Berlin Part IIII - Oh LaLa, Cupcake & Viasko.

My birthday this year was always going to be an awesome one as we were spending it in Berlin but it was even better than I could have imagined! We started the day with a continental breakfast of 'ham' slices, Vegusto cheese, bread, banana bread & fruit juice.


This was swiftly followed by presents, it took a helluva lot of patience for me to wait until after breakfast!


I'd wanted the Veggie Burger book for ages & it's damn good. I've only made the Super Quinoa Burgers so far but I'll be making the Bacon Cheeseburger recipe very soon. The cute skillet mitts were a great hint towards the sneaky extra present waiting for me at home, a cast iron skillet! I'd wanted one for SO long & as Nick pointed out it would have definitely pushed our suitcase over the weight limit hence leaving it behind.

After a walk through a park near where we were staying that included the very grown up activity of playing on the swings we headed to new cafe Oh LaLa for lunch (Note: As of 2016 Oh La La is closed). Oh LaLa is a French tart shop which although not vegetarian does have plenty of mouth watering vegi & vegan options. We started with a couple of savoury tarts which I didn't really manage to take a decent picture of!

We had trouble choosing so we shared one tomato & one pepper. They had great thick flakey pastry & I liked that they both tasted different rather than just being the exact same tofu quiche with different toppings. I wished we could have tried all of the other flavours too, the day we were there there were 5 different flavours to choose from. Really though, we were there for the desserts! Little French tartlets - yum!

We were going to share our desserts too but once I saw this gorgeous raspberry chocolate tart I new I'd be keeping it all to myself.

Chocolate & Raspberry is my absolute favourite dessert flavour combo so this was a wonderful birthday treat. Silky creamy chocolate encased in buttery pastry topped with delicious tart raspberries & chopped pistachio nuts. Yum! Nick choose to have the treacle tart which is one of his favourite desserts so I think he was pretty happy with the new not sharing plan!

I did get a little taste because otherwise how could I have written about it here?! The treacle was gooey & incredibly sweet & I loved that it was topped with my favourite dessert nut, pecans. Is it weird to have a favourite dessert nut?! I'll definitely be returning to Oh LaLa for a tart on my next trip to Berlin.

After lunch we headed towards Alexanderplatz to walk around & look at the sights...

...before hopping on a boat to do some more relaxed sightseeing. Of course we planned ahead & took snacks! Brownies to be precise, this is the peanut butter chocolate brownie from Cupcake.


I think I've said it before but the brownies at Cupcake are some of my favourite brownies in the world, it's a closely run thing between them & the brownies from Strong Hearts Cafe in Syracuse, New York.

After our fabulous lunch at Viasko the previous day I decided that I wanted to head back there for my birthday dinner so that's exactly what we did! We ended up choosing the same starter as we'd had for lunch the day before, the Crostini Variation. Not knowing when we'd next be in Berlin I couldn't pass up the chance to eat their delicious almond cheese again. For my main I chose the Seitan Steaks with mashed potatoes, mushroom cream sauce, green beans & root vegetable crisps.

Oh my god it was SO good! The sauce was perfect, the seitan was amazingly tender & I was genuinely really excited to be eating a green vegetable after all of the fast food & cake we'd been eating on the trip. The mashed potatoes were the creamiest most delicious mashed potatoes I've ever eaten...I only wish I had the patience to mash my potatoes this well at home!

Nick went for the gyros plate, I don't think the picture does it justice... this thing was huge!

The plate included the soya gyros, homemade flatbread, coleslaw, tzatziki sauce & hummus. I tried a bite & it was really good, the bread was perfectly soft & I really liked the soya meat.

We were both pretty stuffed after our meals but when I heard that one of the desserts was an apple tart I decided that there was no way I was missing out!

This was well worth stuffing myself to breaking point for! The apples were perfectly soft & caramelised and the pastry was perfect. This was a seriously great end to a days eating!

I always get nostalgic (and hungry!) when I'm writing travel food posts because I want to be right back there trying more food or re-eating all of the fantastic meals I've eaten on the trip. Viasko is definitely one place that I really really wish was closer to me, thankfully I love Berlin so much that there's no doubt in my mind that I'll be back there one day in the not too distant future.