Modesty in Berlin: Thanh Long

When the first time I came to Germany 4 years ago, I felt like "OMG NOW I AM IN EUROPE LET'S EAT ALL THOSE EUROPEAN FOODS!". Aaand I did it. However, what I meant by european foods weren’t Escargot, Rinderbraten or Salmon en Croute. It was merely pasta all the way (with sauce from the jar), pizza, brötchen with all the fillings, schokocroissant, and everything with mayonnaise. So, as a result, I successfully gained 7 kgs in the first year of my life in Germany and I was sooooo good at it!

My mother or what I call her “Ibu” wasn’t pleased at all when she found out that her only daughter became fat pig. I still remember in 2013, I came back for summer break with my very long hair, dark skin (it was summer), additional 7kgs of fat and wearing some weird pattern pants and red snapback ( I seriously tried to look like a hipster but in the end people thought that I was an Indonesian domestic worker who worked in Qatar). In the airport, instead of showing happy feeling or saying nice things, Ibu was like “OMG, you are so dark and please try to lose weight and OMG your hair, go cut it ASAP!”. My mother, everyone.

So starting from 2013, I kinda broke up with European food and stick to my roots: Asian food. I began to say no to pasta, milk, butter (oh my, butter), cheese (!) and bread. Result: I lost weight and my skin’s getting better (I also found out that I had low tolerance to dairy, so that means if I eat mozzarella cheese, I will have an acne the next day, yeay!)

The habit from 2013 somehow continues until now, 2016.  I pretty much avoid European food and well I declare myself as an Asian lover oops sorry Asian food lover! Wherever there is a good Asian food, I will be there!

Sooo, my love to Asian food eventually brought me to a small restaurant near Schönhauser Allee, P-Berg called Thanh Long. Thanh Long is indeed a modest resto without anything fancy. But, what I like about this resto is they serve pretty decent food in very good price. I mean come on, you can get a huge portion of big reisnudeln with chicken with 5 euro, only! That’s what I call bargain, my friend.

Dresden's Favourite : Sura

After visiting Dresden more than 100 times in the last three years, I can finally say that I have one of my favourite restaurants there! This definitely needs to be recorded since it is really hard to find a good place to eat in Dresden. Literally.

Okay, Dresden might be one of the most beautiful cities in Germany with a pretty scenery in Altstadt or that famous Christmas Market or Elbe river or etc. But, it is definitely hard work to find a good resto there since Dresden is a small city and the dynamic is not as crazy as Berlin. You don’t see many restaurants pop up every now and then since well, I guess Dresden is not the right market for it.

But, that opinion has changed since last weekend. I finally found a decent place to eat with a decent food to taste. After searching two days and debating with my bf on which resto we should go (that includes changing place three times), I we finally decided to go to a Korean Restaurant called “Sura” in Neustadt.

This “Sura” probably the one and only Korean resto in Dresden if I can trust internet or yelp. Nevertheless, if you have a place like this, I guess one is almost enough since they serve a very good food! OMG I AM SO EXCITING WRITING THIS POST!

Sura itself is located in an area called Neustadt in Dresden. Neustadt is like area where all hipsters from Dresden gather and build a community place that reminds you of Kreuzberg or Neukölln. I am not gonna go further on this or try to explain how it looks like since my main reason to write this post is to talk about Sura, got it? So let me talk about it clearly.

When the first time I walked in to the restaurant, somehow it reminds me a lot of Arirang or Jin Dal Le in Wedding. The interior is pretty old with big statue and not as good as Kimchi Princess or Ssam in Berlin. But, since I don't really care about the look of the resto (unless it is the place for bridal shower so I can take shit of photos of it with various angles), I let it slide.

Cocolo Ramen: The Infamous Ramen Place

Finally! Endlich! Akhirnya! After almost 4 years living in Germany, last weekend, I visited one of the most famous restos that hipster foodie must visit: Cocolo Ramen!

I literally have no idea why it took me 4 years to visit it. Well, actually I know it. First I have no money for 2,5 years since I was a student and I was on a budget and 15 euro meal is actually quite expensive (well until now tbh). Therefore, I can't come to Cocolo. Second, I was busy doing my horrible lovely thesis, so again no time. Third, I had evening german class for 4 months, 4 days in a week for three hours so yes, no time. And last, my partner (read: bf) didn’t want to go there because he hates waiting. According to his inner german standard: "why I have to wait for 30 minutes for food while there are other restaurants nearby?" Oh German…

BUT! Merlin’s bread! All of sudden, he proposed to go there last weekend and it came out of nowhere. I mean it was kinda cringeworthy situation for me since the last time I brought him there, it was kinda drama for both of us. So, after surreal moment and shit, I finally went there with him! YEAYHS!