Just another day in Munich…

On the Saturday after my offal fest we wondered around Munich and checked out a couple of museums. We managed to find our way to the English Garten, which is a big park with open fields, a stream, and plenty of paths sprinkled throughout.



It also has a pagoda with a biergarten nearby. So not wanting to be rude guests, we stopped at the biergarten for lunch.



We just had a couple of sausages and some kraut along with a liter of Hofbrau bier.



After this we sort of roamed around a bit and looked at the buildings. Eric had to go back to the hotel for some reason, so Joe and I went to another museum. We had agreed that we would call each other around 6:00 PM and we would decide where to have dinner.

After Joe and I were kicked out of the museum*, we walked back towards the center of town. As we were walking I wasn’t really paying any attention to where we were. I guess that I had sort of lost track of where we were. I didn’t think that Joe had been to this area before, so I didn’t want to panic him when I realized where we were. I looked up and saw a familiar object.

“Joe, do you know where we are?”

“Not really.”

“Do you realize what that is up ahead?” I asked.

“What?”

The poor kid didn’t see it yet.

Now I’m trying to think up a good way to break this to him. “Do you see that sign up there on the corner?” Something was blocking his view. As we got a little closer, it started to come into view for him.

“See that? Do you know what that means?”



“I think so” he said.

“You do realize that we really should stop here, right? I mean we can call Eric from here. This is a perfect meeting place!”

“OK”



Once inside we found a couple of seats at a table alongside two German couples. It took us a while to get in touch with Eric, and shortly after he arrived we decided to eat here.

The Weisses Brauhaus was, of course, the location where I had eaten the sauered kidneys the day before. Today I had pretty much decided that I would stick with something a bit less visceral. There was a page inserted into the menu with several “seasonal” items that were available “for a short time only”. Thinking that they must be fresh, I began to concentrate on this sheet.

One item in particular grabbed my attention. It was “glassiert schwan-something”. I understood the glazed part (glassiert) and knew that a Schwann was a swan. Now I have never heard of anyone eating swan, but I’m sure it could be done. I have eaten a number of animals (or parts of animals) since I’ve been in Europe that are not traditionally thought of as foodstuffs in the good ole USA. How bad could it be?

Eric and Joe got their meals before I did. When the woman came over to the table with my plate, I immediately knew that I had screwed up this translation. I looked at Eric and said,

“This is not at all what I was expecting.”

The German woman to my left began laughing hysterically. I looked at her and tried to explain my confusion, even pointing it out to her on the menu. She just kept laughing. The gentleman opposite us at the table told me that this was a very traditional Bavarian meal. I assured them that it was OK, and proceeded to dive into my meal.



My meal, in case you can’t tell from the above picture, was a plate of, what must have been at least 10, pig tails. I dug right in, and did not give them the satisfaction of seeing the slightest bit of fear on my face. After the second one, the gentleman on the other side of the table asked me how I liked it. I told him that it was really quite good. And they were. Well, at least the first half dozen were. I gave one to Eric, and left one on the plate. There were just too many of them.

The tails themselves have very little meat on them, and are mainly fat and skin around the end of the spine. I was eating them with my hands, like one might eat a cob of corn. The two women at the table were staring in disbelief the whole time. I kept offering them one, but they would only howl, “NOOOOOOOOO!”

I think that the term schwan in the name was actually a Bavarian dialect and would be more proper if it was written as schwein. They were glazed though (so I got that part right), and by the end of the meal my hands were also glazed. If you’ve ever picked the meat from a couple of ham hocks, my hands felt very similar. They were covered in the remnants of the glaze, the fat, and the collagen from the skin and bones. i.e. they were a mess.

I went to the restroom and washed my hands three times before I used the facilities (and then once after).

I think I really like Munich.


I will post some more pictures from this trip soon…


* We were kicked out along with everyone else because it was closing time.