Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - South America & Latin America

Feeling hungry and looking for a cozy and special place for a yummy dinner?
Among your New Year's resolutions, there was one about reducing your takeaway madness and you are opting for a real restaurant, for a change?

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (2008), has a couple of tips in store for you:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Don't eat anything that arrived via the window of your car.
If your grandma couldn't pronounce it, it's not food.

[Yep, it's that simple.

Not that surprising and yet so refreshing, right?]

Simple advice, and yet not always easy to live by, apparently. For most people.
Still, after your new favorite restaurants with Asian and African dishes, here you have a list of cool places to try out in Berlin if tonight you are curious about recipes and culinary traditions from South America:

Vegetarian and vegan-friendly Chinese restaurants to try out in Berlin, for the perfect mix of tradition and fusion cuisine

Even if I don't go to Chinese restaurants that often these days, Chinese food has a very special place in my heart, since Chinese restaurants have been among the first 'exotic' ones to conquer Italian food landscape, back in the Eighties and Nineties.

Therefore, Chinese food was for me the very first experience with exotic food, as a child, and overall with something officially recognized and highlighted as totally "different": new unheard recipes, lots of beautiful and poetic names, mysterious ingredients and so much fun with the chopsticks...

[My first encounter with Chinese culture as a child...

Lots of fun with chopsticks 

and John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (USA 1986)]

Fun with the chopsticks and cinematic stereotypes aside, Chinese cuisine is overall yummy, incredibly diverse and eclectic and, last but not least, (usually) healthy and well-balanced. So, without no further ado...

Here you can find a list of Chinese restaurants to try out in Berlin. Feel free to drop me a line to suggest new ones! 

Vegetarian and vegan-friendly Vietnamese restaurants to try out in Berlin, a good option for eating out even while suffering from celiac disease

Vietnamese cuisine is a feast for the eyes and thanks to the freshness of its ingredients, the big variety of flavors, and the great abundance of places to try out in the city, it is very popular and well represented in Berlin.

A good yin-yang balance of the meals is pivotal in the Vietnamese tradition and, thanks to the influence of the Buddhist cuisine, it offers a huge selection of vegetables, herbs, and spices and therefore it is usually a very good option for eating out also while following a vegetarian or vegan diet.

[Vegan Vietnamese summer rolls with spicy peanut sauce

Image source: Home Sweet Jones]

Things are changing fast in Berlin, and nowadays it is not only easy to find a vegetarian and/or vegan version of most recipes in every Vietnamese restaurant, but it is also becoming more and more mainstream for some Vietnamese restaurants to offer a menu that is completely vegetarian or vegan, it doesn't matter if we are talking about soups, wraps, rolls, main dishes or desserts. While living here, I had many chances to try new places.

Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - Asia (Indian, Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese food... and more)

Sushi is the new black.

It is enough to think about any dating scene from movies where the soon-to-become-couple or never-to-become-couple is enjoying some quality time together at a very trendy and if possible exclusive Japanese restaurant and you get the picture.

Funny enough, according to new stats published in the US, eating sushi on a first date can actually boost the chance of going on a second date with someone.

[Sushi is the new black... 

and it is also the new unicorn thing:

Rainbow unicorn sushi by The Indigo Kitchen]

And yet, even if sushi is so popular these days, there is so much more to discover about Asian food than just that and in a big city like Berlin it is very easy to try out new recipes, so here you can find a list of interesting restaurant to check out and to try out during a date, it doesn't matter if it is the first or the tenth one with someone you really like.

The question with the big Q and some very interesting quotes about it

While being vegan, the question with the big Q that I get the most is, of course, "Why?".

Usually is not a real question. Not a question they are asking me, at least. It is more like a question that my interlocutor is asking himself/herself while accidentally talking to me, since most of the people can't imagine that someone can not only be vegan, but actually be vegan and absolutely happy with it.

I am vegan. And I am happy with it and with my life.
Being vegan is something that influences every choice I do and what I decide to buy (clothes, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, cleaning products, home furnishings,  groceries, beverages, books...) or not to buy. Which websites, shops and restaurants I support, and which I don't.

