Chez Su at the Turkish Market in Kreuzberg offers lovely food; don’t miss the cauliflower and zucchini cutlets, or the cheese-filled Turkish rolls
Image: Vaishali Dinakaran
I’m sitting at a table sipping piping hot masala chai, trying to moderate a friendly argument between two gentlemen from Berlin and a young lady from Kazakhstan. I nearly choke on my chai, partly because it’s hot, partly because I fear the discussion is heading in a dangerous direction. At that precise moment, we’re interrupted by someone who has an interesting, if strange, proposition. He tells us that his name is Mario. That he’s from Colombia. And that for the price of one euro, he will recite a poem to us. It seems like a very good idea.
“Among possible maybes of green winter leaves, A poet’s ideal lays far beyond trees…” Mario begins.
He needs to shout the words a little, because the high-domed Markthalle Neun (which translates to ‘Market Hall Nine’), on Berlin’s Eisenbahnstrasse in Kreuzberg, is chock-full of people. Every week, Markthalle Neun hosts Street Food Thursday, between 6 pm and 9 pm, easily Berlin’s most popular street-food market. Housed within the original Markthalle IX building that first opened to the public in 1891, the new version of the market flung its doors open in 2011 and brought people flocking right back.
It’s easy to see why. Before I get to Street Food Thursday, let me explain the wonders of Markthalle Neun by itself. Between Tuesday and Thursday, from 11 am to 6 pm, locals troop in to buy everything from fresh produce, organically grown vegetables, fresh meat and seafood, to rather more exotic whole spices, spice blends, tofu and a range of tea and coffee. A slightly amplified version of this is seen on weekends, with more vendors and more wares on offer on Fridays and Saturdays. But it’s Street Food Thursdays that give the hungry Berliner or famished tourist the gastronomic experience of a lifetime.
(This story appears in the 07 July, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)