Pepperoni, Artichoke and Mushroom Vegan Pizza
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| Pizza. Pasta. Passion! |
Bjorn Moschinski is a vegan rock star. Not only did he formerly direct the venerable Kopps (my next review!), pen three cookbooks, appearances on TV, but he also has a new Italian venture called Mio Matto, which is conveniently located above the Veganz store. Pretty awesome especially as self-taught chef, I might have a cook crush on him. Anyone wanna translate a cookbook from German to English? Not to mention a conversion from metric to the loving and anachronistic imperial system, because, you know, we Americans love paying tribute to Cesar and the Romans in the form of a measuring system. Regardless, someone needs to tell Huffington Post to pull their heads out of their asses and that, yes, Germany has a celebrity vegan chef. Does that suffice?
Enough about america's misguided measuring system and back to food. The special one loves Italian food and so few vegan options exists (except for New York's recently moved and hopefully still open Three Brothers Pizza) so it was a no brainer to check out his new place. Even though it was raining, after a drizzling day at the Berliner Dome, including hundreds of steps to the top and an obligatory umbrella purchase, we splashed down to Mio Matto. Luckily, it wasn't too far from one of the trains. Best of all you can feed two bellies with one stop! Lunch and then shopping inside an all vegan grocery store and shoe store. Pretty sure this is a must when visiting Berlin. And a big middle finger to the Huffington Post, an all vegan Italian place. Boy, it sure was hard to be vegan in Berlin. This city makes New York nervous.
Pasta Bologense Sauce
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| Pasta and Passion! |
The Mio Matto motto's is pretty simple Pizza, Pasta and Passion. There's no surprises here. As usual, the special one and I went into divide and conquer mode, though we had to not go overboard because we had dinner reservations for Kopps. We bought wanted the pizza, I saw several different ones that looked interesting, but I decided to go with the pasta bologense because it sounds fancy; it's essentially a meat based pasta sauce. Don't get me wrong, it was tasty, but damn that pizza was fabulous. It was one of those lunch dates where I couldn't stop staring at the special one's meal. The pizza was perfection, a crisp crust, cooked perhaps in a wood fired oven (I'm guessing here) with some of the best vegan cheese I've had. Not to mention the artichokes and the pepperoni. I'm not sure what they are using, but damn Bjorn knows his way around the kitchen. This was perhaps one of the best pizzas I've ever had. All hail Bjorn!
Decor of Mio Matto
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| Rustic & Fancy! |
I'm not sure if you can use rustic and fancy in the same sentence, but like the food the decor of Mio Matto shows the attention to detail of Mr Bjorn. As you can see in the picture, wood panels were prominent with a purple tiled roof, complete with chandlers. Yeah, like I said rustic and fancy. Although we were there for lunch, I hard it turns fancier for the dinner service. Like the desk clerk told us, you need at least a week to see (and eat!) all of Berlin! If you're thinking of a vacation, Berlin is the vegan mecca with pretty rad tourist things to visit.
Thomas Henry Ginger Beer
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| Spicy! |
Along with the food, I was really hoping to try Europe's ginger beers. It's no secret I'm a ginger fanatic, so trying every ginger beer I come across is a given, despite the impressive German beers on tap. This (Thomas Henry) was the first ginger beer I was impressed with, it lived up to one of, if not my favorite ginger beer from maine root. Spicy just like the label says or as I say, like sticking a straw into ginger.
German Strudel Pudding
Dessert!
Remember when I said we had dinner reservations and we had to go light? Yeah, I like to contradict myself in the same review. I couldn't pass this up and almost two weeks of navigating 3 countries public transit system was taking a toll so a latte and this german pudding sounded awesome. The whole trip I've been photographing the menu so I could remember everything or at least connect the bites. Call me lazy. Either way, I didn't at Mio Matto so I declare it to be a german pudding strudel with peaches. Pretty awesome, I dare say. It was the perfect ending to a meal and heading down to Veganz and to tourist trap of checkpoint charlie!
Mio Matto
Veganz to the right!
Berlin Dome
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| One of the few building to surviving the WW bombings! |
Berlin Wall Art
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