Berlin: Sunday

[jducoeur]

Today we slept off the jetlag, so by the time we fully crawled out of bed and were showered, it was time to look for lunch.

Lunch was, slightly randomly, at Transit. This was an excellent choice. It's a fun, funky little restaurant focusing on small plates of Asian-fusion food. We shared four little bowls:

• A couple of things that were vaguely like thin, Thai-flavored eggrolls.
• Peking duck (Kate's complaint was that there was too much hoisin; I thought they were great).
• A bowl of spicy wok-cooked beef.
• Beautifully crispy pork belly with an intense, somewhat salty sauce.

Overall, absolutely delightful, and pretty cheap. I'd happily go back -- we talked about the fact that an outpost of this place in Davis Square would be a huge hit.

The theory was that we were going to the Pergamon Museum today, since it was a rainy Sunday. But the line was about two hours long, so we punted in favor of the Bode Museum next door instead.

This proved a great choice, not least because their current exhibition, Beyond Compare, is just plain brilliant. The Bode specializes in antique through baroque art, and this exhibit added in lots of contemporary art from Africa. But it didn't put that in a wing by itself -- instead, it laced the African art throughout the museum, deliberately comparing and contrasting it with European artwork that illustrated the similarities and differences. I suspect many of our friends would absolutely adore this exhibit -- its anthropological viewpoint (stepping away from the usual Euro-centricity and viewing it from the outside) was very eye-opening.

Another interesting detail: the Bode has an enormous display of coins and medallions throughout history -- thousands of them spread across half a dozen rooms, covering the full scope of the subject. All sorts of neat examples, from the individual gold coins that would have been a year's wages in period, to the Obama medallion anchoring the point that this is an artform that lives on today.

For dinner, we talked to one of the concierges at the hotel -- he recommended several restaurants, of which we chose Marina Blu. This is apparently pretty new, and while it wasn't very crowded, it was downright excellent. Straight-up high-quality Italian -- focused a bit on pizza, but we were in the mood for pasta.

Kate went for a red-sauce ragu that respected its meat in a way you rarely see: instead of the usual "meat sauce", this has big, fall-apart-tender chunks of beef, a fine meatball, and generally the sort of meat focus you actually see in Italy, but rarely in "Italian". And I had a Carbonara that was admittedly not as good as I had in Rome -- but that's comparing against reputedly the best Carbonara in the world, and this was the second-best I've had. "Carbonara" in the US so often means pasta with bacon in a cream sauce, but this was the real thing: flavorful guancile with perfectly-cooked spaghetti, in a rich egg-and-cheese covering.

Truly excellent meal: if you find yourself in Berlin, check it out...