EP06.txt 00:00:04:18 - 00:00:14:14 Erich Hi everyone. Welcome to Potluck Food Talks Episode six Today we're going to talk about kebabs a.k.a döner kebab. 00:00:14:22 - 00:00:17:01 Phil Salaam alaikum, Eric. How you doing? You're good. 00:00:17:04 - 00:00:41:20 Erich I'm good. I'm good. I actually had a Dürum today for lunch just to get psychologically prepared for the episode. I actually have this rule and my friends also had it. It was never eat a döner outside of Berlin. And for a long time I went went with the rule. But I mean, I got more flexible with time. 00:00:41:20 - 00:00:45:18 Erich And there are also some acceptable kebabs outside of Berlin. 00:00:46:13 - 00:01:06:14 Phil Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, if you're if you're from Berlin or you spend a long time in Berlin, I think you have a very special connection to anything that's doing a kebab, Right. I think it's fair to say that, you know, a big part of our friendship started over, you know, sharing, thrown at kebabs late at night in Berlin. 00:01:06:20 - 00:01:14:19 Erich Oh, yeah, I forgot about it. Like after work, kebabs two in the morning after a long shift in a in a restaurant. 00:01:14:19 - 00:01:39:17 Phil Yeah, exactly. I mean, and, you know, that's part of like, what makes care up so great and all that. They're just super convenient. And I mean, for me, honestly speaking, kebabs, kebabs are by far one of my favorite foods right there. No, seriously. I mean, hear me out like he works for me on the same level as pizza and the fact that in their structure, they're very, very simple. 00:01:40:06 - 00:01:54:24 Phil And it can be, of course, super trashy. I think like a lot of people, they associate kebabs with sort of like very cheap and often not very high quality food. But you and me both know perfectly well that a kebab can be absolutely fucking amazing. 00:01:54:24 - 00:02:22:09 Erich Yeah, I mean, for a long time I nourished myself only from came up as a student and in Berlin, three, three meals a day. And I thought this was good because it had only nutrients, which is not. That's not true. If somebody told you that you don't do well and after like four years, I got a little bit tired of it, you know, But it were like four years, you know, can you say at least once a day, I. 00:02:22:12 - 00:02:26:04 Phil Don't believe what you're saying right now. 00:02:26:04 - 00:02:30:19 Erich After a few years without eating dinners, I have to say I miss them. 00:02:30:19 - 00:02:50:16 Phil I mean, honestly, it's one of the things I miss the most about living in Berlin, you know, And I mean, I, I personally I categorize into donut kebabs not just like the like Turkish donut kebabs. And I mean, in that category, there's a lot of different things also going on, you know, but also like the Lebanese sandwiches and shawarma sandwiches. 00:02:50:16 - 00:02:59:10 Phil And I also just generally categorize falafel sandwiches into that category, you know, Israeli foods, all those sorts of things. 00:02:59:11 - 00:03:32:00 Erich Yeah. I mean, like these are also to go a little bit through the history and don't know and what is known as kebabs worldwide. And this is something that started in Berlin in the sixties from Turkish immigrants. And it basically is it means this this meat stick where you cut the meat to make a sandwich. And this influenced other street food cultures like the Greek, the giraffes. 00:03:32:07 - 00:03:50:02 Erich This came out of this subculture of street food in Berlin. And even that goes on past order in Mexico. They imported the machines where they were doing dinners in Berlin to make this kind of tacos in Mexico. So so it's something that became quite international. 00:03:50:02 - 00:03:55:00 Phil Is that actually true that it originated from? That's like being in Berlin. 00:03:55:08 - 00:03:55:19 Erich Yeah. 00:03:55:20 - 00:03:57:07 Phil Yeah, I had no idea. 00:03:57:16 - 00:04:21:00 Erich They care about something much older that comes from coast to coast. Some now you have to say turkey instead of Turkey. Well, in any way it came from Turkish immigrants and yeah, but it's something that you find now in every city in Europe. But it originated in Berlin in the sixties. 