Nothing says München Hofbräuhaus or Munich like beer.
Not beer as it’s served in the states, but serious beer, always draft, helles or dunkeles, in mass quantities. Let’s just say after one of these babies, you shouldn’t drive. After two, you may need an alternate form of conveyance.
Zwei und ein halb Mass Bier
The Hofbräuhaus epitomizes large quantities of beer, brought quickly and consumed readily. Tristan, Ericka and I recommend the original which has a nice clean bitter taste that refreshes one’s thirst after a long walk.
Mustard – our two tickets to pretzel and beer heaven
It also goes well with one of the large pretzels that you may buy separately (about €3) which taste especially good with the mustard. The pretzels are so big that four can snack on them easily.
Tristan enjoying a liter (Mass) beer at the HB
The atmosphere inside is the typical bräuhaus arched ceiling that one would say gives it that special Bavarian gemütlichkeit. A German word used to express cozi- or hominess, or when one is warm and comfortable. That along with the 5-member brass ompa-band only adds to its charm.
Ahhh, good to the last drop, noch ein bitte!
The food is also very good. I tried the mixed salad, a Bratwürst on sauerkraut and potato salad and all were delicious.
Ericka translating the menu for her mom
Ericka and Patti tried the Bratwürst too, but with the mixed season vegetables and were pleasantly surprised when there was no meat in them.
We would consider the Hofbräuhaus a very tasty and necessary stop for anyone visiting Munich.
Tonight we enjoyed dinner at the Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom, that again offered the bratwurst platters and other regional specialities.
Die Frauenkirche, München at night
The restaurant lays at the foot of the Frauenkirche. It is of course kind of a tourist trap, but the food is good.
My bavarian dinner
I ordered the Schweinhaxe and a side salad. The boiled dough is fairly heavy, so I could only eat one. But the meat was very good and the side salad has a potato salad surprise at the bottom.
My Bavarian dinner, consumed
As you can tell, I didn’t enjoy it at all.
Regardless, we decided on dessert and ordered Apfelkücherl with cinnamon and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This of course forced us to pay before we ate anymore and then walk all the way back to the hotel in order to settle our stomach, even though we possessed a train group pass for the next few days.
The Nürnberger Bratwurst Glöckl am Dom in the evening
The subject restaurant is an inconspicuous hole in the wall that one would never think noted for its food. But it is worth every star it has on google and trip-advisor.
The quaint and cozy atmosphere inside is by no means palatial, it is made even smaller looking by all the woodwork. The confused decorum adds to this feeling, perhaps the owner’s attempt to appeal to the cafe, beer hall (evident by the pull down screen and beamer) and restaurant crowds.
Tristan waiting for food
However, for simple fare with an authentic chef’s twist it is difficult to beat!
Erick and Tristan’s Würstchen platterPatti’s Leberkäse platter
The wurst platter with sauerkraut and potato salad was just what a sausage lover would be looking for in a satisfying dinner. The Leberkäse, a regional speciality, turned out to be a bit less exciting and compared more to a meatloaf made out of hotdogs. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
My preferred route to a diabetic coma – Apfelstrüdel
The Apfelstrüdel was of course a triumph and paired with a Macallans, I enjoyed every mouthful.
4.5 stars ?
Erick and Patti at Lollo Rosso – photo taken with my old selfie-stick arm
The passed few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity finding an apartment in Turin and moving in. There were not only the customary contractual things to take care of, but also cleaning and furnishing the place to our liking. Luckily, we found something that mostly fit our desires while still being in the central part of town (Via Giovanni Giolitti.) However, it took several trips to IKEAand other sojourns to bring it to a point where we could move out of our AirBnB.
Just this past Friday, fairly exhausted, the three of us, Patti, Tristan and I left Turin for Frankfurt, Germany, after finally getting the apartment halfway straightened out and liveable (there will be another blog entry on that later once we have it completed.) The trip from Turin to Milan was more or less uneventful, although happily very fast and on time, thank you FrecciaRossa!
Leaving the Swiss Alps behind as we enter Thun
As we have in the past, we decided on taking the train from Milan to Frankfurt instead of flying. A seven hour journey between the two points (perhaps two hours more than flying), but relaxing in first class with its beverage service and other amenities, made the trip all that more enjoyable. Riding through the Italian and Swiss Alps, especially after the recent heavy snows, also made it a memorable site-seeing trip.
