At the end of this month, Tacos Berlin will have been on the road for one year. Talk about a feliz cumpleaños!

When we first started this adventure, it was hard for us to imagine where we would be in 12 months. But here we are: making tacos and taking names (literally). Serving the people of Berlin has been a huge pleasure. Gracias. Danke. Thank you.

If you are Berlin based, passing through or just curious, you can find our schedule, menu and contact info on our website: www.tacosberlin.com.

See you at the truck!

May 22, 2010

Update: The official Tacos Berlin website is up and running. Just in time for a mention in a New York Times article about Mexican food in Berlin!

Standing at the taco cart.

1 Jan 2010 – It took eight months to do it, but we finally sold tacos in Berlin this summer.

As mentioned in one of my first posts, we moved overseas with the aspiration of one day selling street-style Mexican food in Berlin.

But before I launch into our plan for Berlin Taco Domination, it’s important to tip our hat to those who inspired us: a group of women Barrett and I took to calling The Ladies.

About a decade ago, when we shared a cramped studio (how could a studio with two people be anything else but cramped?) in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood, Barrett and I lived across the hall from a woman and her young son.

Every morning around 10 a.m., the smell of frying meat and onion began wafting from her just-as-cramped apartment, across the dingy hall, under the crack of our door and into our unit.

By 4 p.m. the sizzle would cease and the woman would emerge from her apartment with a giant cooler and a 10-gallon beverage jug, which she would bring down three flights of stairs and then down one block to Beverly Boulevard, a screechy street lined with Latin American bakeries, checking cashing shops and liquor stores, whose selection of 40s was as vast as a fine restaurant’s wine offerings.

Beverly Boulevard looks naked without the Ladies.

There she would join about five or so other women, who were all outfitted with similar-sized coolers and jugs in varying colors and degrees of use.

These women, henceforth known as The Ladies, sat there from about 4:30 p.m. on, and from their steaming coolers they pulled delicious deep-fried, spongy, savory empanada-type goodies (I’ve never seen or had anything like them since).

Out of the giant jugs came a creamy soup made with corn, which they served in giant Styrofoam cups. Each item cost a dollar but tasted like a million bucks. Sadly, we never asked what these dishes were called.

The Ladies’ approach was a simple: offer one to two dishes, do them well, sell ‘em for cheap and be prepared to pack up quick if the health department catches wind of what’s cooking.

So, when we began planning our taco adventure, we looked to The Ladies to guide us into the world of street-food vending.

In the excitement, flat leaf parsley tricks my cilantro-seeking ass.

Food

Back in the States, we tested out recipes. Barrett took on tortillas. I worked in the salsa, carnitas and carne asada departments. I scoured the Internet and cookbooks, whittling down the various takes on our cart’s bread-and-butter to recipes I felt were authentic-tasting, but not dependent on a laundry list of exotic goods.

When we arrived in Berlin, the search was on for ingredients.

Fresh tomatoes, cilantro, onion, garlic and even jalapeños all came easy.

The biggest hurdles were masa harina, tomatillos and dried chiles.

Masa and tomatillos we found at the Latin American food importers here in the city. Chiles (ancho and poblanos), because they are so light and pack down so nicely, came via mail from a friend, although they are sometimes available through those import stores.

Winter at Mauerpark.

After we saw what we could get (and for how much considering we were buying wholesale), we decided to debut with tacos de carnitas. Burritos, beans and rice, tamales, and other accoutrement could wait until we had a bigger space for cooking and serving.

Location

Because we knew we didn’t have enough to experience or cash to jump into any kind of brick-and-mortar venture, we started looking into setting up at markets.

What we found when we got to Berlin was the flea market, the Mauerpark Flohmarkt to be exact.

In the footprint of the Berlin Wall has sprung up this vibrant Sunday market, where Berliners and tourists of every walk of life show up to vend, browse and socialize.

Our best bet was to set up outside the market itself, a little off the beaten path. Once we tested the waters here, we’d look into taking our set up elsewhere.

Wheeling one of the carts out of our apartment.