00:04:21:00 - 00:04:53:09 Phil Yeah, I mean that it originated in Berlin. I knew and obviously the came up as itself, you know like is I think one of the we can say one of the oldest foods in the world. You know the fact of like meat grilled over fire whether it's like a and I do not keep up you know like for people who aren't as familiar with Turkish grilling culture as we are is, you know, minced meat that is seasoned and then like put on a stick and the sort of like long flat fashion and then grilled, you know, and sort of like meat grilled and then put in a piece of bread or, you know, some like 00:04:53:13 - 00:05:21:00 Phil roasted chicken and shredded up and put in a piece of bread with condiments and sauces. I think that's one of the oldest foods in the world, we can safely say. But like, it's crazy to me. That's, you know, tacos and pasta, which are such an iconic thing, you know, especially in Mexico City, that that actually originated it in the way that it's like today or the Trump was, you know, the stacks of meat that are roasting in a fire that that came from that. 00:05:21:00 - 00:05:22:14 Phil That's incredible. I didn't know that. 00:05:23:11 - 00:05:37:24 Erich I wouldn't be sure about that. I can't imagine the but we we could make an episode about tackles. But I can imagine this was a tradition and then became and they used like a more modern piece of equipment to. 00:05:38:00 - 00:05:54:02 Phil To you know of course, I mean Texas Alabaster, they came from from, you know, from the Spanish and Middle Eastern influences in Mexico. You know, I mean, they go way back. But I mean, obviously nowadays you find that that was a sort they use this like doing a stand with a cut off from it. 00:05:54:04 - 00:06:33:15 Erich So let's break it down. What do you find? And then you have the bread and you have the meat where you can choose between lamb or chicken. Then usually you can choose between three sauces, spicy sauce, which is a Turkish thick spicy sauce, a garlic mayo and a jugular paired sauce. Right. And then you have like the vegetables, which are usually purple cabbage, iceberg lettuce, onion, and sometimes in some places they put a mixture of herbs and cilantro and sometimes even meant anything else. 00:06:34:05 - 00:07:06:12 Phil I mean, yeah, I mean, I've actually never seen coriander. I mean, I often see like a sort of tabbouleh sort of style, like parsley chopped with, like, stuff, you know. But I think, yeah, definitely like tomato, onion, lettuce, cabbage, really, really crucial. And, and I mean that you see the German influence that they put like the I don't know maybe it's it's a German, maybe I'm just associating it with it and the add of three iconic sauces for sure and I mean yeah we need to like address that. 00:07:06:12 - 00:07:26:15 Phil We're talking about the do not give up right. We're not talking about durum. We're not talking about much food right now. We're talking about the iconic doing a right, which you have to have. And I think in that in the Turkish style sesame bread, the bread must have a proper name right? 00:07:26:15 - 00:07:38:22 Erich Yeah. Yeah. This is like a big round flatbread that you usually cut into slices. And one of those slices is what you build your sandwich, right? Yeah. I don't know the meaning of that bread. 00:07:38:23 - 00:07:47:07 Phil And I mean, like that is iconic doing that. No, it's like. Like usually it's supposed to be veal, right? Veal or chicken? 00:07:47:07 - 00:07:47:22 Erich No lamb. 00:07:48:00 - 00:07:55:20 Phil Well, no, because it's like, I think that's like a thing that it's supposed to be. I think it's supposed to be a mixture of veal and lamb. 00:07:55:20 - 00:08:21:14 Erich Yeah. Because this is like, like a minced meat mixture that they put on the steak and it gets cut into into fine shapes. And this is what you, what you get into in your bread. So and I would say like the quality key indicators are first the bread has to be hot and and nicely toasted. If it's not, yeah, then the whole thing doesn't work. 00:08:21:19 - 00:08:43:02 Erich Same with the meat. And I would say those are the most critical points. I remember a place in vetting, which is a neighborhood in Berlin. There was this big, a terrible sign that was always empty. And across the street was like a small kiosk, I don't know, a kiosk in the street. And people were would wait in line to get their donors. 00:08:43:12 - 00:09:08:11 Erich And this is so funny because they would do this in the middle of winter and I would analyze which the difference. Why are people waiting in line for one where you can't even see it? You have to eat in the street and the other one is completely empty. And I would say the salsas weren't as good. And and these guys would always weigh to have their perfectly roasted meat and perfectly warm bread before serving. 