Balik Evi in Istanbul. Photo by TaxiBerlin

2. ISKELE BALIK EVI: The fish restaurants below the Galata Bridge on the Golden Horn in Istanbul may look tempting and have great views, but they’re expensive. If you love seafood and like to eat with locals, skip the fancy fish and go to the seafood bazaar at the northeast corner of the Bridge, in the Karikoy neighborhood.

A few stalls past the fish vendors, you’ll find two cheap restaurants that serve fish fresh from the market. The second of the two, Iskele Balik Evi, fries the finest salt fish filet (dil baligi) I have ever tasted – and it only costs 7 Euros. If you go after 7:30pm, the staff may be able to find some (off-menu) wine for you, but only if the police aren’t around. (Iskele Balik Evi, Fish Bazaar Stall #11, Karikoy / Istanbul)

Turkish coffee at Türk Ocagi Cay Bahcesi.

3. TURK OCAGI CAY BAHCESI: Between the Blue Mosque and the University of Istanbul, this Turkish tea house and shisha bar sits off the street, in back of a garden that resembles a graveyard. It may not be the best place in Istanbul to drink Turkish coffee (even if you ask them to go easy on sugar, they make it very sweet), but it’s my favorite place in Istanbul to drink Turkish black tea (40 Eurocents a glass) and smoke shisha (apple tobacco, 5 Euros, with free refills).

Even though it’s on the Lonely Planet trail (we saw quite a few foreigners there with this guidebook in hand), this café is also very popular with locals, who sit and chat and smoke for hours. Watching the staff here is like watching a Turkish version of a Henry Ford assembly line – every person does only one job (serving tea, distributing water pipes, refilling tobacco, clearing tables) and does it very well. (Türk Ocagi Cay Bahcesi, Cemberlitas Divanyolu Cad. No 82, Eminonu / Istanbul)

How about you? Know any good places to eat and/or drink in Istanbul? Feel free to share your favorites!

I took what was maybe the greatest taxi adventure of all this September: to the Balkans with TaxiBerlin, who really knows his way around the peninsula.

Check out the slide show below – this is some of what we ate & saw over 10 countries and 6,663 kilometers from Berlin to Istanbul and back.

Stay tuned for some food dispatches from the trip!

Balkan Road Taxi. Photo by TaxiBerlin

Taxi Gourmet is taking a pause this September for a road trip with the coolest cab driver in Berlin.

We’re attempting to get from Berlin to Istanbul – via Austria, Hungary, Romania and mostly Bulgaria – in a 1993 Opel Astra (also known as Zorba the Berliner).

We’ll eat like crazy, travel on the cheap and post two photos a day at BalkanRoadMovie.com – we hope you’ll come along for the (virtual) ride!

Photo by TaxiBerlin (www.autofiktion.com)

Peter’s was the first cab in line at the taxi stand next to the Baritone Bar on Weserstraße in Friedrichshain* in what used to be East Berlin.

Before I poked my head through his passenger side window, I’d already decided to abandon my strategy of asking him straight away to take me to his favorite restaurant. Instead, I asked him if he could bring me to Kottbusser Tor, in Kreuzberg, and if it would be okay to ask him some questions during the ride. (This was the strategy I used in New York, too, after I figured out that cabbies there need to understand your agenda before they can divulge secrets about their food.)

Not only did Peter say ‘yes,’ but after hearing my horrendous German, he switched to English and told me that he started driving a cab four and half years ago so he would have more time to make his music.

Peter plays piano and guitar and writes songs and records them in-studio with his partner. In true Berlin art-for-art’s-sake form, they don’t have a name, they don’t perform live, and they don’t have a website. (Although ten years ago he was a member of a pop band called ‘Knuckle Sandwich,’ which no longer exists.)

Spätzle & Knödel restaurant. Photo by TaxiBerlin (www.autofiktion.com)

Before the cabbie decided to organize his life around his music, he worked a lot of jobs – everything from laying pipe in a power plant to waiting tables – and lived all over the city.

After moving from Kreuzberg to Charlottenburg to Friedrichshain, he’d finally returned to Karlshorst-Lichtenberg, the quiet East Berlin district where he grew up, where he can live cheaply (“l only pay 350 Euro a month for my flat, and I don’t have a car, I ride my bike.”) and eat at India Haus, the only Indian restaurant in the neighborhood (If you’re in Berlin and you get there before I do, let us know what you think.)

Even though he grew up in East Berlin, Peter loves southern German food, especially rich, heavy dishes from Bavaria and Swabia. His favorite place to eat them, he told me, is Spätzle & Knödel, a southern German restaurant in Friedrichshain that he found “by accident, while I was driving the taxi.”

Schweinekrustenbraten with beer sauce and Bavarian sauerkraut. Photo by TaxiBerlin (www.autofiktion.com)

Schweinekrustenbraten was the dish the cabbie recommended, and Schweinekrustenbraten (pork roast with a thick fat crust) was what we ordered when I backtracked to Spätzle & Knödel the next day with a German friend.

My friend, who is not from Bavaria but whose stomach is always ready for the solidity of German food, approved of the dish, especially the dark beer sauce, which balanced out the fatty richness of the pork, soaked into the knödel (bread dumplings crusted with pork fat) and combined perfectly with the caraway seeds in the Bavarian sauerkraut.

Käsespätzle. Photo by TaxiBerlin (www.autofiktion.com)

Käsespätzle, noodles with cheese and a sprinkle of gorgeously caramelized onions, couldn’t compare to Schweinekrustenbraten. The noodles are made in-house but taste too dry without sauce or a unifying herb. (If you’re serious about spätzle, you’re better off eating it at Die Feinbäckerei in Schoeneberg.)

I might also skip the pretzel here, which the menu claims is house-made, too, but that our server confessed is only ‘house-baked.’ (Although the raw milk ‘fassbutter’ you can order on the side is so good it’s worth probably ordering the pretzel anyway, just so you have a vehicle for the butter).

Bavarian beers on tap here are good, especially the ‘clear, light, herbacious’ Oberelchinger Prälät, but if you want to experience how truly glorious a Bavarian microbrew can be, check out Hops & Barley, a few doors west of Spätzle & Knödel, where you can also find some of the best schmaltz in Berlin.

Spätzle & Knödel – Map it
Wühlischstraße 20
10245 Berlin – Friedrichshain
Tel. 030 27571151
Open: 7 days a week, 5pm-midnight
Cash only
Recommended: Anything with Fassbutter; Schweinekrustenbraten mit Schwarzbiersosse und Bayerisch Kraut (9.40 Euros)

Hops & Barley – Map it
Wühlischstraße 22-23
10245 Berlin – Friedrichshain
Tel. 030 29367534
Open: 7 days, 5pm-3am
Cash only
Recommended: House-brewed pilsner; schmaltz

* Note: If you ever decide you want to try a taxi adventure in Berlin, I highly recommend starting your quest from the taxi stand on Weserstraße, next to the Baritone Bar across from Wismarplatz, in Friedrichshain. Every taxi stand in Berlin has its own culture, and the cabbies on Weserstraße are relaxed and open compared to many of their colleagues (especially on Alexanderplatz, where drivers can be grouchy sometimes.)