This is the most ubiquitous food combo in Berlin, but a truly delicious one that is almost impossible to mess up. You can get a döner kebab on virtually any block for €3 or less, and they're all basically the same thing: shaved meat from a spit, garlic sauce, and veggies on grilled flatbread. Not a lot of döner spots actually sell beer, but there's guaranteed to be a corner store within a block no matter where you are, and beers cost less than €2 and can be drank legally on the street. There are barely any fast food restaurants in Berlin; THIS is fast food here. And it's amazing.

Thai Park is probably our favorite thing in all of Berlin. As soon as the weather gets nice, the grassy field in Preussen Park is filled every weekend with dozens of Thai families making amazingly good, cheap food. The Tom Yum soup at Thai Park is our favorite food in all of Berlin, made in front of you in moments by a woman with 20 tubs of ingredients and a hot plate. Bring some beers and a blanket and it's the perfect way to spend a lazy Sunday outside. 

Germans love a thick, dark bread called dunkelbrot and generally have no idea how to make baguette. After a few trips to France we began to lament the fact that there was no legit French bread in Berlin. Then, like a glorious light descending from the heavens, a French boulangerie opened around the corner from our apartment, and lo, it was good. Le Brot makes the best bread we’ve had outside of France, and now that we’ve learned where to find the good French butter and unpasteurized cheese, we can have some of our favorite European goods without having to leave our neighborhood. If and when we go back to America, it will be the French raw milk cheese (which is illegal in the USA), butter, and bread that Kirb will miss most of all.

French cheese may seem like a weird thing to love in Berlin, but it’s the best cheese there is, and unlike America, and you can actually get the good stuff here. Knippenburg’s is a cheese shop that comes to the Turkish Market on Landwehrkanal every Friday, and they have exceptionally good unpasteurized cheese and salty French butter. This picture is of the sheer joy on our good friend Uncle Sean’s face the very first time he tasted how good French cheese, butter, and bread could be. “Regular butter is ruined for me forever.”

Pretty much every Saturday, we head to Markethalle Neun in Kreuzberg to buy exceptionally fresh produce and get specific items we can’t find anywhere else. Specifically, the incredible blood sausage from the Sausage Man Never Sleeps, natural wine from Drunk By Nature, and we usually end up getting (arguably) the best burger in Berlin for lunch from the butcher shop Kumple & Keule.

We walked by this place several times and noticed that there was usually a huge crowd of Turkish people in line, so it seemed like something we should try. Unsurprisingly, the food here is excellent, especially the Fatta, which has chickpeas cooked in ghee, crispy pita chips, yogurt, aromatic herbs, and fried cashews. It's an amazing mix of textures, temperatures, and flavors, and something we crave weekly. Azzam also has arguably the best Schwarma we've tasted in Berlin, and you can stuff five people to the point of discomfort there for less than €20.

When we first moved here there was no good pizza in our neighborhood. Then our man Luca moved in across the street at La Foccaceria and we were satisfied, or so we thought. But in the last few years our kiez has exploded with three exceptionally good traditional Neapolitan-style pizza places: Monella, Zola, and Gazzo. There’s debate among friends about which is superior - Gazzo has the best crust; Zola has the best complete pie (the spicy salami and burrata pictured here); Monella is the easiest to actually get a table without waiting for an hour. Regardless, since we arrived, Neukölln went from a pizza wasteland to having some of the highest quality pies you can eat.

Roamers offers some of the most interesting, tasty, and beautifully presented breakfast food in Berlin. As a result there's almost always a line of people outside waiting to be seated in the tiny cafe. The first time we went we sat next to two Swedes who gushed that they had just eaten the best brunch of their lives. We ordered what they did, and though it was excellent, it was clear this kind of brunch was something new to them as Europeans, but wouldn't surprise anyone who's spent time in Portland. Highlights include jalapeño, bacon, and fried egg sandwiches, crusty bread with with horseradish, smoked salmon, assorted greens, and fresh dill, and the seasonal special pictured here with fried eggs, grilled asparagus, and caramelized goat cheese with fresh thyme. There isn't a bad thing on the menu. We go ritualistically every morning before we take off on an adventure to a new country.

We were so happy when a proper Sichuan restaurant finally opened in Berlin, and based on the way Liu Nudelhaus is always packed out, so was the Chinese community in the city. Properly spicy, the noodles and dumplings at this place are delicious. During one trip there, we shared a table with three people from Sichuan province who were legitimately impressed at our spice tolerance, telling us as we slurped up chili broth that we “could be Chinese.”

What started as pop-ups at the homemade hot sauce shop in the neighborhood eventually morphed into a full-on restaurant, and now CBK is the best in Berlin at serving up unhealthy fried things. In particular, their chicken sandwiches put everyone else to shame. Here, professor Mark poses with some saucy cauliflower wings and Mumbai chicken burgers with mango chutney and fried onion bhaji.

There are some excellent options for Asian cuisine in Berlin, but more often than not we end up making it for ourselves. Staples include panang curry, dry fried green beans with tofu, and handmade pork ginger dumplings, but we are constantly experimenting and trying new recipes. There's an excellent Asian grocery store in our neighborhood, so sourcing the right ingredients is actually pretty easy. Note the Berliner Berg Pale Ale that Mazz is enjoying with her curry - that's our favorite local beer (brewed in Neukölln, just down the street) and it goes great with spicy food. 

In Seattle, when you want some good Asian soup on a cold day, you can find a legit bowl of Pho in just about any neighborhood. Though there is good Pho in Berlin, we haven't found it in Neukölln, so we had to explore our alternatives. What we found, and love, is the beef noodle soup at the tiny Beef House Taiwanese restaurant on Kotbusser Damm. Add a little soy sauce and extra spice paste and this soup becomes a salty, savory bowl of pure noodle comfort. 