00:09:08:12 - 00:09:13:02 Erich Even if the people have to wait in line, then they had to. When that's that. 00:09:13:02 - 00:09:35:15 Phil Yeah, for sure. I mean, I would agree with you, the brand is really, really important. And then of course the the salad ingredients into sauces. They're also very important. But yeah, like you say, I think really key is the way they play around with grilling the meat. Because for people who aren't super familiar with it, you know, you have to imagine that you have to speak a stack of meats that is turning round and round next to a wall of flame. 00:09:35:22 - 00:09:56:17 Phil And obviously the outside of the meat is cooking and caramelizing and the inside is still raw, like slowly cooking. So it's super key that you play around with it so that this meat tornado isn't like overcooking on the outside, so that when you cut it off, the meat's really dry and like maybe it's like crispy caramelized. That's like really, really dry and sort of like chewy. 00:09:56:24 - 00:10:16:05 Phil It has to be that sort of like, sweet spot of, like, caramelized on the outside. But still really juicy. And often, you know, when you go to a spot that's not super popular, you'll have meat. That's like they slice it off and they kind of hold it on the side because otherwise it would over caramelized while the rest of the meat is cooking. 00:10:16:08 - 00:10:29:04 Phil But if you hold it too long, obviously it dries out. So they're also sort of like if a place isn't like as good, it's not popular enough, then the meat just hangs out for too long and right straight away the quality of the whole donut drops. 00:10:29:13 - 00:10:34:03 Erich Do you have any favorite one like our favorite dinner place in Berlin? 00:10:35:09 - 00:10:59:13 Phil So I have one, which is like a little bit untraditional. It's it's Lebanese instead of Turkish, which I had amazing, amazing shawarma at. And for me, like I said, you know, I mean, we're talking about the classic donut, but for me and the like category of kebabs, you know, Foles also durum. 00:11:00:00 - 00:11:01:17 Erich Can you explain what what durum is? 00:11:01:18 - 00:11:43:19 Phil Yeah, of course. I mean, basically the only thing that changes to the bread instead of like having this fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside Turkish sesame bread, you have a very thin sort of flat bread, kind of like a loaf of bread or a or like a flour tortilla almost. No, That then gets rolled into what you could, you know, from giving a reference to people sort of gets rolled into a burrito and yeah, I mean, it's either really in all the donut places in, in, in Germany it's either do not or do didn't. 00:11:44:11 - 00:12:06:18 Phil And then also you have like much, you know, which is a completely different thing, which is like a Turkish pizza that also gets fillings and a shawarma is kind of like a durum. So it's also roasted meats in a flatbread or a pizza breads. It's just kind of like a little bit of a different style. Right? And so there's this place in Prenzlauer BECK called Babel. 00:12:07:10 - 00:12:31:19 Phil And they used to have a because I haven't or still have I haven't been in many years, but I used to have an amazing chicken shawarma. And so what made it very, very special was first of all, the meat was really nicely roasted and seasoned really, really nicely. They had a really nice sort of Lebanese garlic sauce, you know, that sort of sauce that where the garlic is just emulsified. 00:12:32:19 - 00:12:58:11 Phil It's not like a mayonnaise, it's not a base. It's just garlic and oil and it's like really fluffy and intense and garlicky. But what really distinguished them was the salad ingredients that they put in because they put in fresh radishes, like cut radishes and also a lot of herbs, especially garden crisp, a lot of garden crisp. And it made the whole thing like really gone. 00:12:58:11 - 00:13:12:03 Phil Chris is a really old school German ingredient. That's not a lot of people use that much anymore, but it gives it it gave it its like really nice spiciness and freshness. Super, super tasty. 00:13:12:12 - 00:13:50:13 Erich So my favorite diner is a place called Mira in my home and near tarnished. Awesome. And this place, the nice thing is that they work on on a charcoal grill and and that you then it's opened super late. You can go there like at 5 a.m. because I think that they're also famous for their breakfasts. So this is probably a prep cook that is there for breakfast prep but also has to do the service if someone walks in four in the morning because. 