A Kitchenlander day in Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Or München, that is.

It was the same weekend of our Salzburg day, the two cities are so close, that it made sense to cross another border and see.

We arrived late in the morning, found a hotel a little out of the center, where fares were prohibitive, we relied on old, good Best Western.

The day before the kids had been really good, not questioning too much the fact that we had walked all day and had been to castles and museums, so we decided to take a boyish look at the city.

That means that we only took a quick look at the city center, and by the way, little did we know that they take Whit Sunday so seriously there, so all the shops and the ViktualienMarkt were closed.



As for meals, we decided to make a minitour of local breweries. Which are local, but also very well known out of town because as you know, the Bavarians know a lot about beer and make sure that the world knows they know.

A lot of beer factories have their own little restaurant (Biergarten), with a choice of a few dishes that complement the beer they produce and serve.



Our first stop was on the way from the hotel to the center, and it was Löwenbräu. A nice garden, a beautiful day, we decided to eat outside.




They will tell you to sit at a table provided with tablecloth. I discovered later that you can also bring your own food and use a table without cloth, as long as you order your drinks.



The food is simple and typical, mainly pork meat, wieners and different kinds of sausages

And that's what we had, a "Löwenbräu Classics" for me



which is a crispy roasted pork belly with potato-cucumber salad and dark beer sauce

and some "Sausage Specialities" for my men



a platter with a variation of sausage specialities with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and horseradish.
Goes without saying, we shared a bit of everything.

I loved the presentation of their mustard



At the end of the meal we ordered one portion of apple strudel, always because I was just done with the Strudel Challenge.



Better than the one I had in Salzburg, yet not completely satisfying. Maybe because it was drowning in that vanilla sauce.

One funny thing (at least to us, it's probably normal) is the closet where the pitches of regular customers are held



A note about the beer: it's very light indeed, and pleasant to drink; I usually feel the buzz in a short time, with this I didn't. I bet they don't want loads of drunk people walking around in the middle of the day!

We spent the afternoon at the Olympiapark, visiting the stadium and enjoying the view from the Tower:



For dinner, we headed to the Augustiner Brewery



The place was packed with people, it took a while to even ask someone if we could sit. We sat at a table with another family, and took in all the festive atmosphere that was in there. The 6yo didn't like the noise too much, but the 4yo... oh! he absolutely loved the place, the waitresses in their dirndls, the brass band playing



He could only stand up and dance! Oh, and he would also steal the notepad from every waiter's pocket he could see, thus messing the orders up.
We are not telling him about the existence of something like that, only multiplied for 10.000, just because I don't think it would be nice to bring a 4yo at the Oktoberfest!

It was a bit late to have a real dinner, though, just some cheese and snack, but very funny indeed!

The morning after we went for a visit at the BMW Welt



What wouldn't I do for my kids!



Well, they had fun.

On our way back home, we thought we would have something on the road.

But then we saw the Paulaner Brewery and well...



This was by far the best beer we had in the weekend, unfiltered, complex in taste, enjoayable, really good. We're actually buying it regularly at the supermarket, now.

I had a vegetable strudel



with broccoli, turnips, carrots, cheese in a sauce of cauliflower and chives and topped with fried arugula. I must say, this time I was really satisfied, it was tasty, filling yet light.

Hubby wasn't so light, going for a Braten G'Rosti



Pan fried meat with knodeln, onions and eggs.

As for the kids



They would live out of cold cuts, so they are easy to please.


And that was the end of it, our last Bavarian meal was indeed the best. It's always nice to close a holiday this way, we'll be back for sure!

To the next trip!

A Kitchenlander day in ... Salzburg, Austria.

This is the Kitchenlandish side of a day in Salzburg, Austria.

We arrived late in the afternoon, after a rather adventurous journey, with weather spanning from unbearable heat to snow! In June! So we stayed in the hotel for dinner.
Maybe not very typical, but I got a nice and light meal with spinach palachinkas (kind of crepes) in a gorgonzola sauce:



I wouldn't be bothering to write about this if I didn't find the pairing very well chosen, and it's something quick and easy to make at home.