Equipment

We’d love to buy one of these and outfit it for taco and burrito making, but the Ape is too much too soon, so we figured during the warmer months we could make do with bikes and trailers.

We bought a new propane grill off eBay as well as two bike trailers, in which we fit the grill, two coolers, a jug of water, paper plates, a folding table, serving utensil, a spray bottle containing bleach and water solution for keeping things sanitary and other odds and ends. Everything we use fits in these trailers, which store neatly in our apartment when not in use. The grill fits perfectly on a shelf in one of our kitchen cabinets.

Cooking

I start prepping on Saturday for our Sunday taco runs, buying our vegetables from the farmers’ market on Kollwitzplatz before heading to the butcher to pick up 9 kilos of bone-in pork shoulder.

When I get home, I break down the meat before salting it and refrigerating it. The carnitas are cooked and quickly cooled in four batches through Sunday morning. Early Sunday, I prep the limes, onions, radishes and cilantro and make the the salsa verde, while Barrett mans the stove, where he makes about 200 tortillas by hand.

Tacos de Carnitas

In the end, we make enough food for about 100 tacos, with each portion including two tortillas, meat, onion, cilantro and salsa verde. Lime and radishes served on the side.

By Sunday afternoon, all the food is packed in the coolers, which with the stove and other gear is stored in the bike trailers.

After leaving our apartment, we are at Mauer within 15 minutes and set up within 30.

Each of the two times we’ve been out there, we’ve not only sold out but we’ve been warmly received. We even had a couple of repeat customers.

Although winter weather has kept us indoors for a couple of months now, we’re slowly but surely working on making our operation legitimate in every way. Come summer, we hope to be back slinging tacos (and possibly burritos) to the masses.

When the urge is too great.

“Must bite!”

During the first three to four weeks we had Rudie — the very tiny, very funny Spaniel/Chihuahua/Something-or-Other puppy we adopted in early June — we imagined, if she had a vocabulary, these were about the only two words running through her head.

No matter the situation, she always managed to punctuate the moment with that puppy mantra.

Sitting in your lap? “Must bite!”

Walking alongside you? “Must bite!”

Taking a nap? “Must bite!”

Eventually, by consistently using the tactic of squealing like we’d been mortally wounded and then turning our back on her, we broke her of the habit.

But as with many addicts, she has swapped one addiction for another: “Must Eat!”

Tiny and tech savvy -- Rudie at about 8 weeks old.

It has been such a trip watching this little pooch grow and change. When we got her, she was barely a pound and I could carry her in one hand. Now at a 5 months old, she weighs a massive 4.5 kilos and is reportedly roughly two-thirds of her adult size.

The pup that once shivered with fear when I carried her outside the apartment has grown into a friendly pooch with a hummingbird tail who plays fetch, rides on trains and goes to work with Barrett. Of course she has her moments — she is still a puppy — but overall, I think we are on the right track with raising her.

Beyond her daily development, the biggest surprise is how much time and energy goes into having a dog. Sure, you hear how “a dog is a lot of responsibility,” but it was only when I got one did I realize the extent of that statement. While I’ve wanted to get a dog for years, I hadn’t done much research about training.

So surprise, surprise to me when I quickly learned that — especially with a young puppy — it’s not just feeding and walking and playing with the dog. It’s molding, conditioning and leading the dog. It’s throwing away almost every Hollywood-tinted reason you got a dog in order to raise a happy, balanced companion.

Rudie at 3 months.

I had relied on the fuzzy memories of how my family’s dog were raised (I obviously wasn’t remembering the extent of my parents’ work to bring up five well-adjusted dogs) to color my impression of what it takes.

Only after Rudie arrived in our home did I have that “Oh, sh*t” moment. I came into the situation completely unprepared and needed to putting together a framework — and fast. Not necessarily the easiest thing when living in a foreign country. It wasn’t as simple as heading down to the local dog training school for some face-time with a trainer — my language skills aren’t quite there yet.

But thanks to that thing called the Internet, I not only convinced myself that Rudie had parvo, kennel cough and separation anxiety, but I also picked up lots of great tips and advice.

