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.
Thanh Long, however, is definitely not a place that you can brag
in Instagram and tell everyone that you were there. Thanh Long is more like if
you don’t know place to go, Thanh Long is a good place to eat since you just
can't go wrong with it. More like hmm, home? Whenever you are confused or tired
or anything, you can go home and somehow feel a little bit better, no? And this
is what I feel about Thanh Long, they don’t serve very very very good food, but
the modest taste of the food they serve just want me to go back again.
 |
| Crispy Duck with Mango Sauce |
If you happen to go there or want to try cheap Asian food,
I can recommend you to eat their Tom Yum Soup with shrimp or my personal favourite,
Pho Xao (fried rice noodle) with beef. A glass of Avocado Lassi won’t hurt
either. In addition, even though the lady there doesn’t smile that much, she
can remember your order directly if you go there at least twice :)
 |
| Pho Xao with beef, my favourite! |
No comments