00:13:51:02 - 00:13:56:07 Phil If some drunk, drunk and stoned degenerates walk. 00:13:57:21 - 00:14:32:23 Erich In there, that that's the only place you find open at that time. And that's the time where you want to eat dinner. The most of you are super drunk 100%. So we went to this place, actually my and my last trip to Berlin. I went there and all of my friends that they didn't know this place. And yeah, there is this guy making the diner freshly out on a charcoal grill, and it has completely different toppings and sauces also like, like kind of like at the bully salad and really nice salsas and especially the spicy ones as also it's something completely different. 00:14:32:24 - 00:14:53:04 Erich Like a completely new style of seasoning and everything. And it's super nice. The other one that that is super famous is Mustafa. This is the one that you will probably see on TripAdvisor of this kind of platforms on the Internet. And you have to wait in line like for an hour to get a donor and and it's good. 00:14:53:07 - 00:15:15:24 Erich It's really good. So not my favorite. What they do different is that they add some higher ups to it. And also cheese. I thought we forgot to say that there are some places where you can add this wide savory cheese to your dinner. And I think that's also a very wise thing to do if you're going to have dinner. 00:15:16:12 - 00:15:30:14 Phil Yeah, for sure. And also, like, what they do is they add lots of roasted vegetables and now it's kind of what they the famous for, the sort of like, you know, aubergine and peppers and stuff like that. And they kind of like deep fried, I think. 00:15:30:18 - 00:15:45:04 Erich Yeah. That they kind of coined the term of vegetable kebabs to me to give up in German. And that's exactly what they do. They get sticks of different vegetables and they deep fry it and just added to your cover. 00:15:46:02 - 00:16:03:20 Phil Yeah, it's super tasty. I mean it's very nice. It's a little bit hyped up, you know, and I never used to go to so much because I just didn't want to wait with all the tourists. But, but yeah, it's definitely very nice. There's other places that are vegetables as well. But yeah, they, they definitely made a name for themselves. 00:16:04:24 - 00:16:28:23 Phil One other thing that I really, really love is also obviously Berlin and it's called Imran Donut. This it's quite well known. It's quite established to have a few locations around Berlin, but it used to be right next to my house and I was my cousin and they used to spice their do meets that just a little bit differently. 00:16:28:23 - 00:16:48:20 Phil I feel like it had like a little bit of cinnamon and like a little bit of clove to it. And it was just always very, very nice. And big difference for them also was that they were baking a lot. So it wasn't just a a place, it was kind of like a canteen. They had a big counter with freshly cooked daily meals. 00:16:48:20 - 00:17:14:12 Phil I actually used to go there more for their lamb and white bean soup because I used to be, you know, super, super broke line cook and had no money. I used to go there for regular dinner and you would buy for like €3. You buy a plate of hot lamb and bean soup that you then put loads of lemon juice and chili on top and you get a huge hunk of this like toasted sesame bread. 00:17:14:14 - 00:17:30:14 Phil It was absolutely fucking delicious. But they do now. Also, they make all the bread that they bake fresh like mature on and in like a stone oven and toasted bread and also and that combination, you know, it's just amazing. They're super, super nice. 00:17:31:02 - 00:17:43:15 Erich So like, my Sean is one of these sometimes also called Turkish pizza is basically what is it exactly It's like the flatbread but it has it's not tomato sauce. Something else. Right. 00:17:44:06 - 00:18:21:08 Phil So I can tell you exactly what it is because lamassu it is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. It's. Yeah, really, it's it's so fucking good. And so what you do is you have a, you have a mixture of lamb mince that you then season. Right. So often you make a mixture of sort of like chopped vegetables which would be peppers like red peppers and onions and garlic, You squeeze the water out of them and then you add that to meat mixture together with other spices, human and paprika and those sorts of things. 