What is wrong with this picture? Have you spotted it yet? Yes, it's the plate full of coffee creamer. Rarely a good thing in my book these little plastic pots, but when served up alongside a pot of tea? Yuk.
I'd heard that Berlin had recently had a big snowfall so I wasn't altogether surprised to see the entire city blanketed in white as my plane came in to land at Tegel Airport last week. But what did come as something of a shock was the eight inches of thick ice - still containing the residue of New Year's Eve fireworks - covering every pavement. Winters are always hard in Berlin but this was something else. Ice upon grit upon snow upon ice - well you get the picture. Undeterred Coffee Boy and I headed to the Mauerpark Flohmarkt the morning after we arrived. It's an enormous flea market held in a park where part of the wall used to run and sells everything from handcrafted baby clothes to bits of old electrical cable. In truth we were more interested in browsing than actually buying anything (sorry freezing stall holders) but did purchase some delicious caramel & mint licorice. After we'd had our fill of shuffling past the eclectic offerings we stopped to watch the intrepid sledgers on the steep hill in the park alongside - some of whom were reaching speeds that wouldn't look out of place in the Winter Olympics. By this stage we were thoroughly cold and decided that the best thing to warm us up would be a hot drink and perhaps a slice of cake.
Despite what some people may assume, there is a lot of good food to be had in Berlin. Sadly, if you're a vegetarian, traditional German cuisine doesn't have a lot to offer. True there is Flammkuchen – a kind of pizza without the tomato sauce – and Käsespätzle can be nice on a cold day, but if you're looking for variety you need to seek out the increasing number of good restaurants serving ethnic food. Although Berlin can't really compete with London on that score, I always make an effort to visit the type of restaurants that are a bit of a schlep for me to reach in the Big Smoke.
In Berlin, when the snow lays thickly on the ground, the temperatures are in the minus degrees and the wind whistles down wide streets biting into any part of you that's not wrapped in a military grade parka (a very welcome birthday present from my Mum & Dad), even going out for cake can be a big effort. Sometimes you just want to curl up with a book or a DVD box set and watch the snow through the window. 
It may not be trendy but I don't care. Where afternoon tea is concerned I'm quite happy to be a bit of an old fogey. I'm talking about one of my favourite spots for cake in Berlin, Opernpalais on Unter Den Linden. It's actually a restaurant that's open all day but it is, unsurprisingly, the afternoon tea I'm interested in. Of course it's more properly a kaffee und kuchen place but thankfully they have a really good choice of tea - and in truth their kaffee is not that fantastic, even Coffee Boy opts for tea so that gives you some idea...