The day after, we were fresh and ready to discover the city.
Salzburg is Mozart's hometown, and you can never forget it: almost everything is about Mozart here (which is why we went, my 6yo can't quite get over the fact that the composer is dead).

So, one stop was at Mozart's birth house (Gebursthaus); deep inside I kind of questioned my recent buyings of nice kitchen tools, thinking that the meals that Wolfie had for the first seven years of his life were cooked in here



If a kitchen like that produced such genius, you don't want to know what will be of my two messy sprouts (I'm aware that Bree van deKamp should have taught me something!!).

The tour went on, there's another house, the one where the Mozart family moved when Wolfgang was seven, then we wandered around the city center.

Passing in front of a shop window, my eyes caught this cutie



"Hey, look at how they decorated this egg shell!"

"But hey, wait, there's more!"



"But we're in June, why did they have to make an Halloween themed window?"

As we lifted our eyes and got a more global view of the shop we were in front of, we realized that there was more



and more



The only thing the shop was selling were these real egg shells, painted, dressed and decorated with a patience that I won't have in 20 lives!
The massive quantity was really hard to register: I had never imagined to see so many eggs all together, let alone thinking of each one of those eggs being emptied and handled to produce that result! The price of the ones we checked spanned between 3 and 6.50 Euros (say between 5 and 11 USD), each.

So you can imagine my heart rate when I realized that these two



were actually those two!

Off we went, and for the first time since the kids are around we didn't stop for lunch, but hung out in a nice and tidy market, picking brezen and speck sandwiches



As for dessert, we were not far (well, the city center is pretty tiny, you are never far from anything) from the Stranz and Scio restaurant, which is famous for its "Capezzoli di Venere" (Nipples of Venus)



If you have seen the movie "Amadeus" (and if you have not, go see it! I mean, right now, I can wait!) these are the pralines that Salieri uses to convince Constanza to show him some of her husband's music sheets.
Their filling is of chestnut and nougat cream, with a drop of tart cherries jam and cognac.
They. Are. Goooood.



We spent the afternoon in the Hohensalzburg Castle, that overlooks the city, an impressive view and tour.

At night we had dinner at Gablerbrau, where the 6yo found a cutie 7yo girl from Kentucky to relieve the bore of waiting for dinner.

At Gablerbrau they have their own beer, like it often happens around there.



They like it unfiltered and they're quite right!

It seemed appropriate to order something that had the word "Salzburg" in it, so I went for a Salzburger Bierbrauerpfandl, that is "Salzburg beer brewer pan with roasted pork, farmer sausage, black pudding, sauerkraut, dumpling".



If only I didn't know how they make black pudding I would have probably eaten that, too, but I did, so I was content with the rest of the dish, cooked to perfection and with the right aromas.

My men went with wieners and fries



Just a few days before all this, the reveal day for Daring Bakers Challenge's Strudel had occurred; having seen all kinds of strudels from around the world, it was a no brainer to have it here.
I must say I wasn't completely satisfied, I wish it was cooked longer and less "robust".




We couldn't leave Salzburg without bringing with us a certain amount of Mozartkugeln, Mozart's balls. Not that you are at risk of forgetting, they are literally everywhere, even at greengrocers' shops.
In a spherical shell of chocolate you find a mix of praline creme, marzipan and pistachios, with different proportions according to the manifacturer.

They were invented by Paul Fürst in 1890, that is way after Mozart was gone.



The konditorei is still run by the Fürst family, and the kugeln are still hand made.

As it often happens, there are other versions, good as well even if industrially produced, as is the case of Mirabell Mozartkugeln, which are the most easy to find, popular even out of Austria, or Victor Schmidt's ones.



From left to right: Fürst's kugel, delicate and with a hint of marzipan, Mirabell's kugel, with a harder chocolate shell and a good balance of all flavours, Victor Schmidt's one, where marzipan is dominant.

If you have issues with spheres, Mirabell made it flat, too:



And after all this meat and chocolate bliss, may I offer you some digestive drink?



Chocolate cream, cocoa infusion and white chocolate liquors.

To the next trip!