Since I don't like being attacked for what I am nor when someone tries to "convert" me, I don't do these things to someone else. I don't try to turn every person I meet into a fellow vegan. 

So I don't go around telling everybody that I am vegan, I don't try to convert people or to change their minds. I don't judge others and I don't discuss what they are doing or eating or saying. I just live my life by following the motto "Live and let live".

[Vegan, Purple and comfortable:

Airseal Para Boot by Vegetarian Shoes]

But as soon as someone realizes that I am not eating meat or that my Purple combat boots are not a pair of "normal" Dr. Martens, but a more exotic pair of Vegetarian Shoes instead, or as soon someone offers me milk chocolate or whatever and I say "Thanks, but no thanks"... Booom! The question with the big Q is already in the air, ready to strike.

A different way to be crunchy [Seth Godin style]

Almost a century ago, I discovered - thanks to Seth Godin - that becoming Vegan is crunchy.
To be crunchy can mean to be able to change a lifestyle to live in a more "true" and passionate way.

Since I'm already Vegan since three years now, I'm wondering if also to decide to leave out all the people don't really like me or appreciate me could be seen as 'being crunchy'. I'm not really sure of it, but for sure it can make my life more interesting and full of meaning.



It's not possible that each person 'you' meet likes you. But it's possible to spend 'your' time only with people who actually like you. For sure this is crunchy, in my humble opinion. If someone doesn't like you, you don't need to make him/her change his/her mind at any cost.

Be crunchy: live your life and enjoy it with crunchy people who really like you.
You could be happier. For sure I am.

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Where to start, if you are new

Switching to a raw food fast

After the first post about it, my therapeutic fast has became a raw food fast, because of my period and because doing an extended complete fast is inadvisable in case you cannot sleep and rest enough everyday.

So far, I've decided to go on eating fruits every day for two weeks and then starting a complete fast. After that, to switch again to a raw food fast.

Day #3. Bananas, Fennel seed infusion
Day #4. Bananas, Linden herbal tea
Day #5. Bananas, Sunflower seeds, Camomile infusion
Day #6. Bananas, Sunflower seeds, Linden herbal tea
Day #7. Bananas, Oranges, Fennel seed infusion
Day #8. Oranges, Green tea

Why bananas? Because bananas contain Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Copper and Manganese, Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Vitamin B6. Not only they contain a lot of Water and Carbohydrate, but also almost no Fat, Sodium and Cholesterol.
They are great to have energy and to fill your body while it is preparing itself to clean it up: you don't add nothing new, your body consume all energy you give him.

ps. I feel really great and all my problems are desappeared.

Previous post:
My first therapeutic fast

Waiting for home-made Vegan Frushi...

I really enjoy eating sushi, or vegetarian maki, to be more precise, like Kappa Maki, Avocado Maki, Hoso Maki, and so on.

They are healthy, delicious, nutritious, vegan, and easy to prepare.

Ingredients are just rice, Nori seaweed, a little bit of sesame and slices of cucumber, avocado, carrots, pumpkin, or other vegetables. As much wasabi and ginger as you want, but no soy sauce for me, since it's often not gluten-free and I suffer from celiac disease.

In Berlin, it's very easy and convenient to go out for having sushi in some Thai or Chinese or Japanese restaurants, but what about Frushi?
Frushi is another kind of maki, prepared by using slices of fruits instead of slices of vegetables.

I haven't seen Frushi in any Berlin restaurants so far, beside of Avocado Maki, so I should learn how to prepare it by myself.

But meanwhile... I'm looking for this elegant Purple Weking rice cooker. If you should see it somewhere, please let me know!

Do you like Sushi too?
Do you prefer Sushi or Sashimi?

Tags: Rice cooker, Weking, Frushi, Sushi, Vegan, Purple shopping, Maki

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Exotic and interesting restaurants to try out in Berlin - Asia (Indian, Japanese, Israeli, Korean, Vietnamese food... and more)

Visiting the blog for the first time? Aloha!

Where to start, if you are new