Bits of South East Asia Dinner, FRIDAY, 31st July 2009

We have had a good run of somewhat pricey dinners over the last few months and now it's time to chill out and try something lighter and easier on the budget. After all, there's a recession going on around the world, though I read that it has not hit South East Asia quite so hard for the moment, according to the statistics. It might even be something to do with their diet there - who knows? ;o) Anyway, it got me to thinking about that region, and I just thought we should try some food from that part of the world which is not too expensive. And, guess what - I found exactly the best place in Berlin for that.

The place is called Transit and the concept is very cool and very simple. You only get taster dishes and each dish costs 3 Euro. So if you want, have 3 dishes and a beer and that's 12 Euro for the whole dinner, though I do hope that you will be much more adventurous than that (else you will embarrass me). There are 18 dishes to choose from, although 2-3 of them sound a little dodgy but it's still a wide enough choice. The Prinz magazine thought it was good enough to award this place 5 stars for both food and atmosphere (http://berlin.prinz.de/restaurants/restaurantfinder/restaurant-transit-thailaendisch-restaurants-gastro,619235,1,LocationFinder.html). So unless they have been heavily bribed (which I don't think so), I think it's worthwhile trying this place out.

If you wish to look it up, their website is http://www.transit-restaurants.com. They are located in Sonntagstraße 28, 10245 Berlin (Friedrichshain), near Ostkreuz. And once again, this proves that I do really wander over to the depths of East Berlin once in a while.

Anyway, for technical reasons, we have to do this dinner on a FRIDAY evening, instead of our usual Saturday events, so please note that in your diary now. The date for the dinner is Friday, 31st July, which you can also note now. The place is not too big, so if you are keen to try a variety of SE Asian dishes on a reasonable budget, please do let me know by 17 July and all those that make the list will be notified by 20 July latest.

This is a simple informal cheap little event and we look forward to having lots of people dropping in after a hard week's work (like me).

See you soon!

Chris
 

How it went on the night...

It was a great evening, and this place definitely deserves to survive in the tough ultra-competitive leisure food market that is Berlin. The portions were much more generous than we had expected for the 3 Euro per dish price, and the decor and atmosphere was really comparable or even better than more expensive places. It was witty, fun and a great place to sample a variety of dishes from South East Asia. The service was also generally good although settling the bills was a bit confusing and disorganised. Overall, it was a great night out and I can really recommend making the trek to Friedrichshain to try this place.

Oh, on the next day was the Harley-Davidson weekend in Berlin. I don't particularly bikes but the machines do look a little impressive...