We based our crate training schedule on a mix of advice from the Monks of New Skete’s “The Art of Raising a Puppy” and the Humane Society of America.

For basic commands (plus some really great tips on how to praise effectively), we looked to videos by Expert Village’s Melanie McLeroy.

Socialization came during puppy play sessions at a dog park in Friedrichshain and meet-ups with friends and their dogs.

As it stands, our training style (if you can call it that), much like our little pooch, is a mish-mash. Bits of advice pulled from here and there, that when applied as consistently as possible, seem to have an impact. It’s been a lot of work and at times pretty frustrating, but so far so good with Rudie Toots, who is right now quietly sleeping at my feet.

It’s hard to believe that I arrived in Berlin more than six months ago.

When Barrett picked me up from the airport in November, the winter’s first snow was fresh on the ground, the sky was a milky cold gray and the sun was tucked away by 4 p.m.

When we moved into our apartment in Prenzlauer Berg in January, white coated the streets and outlined the black branches of slumbering trees. Everything was slow and silent and calm. Any sounds ricocheted off the cold, stark air with an echo. The little world was in deep freeze, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the spring thaw would reveal.

The change was both immediate and gradual. And so far the seasonal swap has brought bright, pink blossoms that floated and flitted in the air, cafes whose patrons spill onto cobblestone sidewalks, great trees whose green leaves seemed to unfurl overnight, sunbathers in the parks, and my favorite, the song birds.

It has been magic to watch this transformation occur — and having lived in temperate climates my entire life, this transition from winter to spring (and now to summer) has been a delicious first.

New Year’s Eve in Berlin has come and gone, but the singed eyebrows remain. Earlier this week I was making room on my camera when I came across photos from the end-of-the-year festivities, known in Germany as Silvester.

Pesky anarchist post-Molotov tossing? Not quite. It's Barrett making his way to the train platform at the U-Bahn station.

Viewed out of context, one might think I’d stumbled across photos from the Seattle’s WTO protest or perhaps of the recent riots in Greece. Nope. It’s Silvester, and it’s dangerously fun, primarily because people – drunk and sober – throw lit fireworks like butterscotch candies at a Fourth of July parade.

Under attack on Unter Den Linden.

On New Year’s Eve, Barrett and I left our Moabit apartment around 10:30 p.m. and headed toward the Brandenburg Gate, which hosts a countdown, a la Times Square.

Upon leaving the safe confines of our building, we realized that our sleepy neighborhood had undergone a Jekyll & Hyde transformation. All those pop-pop-bang-bang-whistle-crashes we had heard from our apartment were now dangerously close, and by close, I mean originating at our feet.

From their apartment windows, people pelted the road below with lit fireworks. On the street, families and friends gathered together to set off rockets, as mini-explosions rained on them from above. Kids laid in wait behind bushes and between cars, tossing M-80s at passersby and under buses and cars. Others slam-dunked the small red cardboard tubes in metal trash bins for a little extra boom boom.

We found the real action at the Brandenburg Gate. After the professional firework display ended, it became amateur hour, with Unter Den Linden, the avenue leading up to the gate, turning into one giant, drunk launch pad. Booze bottles and the gritty remnants of thousands of exploded rockets littered the ground. Crackling streaks of red, blue, green and white popped in the haze-filled air.

It was magic — especially for a California girl like me, whose one-on-one experience with fireworks was largely limited to sparklers (“Look! I can write my name in the air … again”) and the world’s biggest incendiary let-down, the snake.

Here’s a mishmash of photos I’ve taken since I got here:

Good, bad or really sexy, graffiti is everywhere in Berlin. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.

From a park in Prenzlauer Berg, you can see the famed radio tower in the distance

This fountain in Friedrichshain stopped us in our tracks.

Sony Center sits in Potsdamer Platz, a public square destroyed in WWII. With the Wall running through it, the area remained a wasteland through the Cold War.

Walk down Any Strasse Berlin, and you’re sure to come across the city’s king and queen of street food: currywurst and döner kebab. Both are said to have been created in Berlin (the “inventor” of döner kebab, Mahmut Aygün, passed away very recently). Who wears the pants in this monarchy of fast food is certainly up for debate. What is not is how prolific both döner and currywurst vendors are, especially in the neighborhood we called home since October, Moabit.

