Eat a lot: Lodd Thai Imbiss, Neukölln

Thai restaurants are a dime a dozen here in Berlin. They're usually of a fairly poor standard. Vegetables from a tin, watery curry sauces, touristy dishes (Pad Thai, anyone?) only. That kind of thing. To be fair, once you have eaten Thai food in Thailand, that's it, you've ruined your Thai restaurant experience for ever...

Way back when I still lived in London, I devised a Thai Restaurant Rule: if they ain't servin' cha yen (Thai ice tea, sweet and sticky with its typical rusty brown colour), it ain't worth visitin'. It helped me separate the wheat from the chaff, or so I thought. In reality it meant that there were only two places I could go to in the whole of London town.

Cha yen (or what was left when I remembered to take a picture)

Needless to say I got very excited when I discovered that the Lodd Thai Imbiss, a stone's throw from my house, is worth a visit according to my own rule. When you order, they ask you how hot you like your food which is VERY Thai indeed. So is the inside of the place: tacky, slightly random and crammed full of pictures of colourful cocktails, elephants, flowers and the King. (There will always be a picture of the King. The Thai are extremely royalist.)

I know other people have visited this place and found it average. I liked it because they made the food from scratch (I could see into the kitchen), using fresh ingredients. They did tasty things to my tofu which is always a plus in my book, and the food was exactly the kind of hot I ordered. Oh, and the soup bowls were cute.

I'm sure there are better Thai restaurants in town (there will certainly be posher ones). But at least I won't ever have to go to that horrible Jasmin place on Hermannstraße again.

Lodd Thai Imbiss, Boddinstraße 65, 12053 Berlin