(Readers of the Circus Blog will have the impression that Jared tends toward the high class cocktail lounge when it comes to a venue for an evening’s entertainment. Those who know Jared will also know that it takes a lot to get him out of the 3km “Goldman Triangle” around the Circus and Rosenthaler Platz…last week some of Jared’s friends and colleagues took him north to the singular delights of the neighbourhood of Pankow…perhaps some inspiration for anyone who wants to cross the border from Prenzlauer Berg and discover something new…)
It all started off on Wednesday afternoon as Andrew and Jared set off for Pankow. The mission was a pub crawl through Pankow. There are many pub crawls in Berlin, but a Pub Crawl through suburban Pankow must be something that not too many people have ventured out to.
As the bus dropped Jared off Andy was there to pick him up and guide him in a place he had only once been before. Waiting on the street was Jim who was about a half hour too early. You could tell he really wanted to get out of the house. Jim introduced Jared to his local Vietnamese shop where he buys his beers and Vietnamese beef jerky. Jared bought a pack that would last him the whole night and he is pretty convinced that what saved his life the next day.
Jim shouted a round so the boys decided to wait for Andrew while he went home and sat on a wall on Jims street. For Jim this was a little embarrassing since here he was sitting with Jared drinking beer on his street and there must have been about 5 neighbours that passed to say hello that Jim knew. One of the kids spotted them and starting shouting “beer beer”… the mother did not even see the boys and then she spotted Jim. A bit embarrassed Jim politely said hello to all of his neighbours.
Andrew finally had his make up on and we were off for the 1st stop and meeting point. “Gaststätte am Bürgerpark” – a small local German restaurant. Konny had called to make a reservation for us but normally this place does a real good lunch business and they were on summer time which meant they closed at 18:30. Andrew, Jim, and Jared arrived right at 18:00 and right behind them came Konny.
Sean and Jeff were running late and asked us to order for them. The menu was impressive German food, and we didn’t know where to start. The weirdest thing on the menu was horse. “They actually eat horse- man we have to try that!”
Jared spotted a local eating, Konny found out what he ordered and Jim and Jared ordered the Kohlroulade. Konny went for Schnitzel with chanterelle mushrooms, and Andrew decided for the pork knuckle “Eisbein”. Since none of us had the guts to actually order a full horse meal, we thought we would surprise the late runners. So for Sean and Jeff but we got a pork knuckle for one of them and horse goulash for the other. We drank our beer our food came and it was great. Jeff even liked his horse!!!
Toga and Nadine showed up a little bit late but the guy must have liked us because he kept the kitchen open and even gave us a cold plate for free. He approached Konny and asked him whether we fancy a round of “Kaltschale” on the house. We all expected some sort of salad or something. The cold plate was a nice offer but it turned out as a synthetic pink fruit soup. I have never seen a fruit that colour in my life.
After our bellies were layered we headed off to BIP – Bier in Pankow – a Bulgarian place that was one of the cleanest places I have ever been to. We sat down ordered a round of beers and decided that we were only allowed 30 minutes in each place. Nadine ordered a plum brandy “Slibowitz” that came from a very large tank. The guy even offered us the tank for free to drink as much as we could in a half hour. That was for another time.
Willy came to join us for an apple juice and then there was no time to waste we were off to Café Palma. This small joint had potential to be a bit dodgy but turned out to be a very nice little place with a great bar tender that seemed very happy to have us. Jared cracked open the jerky we swilled back our beer in the time allotted and were off for the next joint.
After that came bar number 4: Plattenladen, a rather dry copy of a hip Prenzlauerberg bar, not exactly what we were looking for, we were aiming for authentic Kneipes. And bar number 5 was exactly that: In the Floraklause it was a little hard to get a place for all 8 of us, because there were tons of locals in there watching the Athletics European Championships. After watching the 100m dash our 30 minutes were already up and we were heading for what Konny called the long anticipated highlight on the tour: Bernds Bowling & Sauna. Even the name was tempting. Could we manage to play Bowling and go to the Sauna at the same time?
The bar is run by Bernd a former Saxophonist from East Berlin and Konny ran into one of the locals, that was a friend of his parents. Bernd also happened to like our group of tourists and threw a round of Jägermeister and showed us with all his pride his bowling alley: The bowling alley was East Germany’s oldest bowling alley and like everything at that time it was quite the story how they got it. Swedish construction workers brought them the old bowling alley piece by piece in exchange for free food. “Only in Pankow,” we thought.
I think at that time we had already forgot about our 30 minutes rule. We tried to convince Bernd to play the Saxophone, but he said he couldn’t because of the neighbours. After probably an hour we headed to the next place. We had Bar number 7 on the list as “Aber Hallo”, but they had changed the name to the very unique name: “Cafe&Cocktailbar”. After that Jim and Andrew wanted to head to Maxi 1, but at that point our group was already breaking up.
What a tour of cultural experiences: Horse Meat, cold sweet soup before dinner, a Saxophonist with Bowling alley and an overall very positive and hearty reception from the locals. Plus we helped Jim and Andrew get to know more of their new hood: Jim said afterwards that he plans to go back and bring the family to 3 of those 7 places.
That’s a clear thumbs up for Pankow!
Up on Landsberger Allee is a little of Russia still life and kicking in the form of a Russian supermarket. Here you buy all the products that your average Russian misses from the homeland. Outside the supermarket is an on going BBQ selling the most delicious Schaschlik you will find this side of the River Don. For those of you not acquainted with Schashlik, it is pork on a stick with a vinegar dressing. And for those of you that think that out door grilling is only for the summer think again, it is all year and there is a little tent to keep the elements away.
Lübars is the oldest village in Berlin and was first mentioned in 1247. Pre 1989 it was a place of real affection for the West Berliners who were completely surrounded by the Berlin wall as it was the only place that felt like a village. Their next opportunity would be several hundred kilometers away in West Germany.
The Weißensee cemetery is the second largest Jewish cemetery in Europe and contains approximately 115.000 graves. It miraculously survived the Second War World and the Nazis relatively unscathed, and was only actually partially damaged during an allied air raid. During the next 44 years the place was pretty much neglected as basically the entire Jewish communiity had been murdered or exiled, and also for the fact that it was encouraged in the communist East Germany that only Marx and Engels would be worshipped.
It might seem strange that we would highlight a different place in Berlin to rest your head, but the 