Train platform at Thun
Though of no particular importance as an attraction, the platform sign for Thun is shown above.
My fascination with this train stop has more to do with the John Le Carre’s 1982 BBC series “Smiley’s People“, than with any real, first hand experience of the place. In the movie, a soviet diplomat assumes another identity while in Thun, to remove money from a bank account setup by his Soviet operatives. Since I had never heard of the place, I became curious about its location and then subsequently surprised when one day a train that I was taking actually passed it! I guess it demonstrates just how small the world really is in a way.
Oberschweinstiege Restaurant and Blockhutte
After spending a relaxing weekend with our daughter Ericka, we decided to visit one of the restaurants that we enjoyed immensely on our last visit. After having snow flurries that morning, and a very intolerable forty something degrees that evening for North Carolinians, we took the regional train from Offenbach am Main to Frankfurt Süd, and subsequently Strassenbahn 18 to the park. Unbeknownst to us, Strassenbahn 18 dropped us some 2 km distant from our objective, which forced us to walk for an additional twenty minutes through the park.
Trails in the Naturpark in Frankfurt am Main Süd
The Oberschweinstiege, nestled in the naturpark in Frankfurt am Main Süd, sports a long tradition of local cuisine. It is also repleat with local history and traditional, which anyone can find and read with a proper internet search.
Tristan and Patti’s Rumpsteak vom Argentinischen Rind with vegatables and grilled potatoes
As can been seen by the photograph above the rump roast was thick, juicy and tender. Complimented with a Pauliner Hefe or local wine, an enjoyable meal anywhere.
Oberschweinstiege-Pfanne
I, on the other hand, decided to go with the establishment’s main dish. A hot frying pan of rendered pig with spaetzle!
Rinderroulade nach Großmutters Art
Lastly, Ericka had the grandmother’s roast beef roladen with red cabbage and spaetzle.
Of course, no meal is complete without dessert. But this of course was nothing special since each went to their own comfort food. I chose the apple strudel, Ericka chose creme brulee and the others chose ice cream. All in all, a great evening of eating, compounded by our success getting on Strassenbahn 17, the correct train, which picked us up, but a few hundred meters from the restaurant’s door, instead of a mile away..!
Well it has been a while since we last gave an update on what’s going on. And the fact of the matter is, not much, even though Patti and I are exhausted. First things first and consider it preliminary, retirement is just f***** awesome. But we’ll talk about sleep patterns and dreams later at another time.
View from bedroom window, into courtyard
Aside from doing a lot of work cleaning our new apartment and all that entails, and of course shopping for those things you don’t have, but just need, we have been desperate for food every afternoon. Most places open for lunch at 12 or 12:30 and again we have turned to pizza as our salvation occasionally.
Pizza Ad Hoc – thin crust pizza
Pizza Ad Hoc is right down the block from us and offers a simplified menu which includes great tuna salads, piedmontese hamburger (read no bun here, but really good bread) and an especially thin version of pizza seen above that is just awesome. This happens to be my preferred kind of pizza, short on the dough, tall on the fixings.
Of course as I have already alluded to, shopping has been a major time waste lately. Including, but not confined to traveling just outside the city to IKEA.
IKEA with the Italian Alps with fresh snow in background
After several shopping excursions here and several online, we abandoned future trips, to more accessible stores closer to our new home. Including a cheaper, but nonetheless excellent pizza place three blocks away, called Pizza Vittorio, its pizza is comparable to Red Baron pizza, in thickness.
Pizza Vittorio personal pizza – YUM
Served as a personal-sized pizza, around 10 or 12 inches, it was served with whatever toppings you want, if on the menu. For example, wurstel is hotdog and margherita is with tomato sauce, basil and cheese. Though the place was very simple, probably for the younger crowd since the walls had places to write on with chalk, it was quite good. All in all another great place to eat, which I would definitely recommend. Our total bill for two, including beer (1 liter Becks), came to 13€.
Yesterday we took an Irish respite after a long walk to eat lunch at a pub on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II called The Huntsman. The weather was somewhat on the cool side, but we still availed ourselves the great open air store fronts many restaurants have in Europe, and this pub was no exception.
