Comments on: First Look: Hallo Berlin Express

By: mr_d

mr_d — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:09:28 +0000

I’ve had the Hallo Berlin cart which was not bad but Hallo Berlin Express is terrible. The schnitzel was greasy…I order jager schnitzel which should have come with a mushroom gravy and they brought out regular schnitzel. The spaetzel was not like any spaetzel I’ve ever seen, theirs was just some potato they cut up and pan fried.

They gave me like a tablespoon of red cabbage, cucumber salad and string beans. Geez, thanks. Without a doubt the worst German food I’ve ever had.

By: Xacko

Xacko — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:01:23 +0000

Never been to the cart – I’ll leave it to the Eastsiders. I regularly frequented the original out-of-bounds restaurant on 10th Avenue. They have a take out window of sorts, but man!!! the wait can be unbearable. And that’s when you’re the only person in the restaurant aside from the staff. Sometimes I’d wonder if the current five-year plan had overproduced tires and ball bearing and scrimped on sausage. You can call ahead, though, if instead of the usual cold indifference, you prefer to be welcomed upon arrival by uncomprehending stares.

Boy, those sausages are good though when you have the patience to get em. I’ll trek over to “Express” to see if it lives up to its name.

By: yuckmeup

yuckmeup — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:05:36 +0000

I checked the 5th Ave stand out recently. It sounded like one should be able to get a nice Marktwurst just like in Freiburg or any other German market.
To be honest I was extremely disappointed. The wait took forever to get some lukewarm sausages, not even fresh from the grill! The stuff was expensive, the portion tiny and the food tasteless. I’ll make this mistake only once…

By: ak

ak — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:57:10 +0000

I agree with TYL. Plus, this site is already way too Midtown West-skewed anyways.

By: thankyoulove

thankyoulove — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:49:39 +0000

I think the point of excluding 9th avenue is that you really shouldn’t need as much guidance there. The core purpose of midtown lunch is about finding gems in the food wasteland that is the middle of mid-town manhattan. If you’re in hell’s kitchen, you’re practically downtown. Now I’ve found some great downtown/west recs on this site. So I think the out of bounds commentary should continue but official boundaries should remain.

By: BronxBrinerGal

BronxBrinerGal — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:21:43 +0000

Wait! What’s dressing up the burger? It better be a Burgermeister Meisterburger… but Rolf probably would be sued for copyright infringement.

In Bavaria, I’d wash down my brats with a weissbier at lunch… so that after 6pm thing on the alcohol is very, very unsettling to see. It’s outside of my lunchtime eating zone, but I am planning on hitting it one night soon for dinner.

By: wayne

wayne — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:48:20 +0000

While we’re lashing Zach I’ll third the Ninth Ave exclusion as being both heresy & lunacy. Not only is the quality better on Ninth, I’ll bet you can find more <$10 gems on that one avenue than on any other avenue in the existing grid. I was shocked to see that Carl’s Cheesesteaks waaaaaaaaaaaaay down on 34th and 3rd was inside the boundary and the new Hallo Berlin was not. That’s crazy talk!

By: Shauna

Shauna — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:25:17 +0000

yeah man, i’d second that ninth ave extension… it’s a goldmine over there.

no beer though? that severely harshes my mellow.

By: Lee Ann

Lee Ann — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:20:53 +0000

Hi! I would love it if you would extend your boundaries more often over to 9th avenue – I worked for years at 51st and B’way. It’s only a block and a half from there, and I often went over there for something non-cosi! :)

By: wayne

wayne — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:55:48 +0000

No self-respecting German would deny a beer request with your wurst at any hour (remember that in Bavaria you eat a second breakfast of weisswurst in the late morning and a nice brew is a necessary accompaniment).