After being let down by the first handful of pizza places we tried in Berlin, it was a great relief when a new brick oven pizzeria - owned and operated by a real Italian - opened on the same block as our apartment. Luca makes consistently excellent pies with thin, chewy crusts and the perfect sauce/cheese/topping ratio. He's also a super nice dude and we love giving him our business. When we want pizza without having to deal with crowds and pretension, we go here. When we thought about moving, we legitimately worried we wouldn't be close to Luca's pizzas anymore. Kirb is pretty sure Luca thinks he is a monster for getting pineapple on his pizza.

Lode & Stijn is probably the best all-around meal we’ve had in Berlin (a few times), easily on par with other acclaimed restaurants we’ve dined at across Europe. It’s priced like it too, so while we would love to eat their sublime tartar on toast all the time, we save coming here for special occasions like birthdays. Pictured above is venison with spring salad and cured egg yolk. It was delicious.

There's not a lot of legit American BBQ in Berlin. Big Stuff BBQ in Markethalle Neun does it decently, but they have a thing or two to learn about sides (sprinkling rock salt on boiled potatoes is not a side, come on now). Thankfully, an actual Texan moved to Berlin in 2016 and opened the Pit, where he slow-cooks brisket with only salt, pepper, and smoke, the way it's supposed to be done. He's got real cornbread. The beans are delicious and full of meaty bits. Everything is legit. The BBQ-shaped hole in Kirb's life is filled by the Pit.

2018 Edit: The Pit has closed, from what we hear due to German bureaucracy from the owner not properly handling his business paperwork. Kirb’s BBQ-shaped hole has re-opened like a wound.

Delis don't really exist here. Diners don't either. Draw historical conclusions as you will; it's damn near impossible to find a good Jewish sandwich. There was a New York style deli that opened in Winter of 2016 in Kreuzberg called Louis Pretty that made a fine Reuben, but at €12.50 a pop (roughly equivalent to a TRILLION dollars in Berlin), it was more than anyone in that sandwich-packed area was willing to pay and promptly went out of business. Foolishly, it took us nearly 3 years in Berlin to finally eat at Mogg, the renowned deli from which the owner of Louis Pretty departed to start his own ill-fated venue across town. Mogg offers the GIANT pastrami sandwiches and Reubens that have made Katz's Deli famous, and they do them very, very well. Everything about them is perfect. At €14 a pop they are a luxury item here, but oh man, they are totally worth it.

The eggs taste better here. The bacon does too. Add some avocado toast with homemade hot sauce (we make your own here, there's not a lot of decent options) and cup of warm brown and you've got yourself a fine way to start your day.

Brunch just isn't the same thing in Berlin as it is in Seattle or Portland. There are no diners here, and it can be hard to find dishes that hold a candle to the hangover fare we used to get back home. But pop-ups like the Future Breakfast offer some really great stuff, like Eggs Benedict with bacon caramelized in Sriracha and maple syrup. For some reason, breakfast pretty much always comes with a salad no matter where you go.

One thing you get used to quickly in Berlin is smaller portions for just about everything you order. Lots of places sell pizza here, but almost all of them only offer personal pizzas, and the idea of an XL pizza is completely foreign. Luckily, at least one pizza place understands the sheer joy involved in being served a pizza so huge it hangs off the sides of the table. The pizza at Trattoria Venizia isn't the best in town by a long shot, but it does wonderfully satisfy that American urge to receive so much junk food you almost feel bad eating it all.

To be fair, Kirb is the one who loves Hairbos, not Mazz. But boy did he get addicted to the things when we first moved here, especially when he learned he could buy 1kg tubs of them at the Kaufland for €3. Look at how many variations of gummies one can buy at a corner store in Berlin. It’s madness. Kirb has fantasized about visiting the Haribo factory in Bann while we live in Germany but knows that doing so would probably take a few years off his life.

Our good friend Spritzboi turned us on to the schnitzel at this unassuming bar, saying it was his favorite in Berlin. It's surprisingly hard to find good traditional Bavarian food in Berlin, and Kindl Stuben is particularly good at the comforting classics of schnitzel and käsespätzle. 

There is some excellent Asian food in Berlin, and District Mot excels in not only traditional Vietnamese fare like Pho but also in fusion dishes like the "Hot Bao Bling" Burger. This towering culinary achievement has egg yolk garlic mayo, caramelized fish sauce, roasted peanuts, papaya salad, pickled red onions, Thai basil, pineapple, and crispy tofu skin on a spicy pink Sriracha bao bun. It is a thing of beauty, and it only costs €6.

Industry Standard is our favorite restaurant in Berlin, and luckily for us it's on the same block where we live. Perhaps due to the fact that it's run by Americans, they are one of the few places that actually "get" brunch in the way we want. This is a Scotch Egg Muffin, with a soft boiled egg wrapped in sausage and then breaded and fried, with house-made thousand island dressing and muffins toasted with melted cheddar. It's probably about the worst thing you could put in your body, which means it tastes the best.

2018 EDIT: Though the place was always packed, Industry Standard closed suddenly and without warning. One of the chefs later opened Barra, our new favorite restaurant in Berlin.

There are so many different kebabs in Berlin it's an endless journey trying to find "the best." Most are essentially the same, so the places that go out of their way to be original usually earn bonus points. Though it seems unassuming from the front, the "Hasir Express" Chickenberg in Kreuzberg has one of the best Kebabs in Berlin, as they combine the usual meat, veggies and sauce with slow roasted peppers, carrots, and potatoes, jalapeños, and shredded weißerkäse, which is somewhere between feta and cotija.

2018 Update: Chickenberg is now a different kebab shop with a different name and it gave Kirb diarrhea the first time he ate there. Very sad.