1st February 2008
I miss Berlin. I’ve been back two and a half weeks. I’ve been in a new job for two. My friends are still there, drinking too much beer and eating a lot of kebabs. It’s hard not to feel like I’m missing out. While I was there we stuck to a diet of salami sandwiches for lunch and kebabs on the way home. Normally I’m not much of a kebab fan – sometimes, if it’s really necessary, then a chicken shish will suffice, but doner? That’s a no thanks from me. Yet in Germany the doner meat is good. The kebab men take real pride in their creations. And you don’t feel dirty as soon as you’ve taken a bite. Though maybe that was the drink.
It’s not really the doners that I come home with dreams of from Berlin, though. There was this one meal that still feels like one of the best of my life. It was my first experience of currywurst. It cost about €4 for the wurst and the fried potatoes in some dingy cafe in Kreuzberg, and it was wonderful. On my return I wonder where in London I can find wurst again. It has to be out there. And so Time Out leads me to Kurz & Lang. As far as I can tell, it’s London’s only currywurst joint. It’s open all night at the weekends – you know, in case you’ve been to Fabric. And so the day before a Brick Lane night out I wander over to find out what’s going on. I’m excited, not least because I’m not too familiar with the area – I’m already thinking about meals to come when I walk past St John.
But it’s currywurst night, and St John will wait. Kurz & Lang looks more like a takeaway than a restaurant – bright lights, order at the counter, bar stools with a table lining the wall. I look at all the wursts. They have a few. Currywurst for me please. And potato cubes. And while I’m waiting the five minutes you’ve politely told me it will take to cook the sausage, I’ll have a Schneider Weiss too. How pleasant. Do I want some bread? Oh go on then. You’re fairly charming. Ten pounds? Wouldn’t cost this much in Germany, but you do have a niche market here, I’ll admit.
The beer’s awfully pleasant. It tastes of Germany. I’m not sure I wanted my wurst to be cut up, but I don’t mind – it’s easier to fit the bits into the bread as a sort of sausage sandwich malarkey. There’s lots of very enjoyable sauce. The potatoes aren’t underdone like they can so often be in mid-range eateries. Actually, they’re brilliant. Why are there not more wurst joints in London? What’s going on? How has not everyone realised the genius of this foodstuff? Do we really still eat kebabs after nights out when we could be eating sausage and potatoes? This is as filling as a kebab, and far more pleasant. A tramp comes in and asks me for some money. Being a beer in and relatively cheerful anyway, I give him 50p. He asks for some sausage, and I hand him a bit. He’s a polite tramp, and I don’t mind. There’s too much food for me anyway, really. Not that that stops me from eating it all after he’s gone.
So I leave, and I’m too full, and I miss Berlin a bit more. Strange, I think, that a nation not particularly renowned for its food does the best fast food I’ve ever experienced in Europe – the only type that I’d go back just to taste it again. Except the food of Berlin doesn’t need to call me back anymore. A bus ticket and a slightly-more-expensive-than-its-German-counterparts Kurz & Lang is cheaper than Easyjet. Just.
Eating London 