Day 2 in Munich started with the arrival of the 4th member of our party, Roy. (The third member of our party, Nick, had arrived late the night before.) Roy was pretty hungry after his flight from Philly (actually, Roy is usually hungry. He's a big guy and spurred us in looking for food much of the trip) so we set off to find the Hofbrahaus. Nick had spent about a day in Munich for a layover the week before, and he had scoped out the Hofbrahaus and knew he wanted to go there.
So it turns out that the Hofbrahaus is actually a famous biergarten in Munich. And it was huge. It had an enormous interior plus an outdoor garden and a second floor. Here's a pic of the interior. It was also packed with soccer fan and there a ton of Australian fans present, the aptly named Socceroos (since Australia was playing Brazil that day in Munich). In the interior pic, you'll notice the blown up kangroo in the background. There were lots of those all over place.
Ok, I'm gonna try a new thing here by adding video to my blog. So this is some footage of those Socceroos singing and dancing to a live German band inside the Hofbrahaus.We decided to sit outside, since it was a lovely day and really, it was just way too hot and loud on the interior. So here's a pic of the outdoor seating area.
Of course, everyone else also wanted to sit outside, so we really had to fight for our seats. And after about 15 minutes, Nick was able to secure us a table. So here are Rudy and Roy posing with the menu.
We started off by ordering beers. And I had a great Radler, my drink of choice in Germany. (well, in addition to orange Fanta. I allowed myself to drink one a day. The formulation is different in Europe and it just tastes better there. More like Orangina. The one in the U.S. tastes more like Sunkist). The beers came in enormous liter sizes. Here are Roy and Rudy with theirs.
I was pretty wary of German menus after my bacon experience the previous night. So while the boys ordered sausages and such, I stuck with seafood. Even though I really didn't know what I had ordered (other than the fact that it was some type of fish, I felt much safe about my choice). So luckily, I also got a salad with my lunch:
And here's my fish.
It appeared to be some type of white fish, that had been pan fried and served with potatoes. This wasn't the greatest fish in the world. But of course, what did I expect, I was at a biergarten in Munich, ordering food without pork. I was just happy to have something I would eat. And i did like the herb butter on top. Meanwhile, they guys enjoyed their pork and sausages in all various forms. Here they are below:
After lunch, we set off to attend the game at the Allianz Arena right outside of Munich. We had a fantastic time. And became fans of the Australian team. Despite losing the game, they really played a great match against the Brazilians and we loved that. We waited a couple of hours around the arena afterwards, waiting for the Metro to clear before we headed back into the city, so we were pretty hungry by the time we got back to Munich.So of course we had to visit another biergarten post-game. This time we went to the Weisses Brauhaus.
I'd found this biergarten in one of my guidebooks and chose it because it was supposed to have lots of food. So I hoped for a greater variety of food options. Again, this was an enormous restaurant. All the seats outisde were occupied, so we made our way into the very back room that had a large number of Brazilian fans. They started off by serving giving us a basket of pretzels, and I 'm happy to say that these were much better than the pretzel I'd had the previous day.
Unfortunately, the restaurant was out of English menus. But they had menus in other languages. So Rudy got the French menu and I got the Spanish menu and I was actually able to understand what I was ordering. I was at a loss to find anything with chicken, though. And since I'd already had fish for lunch, I opted for another safe option, the vegetarian plate. Here it is.
It's a huge, generous portion of food (this being Germany, the veggies were still covered with cheese) but all the veggies were really over cooked, except the potatoes. They're good at potatoes in Germany. I did like the spatzle that came with it, though. and after picking my way through about a third of it, I'd had enough.Meanwhile, the boys decided to be the ultimate carnivores and order a huge platter of meat. This was clearly a thing for tourists. And even though it really was a lot of food (too much for the three of them to finish) the quality of the meat wasn't great. So next time, just order off the regular menu.
It'd be a long day. Lots of beer drinking and soccer watching. So we headed home (as Roy had two ice cream cones on the way back) to crash for the night and head off to Prague the following day.
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