00:18:21:08 - 00:18:26:13 Phil I hope there's no pure salt that it will kill me if I say something incorrect. But I. 00:18:26:20 - 00:18:30:24 Erich Know the Brigadier and I put Fabrica in. 00:18:30:24 - 00:18:55:08 Phil Islam. You. But yeah, so basically you make this like seasons meat and vegetable mixture that and then you have a a prep though that you roll out really really really thin And then you basically while it's still raw, the bread, you spread this meat mixture really thinly over the bread difference to pizza is that this bread though it doesn't really have any yeast in it. 00:18:55:08 - 00:19:18:19 Phil So it's not going to rise. It's not going to puff up. And you spread the mixture basically to to the very, very edge and it's much thinner than a pizza. So then you bake this really, really quickly, really hot. And a lot of time like you can either eat it as it is, but a lot of times you bake this thing fresh, you take it out, you add in salads and condiments, but no extra meat because you've got your meat already on there. 00:19:18:19 - 00:19:41:17 Phil And sauces definitely like a yogurt sauce and roll it up and it's a lot more crispy on the outside. And it's like when you get it freshly baked with sort of like arugula salad and onions and, you know, like sumac, onions and yogurt dressing. And you roll that up. It's for me, it's the perfect sort of the perfect foods. 00:19:41:17 - 00:19:51:24 Phil You have everything freshly baked bread. You have a little bit of meat, vegetables, salads. It's like very it's a very, very authentic sort of type of you know, you can't really call it a kebab because that's. 00:19:51:24 - 00:20:27:22 Erich But yeah, well, there's also the thing that I think it's like for me, a weakness while eating crap is a most of of the places are Muslim so you won't find any alcohol because I would say that perfect pairing would be a beer with you but it well since it's not allowed or you wont get it like right there in many places and the most traditional places what you usually drink is item, which is like a savory mixed with jacquard. 00:20:27:22 - 00:20:49:14 Erich Something really weird for people that is not from there. But I love it. I love to do it my my dinner without an item. And I last time I was in Berlin, I was with a friend and I gave him to try it. And and he just. What? I don't understand why. Why would you drink this? I want to look just like a soda, you know? 00:20:49:15 - 00:21:18:06 Phil Yeah, but Ireland is amazing. I mean, like, once you get hooked on the Iran, it's like. It's super refreshing. It sounds so strange, like drinking salty yogurt, but it's like, it's really satisfying. And I think it's really, really refreshing also. And it's really perfect. I mean, like, if you think about it, it's kind of like drinking, like a light yogurt sauce together with your together with your karma, you know, because you kind of drinking it on the side and then you eating your your kebab. 00:21:18:18 - 00:21:34:04 Phil And I love going to the place. It's like you already know what other places like it's cool and authentic when they have those, like, frothy ihram fountains. Oh, yeah. You know what I read a sort of like, it's kind of support is to open and you know, channeled out and they kind of tap it straight from the source. 00:21:34:18 - 00:21:37:23 Phil It becomes really frothy and airy, super nice. 00:21:37:23 - 00:22:10:02 Erich A few weeks ago, I was hanging out with Bear Merlin from Berlin flute stories, and he's probably one of the persons who knows most about street food in Berlin. And he was telling me that since this whole migration crisis with refugees from Syria, there was a new type, a new category of chaos emerge like Syrian camps, and you find them more and more in different places. 00:22:10:02 - 00:22:26:11 Erich And I come with Nicolas, one of the malls, Turkish neighborhoods in Berlin, along with Prospect, which is something that I have completely missed out. So the next time I go to Berlin, I really want to go and try those Syrian trips. 00:22:27:00 - 00:23:02:24 Phil That's really exciting actually, because I haven't heard about this. And for me, this is incredibly exciting, you know, because this is kind of what we were talking about in our episode of Cultural appropriation, you know, just like mixing and merging of of different cultures. And I love to see it. You know, it's like for me, it's super, super exciting that other people, like people from a different culture, would come into the city and adapt to this, like huge food culture of of do not give up, you know, which I mean is probably the strongest food culture in Berlin by far. 00:23:03:18 - 00:23:30:20 Erich By far for sure. Well, and talking about cultural mixtures, my friend Chappy from New York, he visited me once in Berlin. And you will find these places at around the same time at their place, and they use the same often to make pizzas. And sometimes they even have like a Chinese place in the same business inside. You know, this kind of things happens in big cities. 