The Girl Who Ate Everything

Since I have a brain, I have thoughts. Mostly shallow thoughts. Not in the superficial sense, just...not deep.

Here's one of those thoughts. Been eating away at my brain. Just eatin'.

Whenever I go to a Hong Kong-style diner, it's mostly because I want this:

Egg sandwich from Cha Chan Tang

Yup, a simple egg sandwich. Usually a folded omelet-thing or mass of semi-scrambled egg in between square slices of plain ol' white bread with the crusts cut off. Sitting on a menu next to more interesting items like salt and pepper squid or baked ham and chicken in cream sauce with spaghetti, it doesn't scream, "ORDER ME!" to the casual eater. It's a weenie snack of a sandwich that provides two textures: egg-soft and bread-soft. (Sometimes the bread is toasted, in which case you've got some crispness in there too, but it's mostly soft.)

But damn, how I love that soft-on-soft. Out of all the kinds of egg sandwiches in the world, this one is my favorite. That sort of buttery, fluffy scrambled egg mass on soft, squishy Chinese white bread. Sans crusts. That's important. There's no reason five-year-olds and tea sandwiches should get all the joys of a crust-less existence.

My attachment to these egg sandwiches may be sentimental—when I was a kid my mom made me egg sandwiches the way other moms made their kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—but ignoring my plaintive-grasping-of-childhood thing, I'm pretty sure these sandwiches taste awesome. Besides, my mom's egg sandwiches weren't very good. (She knows it's true. The whole wheat bread she used was the antithesis of Chinese white bread. And she sure as hell didn't slice the crusts off.)

I can sum up most of what I know about Berlin in one word: CURRYWURST. (Ok, I know a bit more than that, but...um...overall, not much.) My lumpy brain first absorbed the word a few years ago when I watched Grace Lee's short documentary, Best of the Wurst, in which she goes on a currywust-eating mission all around Berlin. And other stuff happens. But I mostly remember how I felt after watching the film: "OMG GIVE ME ALL THE CURRYWURST I MUST GO TO BERLIN AND DO THAT THING."

A few months ago, Diana told me she wanted to go to Berlin. And I told her I did too. And then I invited Kåre. And thus, we are all going to Berlin from April 5 to 12.

We haven't really done any of that "planning what we're going to do" stuff yet—for one, we might take a train outside the city for a day or two, place TBD, time TBD, everything TBD—but we're definitely going because we already bought our plane tickets. And while we will research activities, places to visit, and restaurants to eat at, I'd rather ask you guys for advice first. Since I obviously don't know anything. And many of you are well traveled and have less lumpy brains than mine.

So! Have any of you guys been to Berlin? Or perhaps live there? I'd love food recommendations (I won't be super strict about my diet), but recommendations for...well, anything would be awesome.

Thank you for any help you can give me!