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Restaurants
Munich is a culinary paradise for gourmets and for all those who like traditional cuisine. There are many Bavarian restaurants, taverns and eateries which serve the good old Bavarian food with dumplings, loads of meat and sausages and cabbage, especially sauerkraut. Even cafes and bars usually have a menu where they offer some solid snack, a nice breakfast or a Bavarian “Brotzeit”. But of course also Munich could not hold off international influences. Like most of the bigger cities Munich has an abundance of international restaurants from Italian, French and Greek to Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Mexican. But there are also some exotic places such as Afghan, Arabian or African. Although Munich is divided in many quarters there is no part in the city where you won’t be able to fill your stomach. Some of the restaurants are very fancy and expensive and need a special appearance. Others are very popular and usually need a reservation to avoid disappointment. But even if all restaurants are packed there are many snack bars where you can get something to eat round the clock.
Bavarian Cuisine
Bavarian cuisine has mainly rural origins therefore it is a very solid one with a lot of meat and roast dishes, dumplings and confections of pastry. The closeness to Bohemian and Austrian cooking cannot be denied. Old Bavaria was all the time very close to its Austrian neighbours not only in language, culture and politics but also in the preparation of food. Today there are many similarities to Swabian and Frankish cooking. A special tradition in Bavaria is the “Brotzeit” a solid snack that was usually eaten between breakfast and lunch. A classical starter is soup for example Grießnockerlsuppe (soup with semolina dumplings), Backerbserlsuppe (soup with soup pearls in beef stock), Leberknödelsuppe (dumplings made from liver) or Schwammerlsuppe (soup made from mushrooms). There are many more varieties of soup and it is actually very common in traditional restaurants that soup is the only starter on the menu.
The most famous main dish is probably Schweinshaxn (knuckle of pork) which are served with dumplings and sauerkraut. Another nice dish are Maultauschen which are a kind of pasta filled with minced meat and spices. The solid food also includes many sausages like blood sausage and liver sausage but the best known Bavarian sausage is without doubt the Bavarian veal sausage. These sausages are often eaten just like Tellerfleisch (cooked beef with horseradish and chive) as a snack between breakfast and lunch. Apart from beef Bavarians like venison which is also quite expensive despite the Bavarian forests. Favourable dishes are ragout from hare or deer as well as dishes made from pheasant, wild duck or wild pigeon. Also a delicacy is bowels. But there are also some nice sweet dishes like Germknödel (yeast dumplings filled with plum butter, poppy seed and vanilla sauce), Kaiserschmarn (cut pancakes with sugar and raisins) or Zwetschgenknödel (potato dumplings served with sugar and cinnamon, vanilla sauce and a plum in the middle).
Munich’s cuisine has been always a bit different from the cuisine of the rural population While farmers could only afford meat on Sundays the urban population had a high percentage of meat in their diet. Especially roast veal used to be very popular. During the 19th century potatoes found their way into Munich’s city cuisine but nevertheless, yeast dumplings were the mainly used side dish.
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