The Huntsman main bar
As with anything Irish, the inside didn’t look like much and we were not disappointed. The main bar was well worn and the tables and surroundings showed years of vigorous use. Either the Italians themselves allow for a good Irish pub night out regularly, or there are plenty of international travelers of Northern European and U.S. persuasion visiting the area, or a bit of both.
In any case having been to Ireland, our somewhat home away from home country, one of us felt it incumbent to test the veracity of the Guinness. We were actually wondering if the silky chocolate texture and flavor would survive dispensing from an Italian establishment. For such an analytic task, Tristan agreed to take one for the team and give it a try.
Tristan enjoying an authentic Guinness moment
After some delay, Tristan noted the bartender getting our drink order together. He remarked, “Let’s see if they draft the Guinness like they do in Ireland?” He even noted the long pause they allow the brew to settle there when we visited the factory last year. As can be seen by his first gulp of the viscous beverage above, he confirmed and was not disappointed with the results.
I on the other hand went with the Grimberger Blonde. A safe bet, when considering every other time I have had it, it always tasted great. Aside from the fact it does not depend on nitrogen to be dispensed correctly like Guinness, it always comes through with a nice clean taste and finish. Though I will say, when dispensed properly you cannot beat a Guinness!
The rest of experience only consisted of typical Irish pub food. A mixed salad for Patti, a hamburger and fixings for Tristan and I stuck with the panini with a side order of fries. All in all worth the 3.7 the tavern is weighted on google.
Yesterday we went to this “sweets” event. We had never seen so many different types and “flavors” of chocolate in one place. We bought dark chocolate hazelnut bark and pistachio “chocolate”. It has the smoothness and texture of chocolate, but is made with pistachios…delicious! Turin is known for its chocolate.
Many booths of sweets to choose from
Pistachio cremini artigianali and many other flavors
Sacher Torte
A “rice krispy” type bar
Chocolate-covered dried fruit
Bark chocolate
They give out samples too. I had a rum chocolate ball that had enough rum in it to make me drunk!
Easter chocolates too
Erick hanging out in an alley ?
We finished the day, walking through the city with a gelato in hand!
When Erick and I visited Turin last Fall, we decided to visit the Mole Antonelliana; home of the Cinema Museum with sweeping views of the city. Unfortunately, while the museum was open, the elevator to enjoy the views was closed due to renovations. Instead, we decided we would visit, when we moved here.
Last Tuesday we attempted to return, but again we failed. The museum is closed on Tuesdays.
On Thursday, we were finally able to see the Cinema Museum and although it was a hazy day, the view of the Alps was “postcard-like”. The museum’s construction began in 1863 and was originally meant to be a synagogue. The exhibits are organized on various levels starting with the Archeology of Cinema, to digital technology.
We ended our day with lunch at Pizzeria da Michele.
Our tickets for the museum/lift
The elevator to the top. We were sardines in a can. Views were visible from all 4 sides, so if you don’t like heights, would not recommend.
View at the top
Multi-level Exhibits
Video with “lights”. I will have to post on Facebook for the video to work.
Does anyone know what movie this creature is from?
We landed early this morning at Malpensa/Milano airport, then on to Milano via TrenNord and finally Torino via the FrecciaRossa 1000. Due to conditions beyond our control, our Airbnb host was delayed until 1 p.m. That forced us to remain at the Porta Susa train station for an hour and a half. But, as we arrived on foot to Antonio’s front door, he pulled up with his car right on time.
We spent the next hour or so discussing with Antonio what our objectives were in Torino, how we selected the city, and lastly, how to go about renting an apartment. Our host appears to be a kind person and very concerned with helping us navigate the tricky waters of high Italian rental contracts and all of their associated taxes and costs. We have welcomed any assistance he can provide.
The rest of the afternoon we spent resting.
Pizza!!! Yum…
We ventured out later this evening for something to eat, having skipped lunch we were all starving. Supper at “di Michi” Pizzeria was great and inexpensive. We ordered 14 inch pies, one melanzane and two prosciutto, for 6€ each ($7). Some beer and salad and we were satisfied.
It is now around 9 p.m. and time for more sleep, stay tuned…
