Sukie’s Cake Shop, Karlsruhe

For years I’ve been saying that what Karlsruhe needs is a place that serves a proper cream team. In fact, I’ve often joked that if I ever felt like a career change I would open an English café. It would serve full English breakfasts, sausage rolls, decent baked potatoes with fillings other than sour cream. It would be possible to order milk for your tea without being treated like an alien, or worse, given coffee creamer! Now it seems somebody has beat me to it 😉

I first heard about Sukie’s Cake SHop before it even opened – Annabelle from the Piri-Piri Lexicon (who also lives in Karlsruhe) sent me a photo of the window, which featured the words “English cakes” and “opening on 1st September”. Obviously I was intrigued. As it happened, I even walked by on the very day of the opening, but sadly I was in a hurry (and it was just before closing time) so I couldn’t pop in. I did look through the window though, and I liked what I saw. A trip to Sukie’s was definitely in order at some point in the future! On Saturday, that day finally came. Jan, my friend K (who is Scottish) and I met up at 4 p.m. and headed off to try out some English cakes.

The decorations were perfect – from the inspirational quotes stuck on the walls to the cute upside down teapot lampshades, pretty roses on the tables and various cake-themed items standing around. The café consists of two rooms – we sat in the one closest to the entrance.

I want a light like this for my kitchen!

Sukie

Pretty rose on our table

Pretty!

All the cakes on offer sounded delicious, but as I was still recovering from stomach problems, I decided to go with something “light”. Jan and I each chose a strawberry scone with clotted cream and jam. The scone looked more like a rock cake to me, but it tasted delicious! K had pumpkin pie, which I tried a tiny piece of and that, too, was very tasty. To drink, I choose a ginger and lemon tea. Jan went for Darjeeling and K had Irish Afternoon tea. Later, I had some Fentiman’s Dandelion & Burdock (I love that stuff!).

How cute is this teapot/cup?

A strawberry scone from Sukie’s

Yummy!

” 1 pot of tea, salmon and cucumber sandwiches, various small cakes e.g. Victoria Sponge, other small, tasty surprises”

Sukie, by the way, is the name of the owner’s dog and your four-legged friends are also welcome at the café. There are even home made dog treats available so they don’t have to miss out on the fun!

As we were leaving I took a photo of the board listing all the treats that come with the High Tea. I will definitely have to go back to try that! According to their Facebook page, a breakfast is also available on Saturdays and Sundays, consisting of Porridge, Bacon, Scones, Lemon Curd and more. I’m drooling just thinking about it!

You can find Sukie’s at Bahnhofstraße 13 (next to the Eden Hotel). For more information, see their Facebook page and website (both in German).

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Café Pan, Karlsruhe

On the first day of my brother’s visit, we decided to go out for brunch. I had been to Café Pan, an organic café and creperie, once before and really enjoyed it, but had then promptly forgotten its existence until it was reviewed on Karlsresource. They are closed on Sundays, which limits the opportunities for me to visit, but being off work during the week meant I could actually go there. On my first visit, we sat outside in the courtyard, but as it was raining off and on the day my brother and I went, we decided to see what it looked like inside.

Inside Café Pan

The menu mainly consists of numerous crepes, both sweet and savoury, but there are also cakes and a soup of the day. We, of course, opted for crepes. The savoury ones are made without egg and milk, so are suitable for vegans and those who are lactose intolerant. Sweet ones are not vegan friendly, but on request they will make a sweet crepe using the vegan batter from the savoury crepes. Here’s the list of sweet crepes, photo courtesy of my brother:

My brother went for the Schokolade crepe, which was topped with Nutella. Meanwhile, I decided to start my day with something savoury and had a spinach crepe, consisting of spinach (obviously), tomato and cheese… I asked for it without the egg.

Spinach crepe

To drink, we both opted for coffee, although various freshly squeezed juices were available. Maybe I’ll try one of those next time. My brother and I both thoroughly enjoyed our crepes and I will definitely be going to this café again… hopefully it won’t take me several years this time!

 

Bratar burgers and Bratwurst

Yesterday, after an afternoon spent clothes shopping (and not for me I might add – although I did get some new winter boots) Jan, me and a friend we had met in town decided to try out the new burger and Bratwurst restaurant that’s arrived in Karlsruhe. By “new” I of course mean it arrived some time in the summer and we hadn’t got round to trying it out yet…

The table we chose to sit at

The basic concept behind Bratar seems to be organic and local. The menu assured us that the pigs from the Bratwurst are kept in a manner appropriate to the species, with plenty of space and the right kind of food. They live in Schwäbisch Hall, which makes them local in the sense that it’s the same Bundesland (and there probably aren’t too many pig farms in the Karlsruhe area, to be fair).

All three of us chose to drink Alpirsbacher beer and eat a burger. The burgers come in three different sizes – single, double and triple. I chose the double burger, which was 300 g of beef! They also had turkey burgers, vege-burgers and a children’s beef burger, which I assume was smaller. All the burgers come with lettuce, tomato, onions and gherkin (I ordered mine without the gherkin) and you can then add extra ingredients yourself. The list of extra ingredients is fairly long and I’ve already decided I will have to go back to try out more combinations! This time I went for jalepenos, goat’s cheese and bacon. The bacon was grilled and very tasty, but I think another cheese would have been better in this combination… the mid taste of the goat’s cheese was pretty much drowned out by the generous portion of jalapenos. That was my fault though, nothing to do with the restaurant! You can also choose from three different types of bread bun, although I just went with the traditional burger bun that it comes with automatically. To go with my burger, I chose the rosemary potatoes, which were amazing! I love potatoes, and these ones were nice and crispy with just the right amount of rosemary. They came with a sour cream dip, which also contained rosemary and provided a nice contrast to the spiciness of the jalapenos.

My burger… please excuse the terrible photography!

The kitchen, which is in the middle of the restaurant, has glass walls so you can see inside. I saw some chips (fries) through the window as we were leaving and thought they looked tasty too… nice thick cut chips, not the barely there “fries” you get at McDonalds and co.! This is definitely the best burger I’ve had in Karlsruhe and I intend to go back some time.