Cafeteria

Celebrities-favored restaurants are like quantum physics – you don’t have to understand, just simply accept it. Why are all the actors, musicians, media people and wannabe artists accumulating on the corner of Seventeenth and Seventh, Lord only knows. Well, the elementary particles behave both like particles and like waves.
Cafeteria is ear-splitting like combine harvester testing area; relatively expensive, with tiny, slimy tables, moody personnel, absurd waiting times (40 minutes is no oddity) and painfully untamed pubescent clientele. Kids are scanning around, so as not to miss some semi-famous face that might appear. The food is absolutely divine.
I dive into my goat cheese & tuna salad and not come out before the plate is completely licked clean. The last thing I savor is a perfectly seared tuna steak – a piece of meat surprisingly, notably thick. Just like the waiter, who forgets half of the orders and comes with water after 45 minutes.

To die for: Cafeteria is open 24 hours and the food is unbeatable. Pure and breathtaking.

Turn off: if you’re a bit sensitive, don’t even try it. The staff are uniquely blunt and if they don’t like you, you might leave in tears.

Cafeteria, 119 7th Ave (at 17th Street), New York

Babette's

I’ve never been to the London based Books for Cooks store and it obviously makes me a pathetic loser. EVERYBODY knows The Legendary Books for Cooks. Inspired by the London institution a Viennese store was launched some time ago, and I immediately fell in love with its second branch distinguished by a slightly altered concept. Besides cook books it also offers an impressive collection of herbs and spices. Shiny floors, airy shelves and pharmacy-like cabinets, weighed down with hundreds of cook books and flasks with condiments. An ethereal fairy behind the counter is willingly seeking nonexistent herbs for us. Spices and their wonderful mixtures are what will lure me back here; to breathe in the pale memories of something good and forgotten.
Books there are a plenty, cook books of any sorts and kinds, highly specialized publications on specific ingredients or methods of preparation, national cuisines and low profile eating deviations. Don’t come too hungry.

To die for: Babette’s has got a minicafé where you can get a rough espresso and rifle through books. I found great pieces on veganism.

Turn off: many books are in English, but most of them naturally in German. If you cannot Deutsch sprechen, you can still go crazy about the herbs.

Babette's, Schleifmühlgasse 17 or at Am Hof 13, Vienna

Lomography Store

Although not personally a LOMO camera owner, I am a huge fan and advocate. Dreamy colors, nostalgic roundness and overflowing images excite something ancient, warm and dear in me. In the vile, chaotic Beijing the LOMO Shop became an oasis of Westernism, a piece of highly treasured homely feel. Little cameras, fish eye lenses, film, cases. Sleepy Chinese geeks just peeked at me drowsily and went on with their geeky activities.

I didn’t buy anything, but I felt truly good for a moment.

Similar shops can be found in Barcelona, Paris, New York, Sydney… the nearest one in Vienna (at Museums Quartier). Read more about LOMO: http://www.lomography.com/

Buy LOMO cameras cheaply through eBay.

Lomography Store, No. 9, Long Tou Jing Jie, Xi Cheng District, Beijing, China

Mini Bar

The strangest bar I’ve ever been to is without doubt the Mini Bar in Athens. We found it in the boisterous, nightlife-abundant district of Psyrrí. Walls of the petite space are nicely illuminated, so they create an imposing backdrop for hundreds of small bottles – liquor miniatures you can find in every hotel room fridge. And that’s the only thing being served here – wee minibottles with just a sufficient amount of alcohol; no redneck beer pints nor house wine are allowed to ruin the atmosphere. Some of the drinkable exhibits are quite common and well known, but the owner Yórgos Katsarós takes the greatest pride in his collection of rare, exotic pieces. The space is small, it hosts only a few (thin) customers; the rest skulk around, waiting for an available inch inside.

If you come across a small Slivovitz bottle and want to see a grown man weep with gratitude, please bring it to Yórgos and his bar.

To die for: I love bizarre, unusual places. Mini Bar definitely falls into my Top Ten.

Mini Bar, Navarhou Apostoli 16, Psyrrí, Athens www.minibar.gr

Nottingham Forest

Did I say the weirdest bar I’ve ever seen is the Athenian Mini Bar? I was lying. This is the weirdest bar I’ve ever been to.

Among the Buddhas and palm trees bar chef Dario Comini has packed the tiny space with pots and bottles somewhat beyond the typical bar stock. You’ll see syringes, perfumes and curious machines. Dario is devoted to Molecular Mixology and he plays with tastes, aromas, colors, textures and you. He injects pills with absinthe, shoots lasers at cedar cubes to infuse liquor with a woody smell, changes drinks to fog and candy floss and jelly and foam. A quirky lab of a mad scientist? By no means. Signor Comini keeps the atmosphere in the bar cosy, chatty, cocktail-after-work normal.

Total God.

Nottingam Forest, Viale Piave 1, Milan

La Esquina

La Esquina started it’s life as a complete secret. Eventually the rules loosened up and there’s a phone number on the webpage where you can call and hope for the best. A little bit of elitism can’t hurt. We walk into a messy fastfood stand, are let through a discreet entrance by a scary doorman. Down the dark catacombs; giggling girls take our coats and suddenly we’re in a medieval cellar with buckets of water above our heads, trillion candles and faces shiny with pork fat. They stuck us tight behind the tables so we hardly breathe and start serving delicacies . Mexican cuisine is among my favourites and this is also thanks to La Esquina, no doubt. Sardines and yellowfin tuna, grilled string beans, fresh mussels, octopus in saffron sauce. Studmuffins on the next table loudly discuss the meaning of life.

To die for: you can spot some celebrities, if you’re into that. But to die for is the food and the fact that dinner here is an Occasion.

Turn off: La Esquina tends to get crowded and you cannot always get in. But it’s still worth trying.

La Esquina, 114 Kenmare Street (corner of Cleveland St.), New York

Café De Zuid

It could appear that Amsterdam is just as nasty as all other European cities in February. The truth is, it’s even nastier. Vexatious rain gives wet smacks left and right and gripes even more so, given that locals obviously don’t give a damn about it. They pedal joyously along in short jackets, faces unfrowned. Me - not such a hero.

I crawl miserably into a random café, and voilá – I change from a severely beaten dog into one evidently cosetted. I let my coat dry and while waiting for the food, I drool a little.

A salad with pear. Lolo rosso, pine nuts, capers, sour sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, honey, thyme. Baguettes to choose from: brown and white. Tiny bowl of herbed butter. Brash New York feel. I melt immediately.

Maybe this month won’t suck that much after all.

To die for: fluffy blond waitress lost in dreams, eyes all sky-blue and deep. Food’s immense.

Turn off: opening hours are suited for brunchists – eleven ‘til five real food is served, after that only cakes and little things. I’ll still come back.

Café De Zuid, Azartplein 2a, Amsterdam