Dinner and Jesus

Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany. Despite its size, it does not have a large culinary reach. As a former New Yorker, I miss the diverse restaurant choices. When we go to another new town, non-German- and Italian foods were the top of my list.

I had some great Indonesian food in Amsterdam.

In St. Petersburg we had delicious Korean food.

I wanted to have some really good Thai, Ethiopian or Korean food in Berlin.

I could not get a recommendation for a good Thai or Ethiopian, so they were off the list. Beate, the sister of my Hamburg friend, Anne, is my hero. She pointed me to Ixthys.

A Korean restaurant with a Greek name?!?

Ixthys is the Greek word for fish. I learned during my tour of the Catacombs in Rome that the fish and the vertical use of the word Ixthys came to symbolize Christ. This small Korean restaurant in Nollendorfplatz is run by two evangelical Christian women who create amazing Korean food.

The menu covers about eight pages and about three of them have food information on them. The rest are covered in information about Christianity and Bible verses. The restaurant has almost three entire walls covered in pieces of paper that are about six feet long and covered in Bible verses that will lead diners to Christ. I don't mind silent attempts at conversion.



The menu was notable because there are so few options on it. There was some noodle dishes and, of course, bibimbap and kimchi. A skinny menu is always a good sign that the food is going to be great. The chefs are going to give you their best food, not everything that they know how to make.

Another sign of the coming greatness was the dining room. It was similar to my mother's basement. There was two high tables, a picnic table and one traditional table for four. The rest of the room is taken up with a refrigerator for drinks and the empty bottles. That's it. The restaurant has one wall that is taken over with a window and the entrance, two white walls covered entirely in Bible verses, and a wall that has a few Bible verses and opens to the kitchen area where you walk to and give your orders directly to the chefs. The decor is an afterthought; the food is the focus.


Like I usually do at Korean restaurants, I ordered a serving of kimchi and bibimbap. The cabbage was spicy but the heat did not overpower flavor. The bibimbap was bursting with a variety of tastes. My adventurous German had a noodle soup with chicken. He deemed it excellent and better than the food in St. Petersburg -- the first time he had Korean food. Altogether, the two entrees, kimchi, and two sodas cost 17 euros.

It was a great find (sorry no website).