Trip to Germany

I travelled to Germany on business a while ago, and I wanted to make a quick post of some of the meals I had there. I went to Hannover and Osnabrück in Lower Saxony to be more precise.

Some of you might know that I lived nearly ten years in Germany. I studied at the University of Cologne, and had some of the best times of my life there. I sometimes miss Germany, and now I hadn't been back for a couple of years before this trip, but it still always feel like coming back home.

I was especially keen to see how the vegan and vegetarian scenes have developed in the meanwhile, and of course there has been great progress. The offering of vegetarian products in supermarkets is very versatile, and even the most traditional restaurants tend to have a few vegetarian and even vegan options on their menus. There were also several purely vegetarian or vegan restaurants and cafés in the area. I wish I would've had time to visit all of them.

This time I went for some more traditional comfort grub in a brew house, like Spätzle egg noodles with cream and cheese. Here are some of the dishes I had during my trip. I must say that I have also missed those prices, eating out was so cheap there and the portions were huge! 

So this is the enormous Spätzlepfanne I almost managed to eat fully. It was so tasty and creamy with those crispy fried onions on the top.

 

Here are some scenes from downtown Osnabrück.

 

I had to return to the Rampendahl brew house on another day for their excellent beers and to taste the mushroom loaded baked potato, which was just amazing.

I had a couple of Greek meals as well during the trip. This one is from Hannover with a tsatziki and bread starter, creamy mushroom bake and feta salad. Once again I couldn't finish it all, as it was just too much. This was also a very tasty meal.

 

Köln – Bremen – Düsseldorf

Here are some impressions from my holiday in Germany. Unfortunately I didn't have time to post anything while I was there, but wanted to share these photos with you now. I spent some time in the cities of Köln (Cologne), Bremen and Düsseldorf enjoying local food and drink. The autumn colours were beautiful everywhere and the weather lovely autumnal. I could have easily stayed longer, but it was time to return home and back to work.

In Köln we had nice walks around the cathedral and the Rhine and drank of course some Kölsch. I lived in Köln for nearly ten years and studied and worked there, so it will always be a very special place to me. It's quite different going back there as a tourist though.

My brother lives in Bremen with his family so this was mainly a family visit and I got to play with my nephew and his trains. We went to the annual fair Ischa Freimaak and on a stroll in the old town.

The last destination of the trip was a short day visit to Düsseldorf before our flights, where we watched the sunset in the media harbour by Rhine, admired the modern architecture there and drank mulled wine Glühwein.

German street food and drink

If I once more may return to my holiday experiences in Germany, I would like to write about the German street food and drink culture. Obviously in Bremen there was loads street food in the offer as the big fair took place. I have already written here about Ischa Freimaak! In this post I'm also referring to my old recipes, as it seems that I have already posted several recipes for these German “street classics”. What I am noticing, is that German street food has still remained quite traditional, not much has changed since my days. There are fried mushrooms with garlic sauce, fried cauliflower, pizza, crêpes, brezel, poffertjes, donuts etc. I think in large cities a different kind of street food movement is already noticeable, for example in Hamburg's Markthalle in the Speicherstadt. It's a covered food market with amazing international food, and many vegetarian alternatives as well.

I enjoyed some local vegetarian delicacies like Reibekuchen, potato fritters with apple sauce, of which I have also published a recipe here. Then I tasted a novelty potato dish, potato spiral in beer batter. These were both very tasty dishes, yet quite rich on deep-fry fat. A little bit of beer was needed to wash them down. 

Vegetarian Flammkuchen I love, and it's more and more often available as a quick snack to go. I sometimes make my own veggie Flammkuchen, and you can find my flame cake recipe here. 

There are more than enough exquisite sweet alternatives to eat, and the Lebkuchen hearts are of course one of the classics. Unfortunately this time I wasn't so much in the mood for sweet dishes.

During the holiday I also started the Glühwein season by drinking the first mulled wine of the autumn outdoors. Drinking mulled wine outdoors is one of my favourite pastimes for this season and I'm so thrilled about the fact that Christmas markets will open soon! It was also possible to drink beer and wine at street stands (of course in Germany!), and actually the weather was really nice for that on couple of days.

I would like to hear about your experiences of German street food culture. Do I have any German readers who have more idea of the current trends?

Northern German Brauhaus tour

When in Germany, remember to enjoy the local beer! This was my motto for my holiday in Hamburg and Bremen. I went to several pubs and I preferred the brewery pub types. The service is excellent in these places, it's so refreshing to get service to the table even if you are just drinking and not eating. Unfortunately the food tends to be very traditionally German, meaning that there aren't many vegetarian options.

Here are short introductions to the brewery pubs I visited. Unfortunately I didn't write down any specific tasting notes of the beers, as I just wanted to have a relaxing time. I can assure you that all beers were excellent.

Brauhaus Joh. Albrecht in Hamburg 

We bumped into this place more or less accidentally when looking for nice places to spend the first evening. It turned out to be a great comfortable place to spend a few hours, and the beer was excellent too! I tried both main beer variations: Helles, light beer (referring only to the colour, not the alcohol or calorie content) and Dunkles, dark ale.

Apart from Hamburg there are Brauhaus Joh. Albrechts in Bielefeld, Düsseldorf, Soltau and Konstanz too.

Gröninger Privatbrauerei Hamburg 

I think Gröninger was my favourite among all the brewery pubs I visited this time. The atmosphere was wonderful and the historic cellar was a really beautiful and cosy place. I really liked the service, which was very friendly everywhere we visited, but especially here. We tried Gröninger Pilsener and Weizen. I'm not a big fan of wheat beer, but I was educated by my better half that that was a particularly good Weizen.

We also got a local liqueur recommended by the waitress and of course tried it. It was Hamburg's very own Helbing Kümmelschnaps, a caraway seasoned liqueur, spicy yet surprisingly mild at 35 %. Even I can drink that without twitching my face! 

Hofbräu München in Hamburg 

Hofbräu Brauhaus brings a little bit Munich to Hamburg. This is a huge pub with Bavarian flair, it's full of long tables and the beer is served in huge tankards. I wanted to include this Brauhaus to this post although it represents southern German beer culture. All German beer sorts are very qualitative and brewed according to the German purity law Reinheitsgebot, which means that any German beer can only include three ingredients: water, malt and hops. Thinking of that, the variety in tastes is amazing.

Gasthausbrauerei Schüttinger Bremen 

Schüttinger is the only pub in Bremen that I visited this time. I only had an afternoon beer break in this place, but it would have been good to stay longer and to see what goes on in the evening. Around lunchtime the place was fairly empty, only some tourists were drinking there, which made it a nice and tranquil dark cellar, a place to relax and get away from the busy shopping streets.

What are your experiences from the German Brauhaus type of pubs? Have you been, or would you like to go? What do you think about German beers in general?