00:23:31:10 - 00:23:47:09 Erich So and he got obsessed to go to this place and ask them to make a margarita and then put all the dinner ingredients on top of it and roll it like a room. And he was like, Yeah, please do it. And they were like, No, you can't do that. All the owner I want to talk to you about. 00:23:47:09 - 00:24:07:07 Erich And they called it pizza and and he was really intimidated. I don't know if I can do this. Yeah, let's do it. So they did it and they did the whole margarita thing. I have pictures of it. I took all sorts some of the pictures of the ingredients, and he was like, Yeah, I want I want to see you putting the sauce on top. 00:24:09:10 - 00:24:32:07 Erich And then they would roll it like, No, no, no. Okay, we've came this far, but we're not taking responsibility do over all in this monster that that's up to you. So they gave us margaritas with a super extra topping off dinner ingredients in the middle, and we roll them. And this things where you it's like like a I don't know that like if you roll out newspaper that thing, the things where. 00:24:33:03 - 00:24:59:16 Phil That sounds fucking amazing, your friend is a genius. It sounds absolutely incredible as it's like, I think this is really, really visionary what he's doing. I'm definitely going to try and try and do that. When he first said, Yeah, a margarita and like, puts put stuff on it, I thought you were talking about the cocktail margarita. And I was like, Man, that sounds like a really fucked up, sort of like savory, Bloody Mary kind of cold drink. 00:25:00:12 - 00:25:21:00 Phil Yeah, but that sounds like an amazing idea. I mean, those places are such just straight. They're so strange. These, like, mixed, sort of like we do a little bit of everything place that. That's exactly the sort of place where you need to live out your most perverted, bizarre, degenerate food fantasies. You know, this is exactly the kind of space you need to live life, these sorts of fantasies out. 00:25:22:14 - 00:25:30:07 Erich Have you ever done dinner or of doing them or a kebab like cooked one for yourself or for a staff meeting or anything? 00:25:31:03 - 00:25:52:11 Phil So yeah, actually, I have in a way. I mean, like I would say that it's I've done lots of kebabs throughout my throughout my life just because I love them so much. Do now, you know, I mean, you can't really do without without you having, like, the proper machines. 00:25:52:11 - 00:25:52:17 Erich Yeah. 00:25:52:17 - 00:26:12:18 Phil Yeah, the proper machines. Yeah. I mean, of course you can like a rotisserie grill, but what I have done quite a lot and what I've had huge success with even at home, and it's one of my favorite things to make. And probably like if I think about the sort of things like my repertoire of what I cook at home, it's one of my favorite things to cook at home because it's just so incredibly delicious. 00:26:12:18 - 00:26:54:00 Phil It's like mature and it's like it works so well and it's by far one of the things that I enjoy the most. It's so delicious to me, making the bread, making the mixture and baking it. And then straightaway when it comes out of the oven, just having like I make simple like red onions that I salts and season with a little bit of sumac and then I have a mixed salad is definitely has to be some arugula in it and some parsley kind of like taboola style And then I make a yogurt sauce, which has to have garlic in it and a lot of lemon juice, a lot of acidity. 00:26:54:12 - 00:27:17:24 Phil And that mixture together is super simple, a lot of onion, a lot of this frugal salad and a lot of this yogurt sauce. You have to bake the bread until it's just crispy enough or rather say so it's just soft enough so that you can roll it still without it breaking so that when it cools down, it starts getting those crispy edges and then it's so fucking delicious. 00:27:18:04 - 00:27:21:09 Phil It's it's just like one of the best things. It really is. 00:27:21:17 - 00:27:26:19 Erich Now I want to go to Istanbul or some city in Turkey. 