Quick explanation of the dishes:

Currywurst is a sausage that’s deep-fried, cut into pieces, covered in ketchup and curry powder, served with a roll, perhaps French fries, and eaten with the CUTEST little baby fork you’ve every seen.

Curry Eck in Moabit does currywurst right

Döner kebab is a master of disguise. The meat, which is lamb, beef or chicken, is cooked on an upright rotating spit. Lovingly called “lamb SPAM” by my friend Mindi, the meat is sliced off in strips – either with a knife or a crazy electronic shredder – and then transplanted into a variety of carb costumes. In a piece of grilled bread, it is known as döner im brot. In flat bread, it is dürum döner. On a plate, it is a “teller.” In a dress, it’s your mom.

Construction of the döner includes your choice of three different sauces: a hot sauce, a herb sauce and a garlic sauce, all of which are slathered on. Vegetables are stuffed inside, the sandwich is wrapped in a paper sleeve, and voilá, you have a drunk person’s dream food, all for fewer than 3 euro.

When I first got here, we were having döner fairly often. It’s cheap. It’s filling. And in Moabit, it is everywhere. After about four of these things, I thought it might be a good idea to research how many calories each contains. While I can’t say my Web research yielded a clear-cut answer, I did come away with some words of wisdom. One poster, responding to someone’s question regarding the calories in döner, wrote that when she is sober, a döner has at least a thousand calories. When she’s drunk, a döner is a calorie-free treat. How true.

For years now, Barrett and I have dreamed of opening a taco cart in Berlin — it’s that cilantro-sprinkled vision that finally brought us here. So, it should come as no surprise that upon my arrival in Berlin, we decided to save the schnitzel for later and check out the competition.

Chicken in mole rojo with a delightful side of basmati rice

My estimation is that there are probably fewer than 20 Mexican food restaurants in the city, with its best-known places being Dolores and Viva Mexico. Stop No. 1, however, is Que Pasa, a “mexikanische” food restaurant right off the U-Bahn in the city’s Kreuzberg neighborhood.

German Grammar Lesson Eins: I learn that it’s not called a “Mexikanische” restaurant because the food is “Mexican-ish,” as in somewhat Mexican-like, but that in German the “isch/e” denotes nationality: amerikanisch = American, italienisch = Italian, etc.

I thought they were just being honest.

To be completely fair, the food was tasty, but my chicken in mole rojo was more like chicken and chutney, and I swear, the cheese in Barrett’s burrito was paneer. I am not sure where the guacamoleische hails from.

Gimme a break -- It's New Year's in Berlin!

Two months have passed since I arrived in Berlin, and I had every intention of blogging about my experiences here. As you can tell by the date of my last post, things didn’t go quite according to plan.

The biggest setback came about five days in when the hard drive on my computer died, taking with it a bunch of blog-destined journal entries and all 20 pages of my Not-So-Great, Not-So-American Novel. Then the Internet went out at the apartment we were subleasing, which meant me having to haul my half-frozen ass to the local Web cafe when it was all of 8 degrees out. Sure, I’ll suffer for my art, but not if my toes are at stake.

Eventually, everything was sorted out, but to be honest, it was really hard to get back on track when I wasn’t on one in the first place. So here I am, writing my first entry in weeks. It feels good, in that I have know this is what I should have been doing from the beginning.

So, without further excuse, here are posts and pics to get everyone up to speed — finally.

Church bells rang throughout the day on Christmas Eve

Yeah, yeah. I know I’ll hate the snow in a couple of days when it turns to icy, black slush-mush, but for now, I am loving it.

I love it because it’s happening in a place where I live, not some place I am just visiting, and I get a sense of calm watching billions of flakes slowly float down from the low gray sky.

From the window of my apartment, I like seeing it dip and ebb on the breeze as it falls into the courtyard below — or better yet, going outside, looking up, and watching this strange delayed dance come at me like a 3-D movie projected in slow motion.