Eating and Drinking Our Way Through Munich

It's been a busy week with very little cooking so I figured now is good time to give my Munich update. We began our trip in Amsterdam, which I posted about here, and from there took the overnight train to Munich.  We spent most of our three days in Munich eating meat and hopping around to different bierhauses and biergartens, but also took a day trip to Füssen to see the picturesque Neuschwanstein Castle.

Now onto the food and beer.  


Our favorite beer stop was Augustiner Keller which is located right near the train station, it has a huge outdoor area and we happened to be there on a beautiful day.  Augustiner beer was our favorite in Munich and the currywurst with french fries was pretty tasty as well. 

We of course made the obligatory stop at Hofbrauhaus (okay maybe we stopped here a few times).  It's a fun and lively atmosphere with big beers and live Bavarian music nightly.  We had some more sausage there, as 
well as pork and potato dumplings. Oh man, did I love the potato dumplings.

Sticking with the biergarten's, we also spent some time wandering through Englischer Garten, where we came across Chinesischer Turm biergarten.  It was huge, and so were the pretzels.

In addition to the large biergarten/bierhalls that you read about in all of the books, there are plenty of smaller random places around the city where you should definitely stop.  I'm confident they all have good beer.  A recommended dinner stop is Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom, it's right next to the twin domed Frauenkirche (near Marienplatz).  We enjoyed the outside atmosphere, and of course the food.  I ordered a quarter duck (because it came with a potato dumpling and as I mentioned, I fell in love with them in Munich) and more sausage for the husband. 

If you are in the mood for something a little nicer, I would highly recommend the Spatenhaus (the opera goers' bierhall).  We had finished up our tour of the Royal Palace and were caught in a downpour so randomly ended up at the Spatenhaus across the street.  I've never been happier to be caught in a downpour, we ordered way too much delicious food, and of course enjoyed the beer.  For appetizers we had Bavarian Potato Soup to warm up from the rain and an Asparagus special that was loaded with tomatoes, egg and bacon (I will be re-creating this one).  For the main course we had veal meatballs with cognac pepper sauce and creamy veal goulash with mushrooms.  This was definitely not the goulash my mom made growing up.  I still have dreams about this meal.

And just for some more random meat and sausage.

  

Yes, we ate all of this in three days, along with taking in many liters of beer.  We ate well and had an amazing time, but I was definitely ready for some wine and sushi when we got home.  A special thanks to our friend (and Munich expert) Danny Finnegan for all of his advice and expertise!  Thanks to Rick Steves as well as his Munich, Bavaria, and Salzburg book helped us navigate our way around without speaking more than two words of German.