00:27:27:03 - 00:27:29:22 Phil You've been in Israel really, really recently? No. 00:27:29:22 - 00:27:47:20 Erich Yeah, over there. I tried like it's called Sabich, and it's like a vegan kind of sandwich. You on these thin sandwich as well. And this was insane. Probably one of the best sandwiches or for sure, the best one I've ever had. This was in Tel Aviv. 00:27:48:02 - 00:28:08:20 Phil Yeah. I mean, for me, the food culture in Israel is so incredibly interesting, you know, and especially those sorts of things. You, you know, it doesn't really count as kebabs, but like the falafel culture and these sort of like, you know, sort of like things in a breads that kind of are a little bit similar to, you know, came up, set up. 00:28:08:20 - 00:28:09:03 Phil You know. 00:28:09:13 - 00:28:35:20 Erich I saw another interesting experience, wasn't like one of the best restaurants in Tel Aviv And they had, you mean and all of this good restaurants, they have, like you would say, a pizza oven. But these are like pita bread ovens and you get like freshly baked pita bread and in some places and they even though go like really safe, you know, that like three centimeters like a size. 00:28:35:20 - 00:28:41:05 Erich Do you want to expect more of a pita bread? And by far the best pita bread I've ever tried. 00:28:41:05 - 00:29:06:08 Phil I've tried making pita bread, but I haven't quite got the hang of it. It's there's a little bit of finesse to it, you know, It's for me, it's really one of the most enjoyable ways of eating. I don't really know what it is about it if it's the simplicity of it and it's like, you know, it's so fully ingredient driven again, you know, it's like good bread, good meats, like nicely prepared, grilled, usually, which for me is always an added bonus. 00:29:06:08 - 00:29:18:07 Phil It gives you that full character of sort of like, you know, roasted meat and then like fresh salad ingredients. It's it's by far one of the like a food category that I enjoy the most. 00:29:18:24 - 00:29:26:13 Erich So what would you recommend if someone goes to Berlin and wants to try a dinner? What are the do's and don'ts? 00:29:27:16 - 00:29:56:07 Phil I don't think that there are that many do's and don'ts. I think, although I hate to say it, don't be afraid to pay a little bit more because it's worth this. Don't get like don't don't look at a dinner like this cheap, trashy item because it can be really, really amazing. And if you pay a little bit more in the right places, you're going to get a much better product you have to be aware of with a do not. 00:29:56:07 - 00:30:29:22 Phil You can get the trashiest filthiest thing that's going to just completely throw you off and you might get food poisoning or you can get something that's really lovingly made, you know, and that's just really, really good. So don't be discouraged. I would say go to the really authentic places like talk to the locals and definitely visits, you know, the the musts, like the must do is go to Mustafa's the music kebab for sure, but also give the small places a try where you see that there's a lot of people sitting inside, a lot of local sitting inside where people are queuing up. 00:30:30:03 - 00:30:45:17 Phil It's always the give away, the give away key. You know, if you see that they're baking bread, that's that's the green flag straight away and just go by your gut feeling, go by. You know, it's, you know, sort of like if it looks good, it smells good. If there's people inside eating. 00:30:45:17 - 00:30:56:09 Erich Yeah, you will find the balls traditional blazers in an iceberg. And that doesn't mean that these are the only good ones. You will find good dinners all over the city. 00:30:56:20 - 00:31:24:21 Phil Yeah, for sure. And when you're in the more traditional places, for example, like in shoot a bag or something like that and bedding, maybe like try something else that's on the menu. I used to go to a place that made very, very good doing that. But actually what I used to go back for was this Sheepshead Soup because it was super, super nice and it and it became a little bit of a ritual with a friend of mine who was from Shona back, back. 00:31:25:10 - 00:31:56:24 Phil So we'd often drive through there too, after we'd gone out drinking and it would be early in the morning we would stop before going home and eat a she said soup, which was the best hangover cure. And yeah, it's see like I would see do in our culture in Berlin as, you know, like I look deeper than just fast food, you know, it's like it's a whole culture of people that are expressing their that their food identity, their cultural food identity through this medium. 00:31:56:24 - 00:32:06:00 Phil Yeah, I'm super hungry now. I really wonder and there's no do not here there's no kebabs in Hong Kong. 00:32:06:09 - 00:32:13:08 Erich What's unacceptable I think the Asian supermarket is a fun one to do because it's soul broth. You know. 00:32:14:06 - 00:32:25:16 Phil I'm literally ordering food right now. Talking about doing. I'm so hungry, man.