[Editor Bob]

There are a few Munich bars and restaurants that usually offer Thanksgiving dinners. These are the Marriott Hotel, the Big Easy bar, the Munich Hard Rock Cafe, Piazza Linda, and Ned Kelly's Aussie Bar. Below are also some tips on where in Munich to find the necessary ingredients for cooking a Thanksgiving dinner at home. Also included, some top tips on the best way to cook your turkey.

See also the page on: British and American Foods in Munich

Piazza Linda is a restaurant and live entertainment venue in Schwabing. It's owned by an American lady and she usually hosts a Thanksgiving event: www.piazzalinda.de

Champions American Sports Bar and Restaurant in the Marriott Hotel has previously served Thanksgiving buffets. The Marriot is a 4 star American based hotel chain so you can be sure that the food will be top quality. Prior reservations are advised. Marriott Hotel Munich, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Tel. 089 36002862,www.marriott.com/mucno.

Ned Kelly's may be an Australian bar, but they seem to understand the true American tradition and usually host a dinner. Ned Kelly's Bar, Frauenplatz 11, Munich, Tel: 089 / 24 21 99 10, n-kellys.moonfruit.com.

The Big Easy bar in Munich-Neuhausen usually offers Turkey. Please reserve well in advance! Generally the Big Easy is a very respected restaurant/bar in Munich. A good night is usually had here any day of the year. The Big Easy, Frundsbergstr. 46, Munich, Tel. 089 15890253, TT's review of the Big Easy, www.thebigeasy.de

The Hard Rock Café usually offers a turkey dish all day on Thanksgiving. Reservations requested. Hard Rock Café, Platzl 1, Tel. 089 2429490. TT's review of Hard Rock Café, and www.hardrock.com.

Cooking your own Thanksgiving dinner and where to get Thanksgiving ingredients in Munich.

The Turkey

One very reliable source of turkey in Munich is at the butcher Höhenrainer on Viktualienmarkt. They're pricey, but no hormones, antibiotics, or animal meal, so very near organic. A 5 kilo (7 people) will cost something around €34. Very important to remember is that you need to order them a week in advance and pick it up on the day! The same applies to most butchers in Munich. If you turn up the day before Thanksgiving expecting to pick a Turkey immediately then you will be disappointed.

This being Europe you obviously need to order in Kilos, not pounds. You will also have to ask for the neck and gizzards when you are there, as they aren't naturally included.

Tenglemann also sell decent Turkey, although they're generally smaller.

Cranberries

The tradition, as every good American knows, to to get Cranberries where you slide them out of a can and they still have the can marks on them. Unfortunately such cans have never been seen in Munich.

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/cranberry-sauce.jpg[/img]

A terrific substitute for cranberry sauce is Preiselbeeren. Actually some people prefer it. Preiselbeeren are like tiny cranberries and you can find them as a berry-sauce-gelee in a glass.

Alternatively, you can make your own cranberry sauce! Viktualienmarkt has Ocean Spray fresh cranberries, they cost €4.50 for 350g. Galeria Kaufhof is rumoured to sometimes have them for slightly cheaper, but you can't always find them. To make the sauce do the following:

4 parts cranberries (fresh or frozen, but have never seen frozen in Munich)
2 parts sugar (use brown muscovado if you wanna be posh)
1 part port

Simple proportions. Cannot go wrong!

Dissolve the sugar in the port over a low heat. Add the cranberries, and cook for about 10 minutes or so, until the cranberries are soft and the sauce is thickening a little. Let it cool. Done.

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/cranberries.jpg[/img]

For an extra burst of port flavour, add a few drops more into the sauce after cooking, but before cooling. The amount of sugar can probably be modified a little. All depends how tart the cranberries are I suppose, but the above proportions are pretty foolproof. You could also grate a little orange zest (or just throw a couple of strips of zest in - but remove when sauce is cooked) into the port when the sugar is melting, or throw in a grated apple for a softer flavoured cranberry sauce.

The above sauce will also freeze pretty well, so if you don't do all the Thankgiving stuff, make some sauce early and freeze for your Xmas turkey!

Sweet Potatoes (aka Yams)

Hertie at the Hauptbahnhof has sweet potatoes (Süsskartoffel) -- not the same thing as yams, though many people call them that, and you'll probably be wanting the things that are orange when you scratch off a bit of the skin. Or try the ones that are white under the skin for a change. (Look both up on Wikipedia for the differences.) They are also available at the Viktualienmarkt and many regular grocery stores.

Canned Pumpkin

Last summer cans of Libby's pumpkin were seen at Käfer in Bogenhausen, near the produce. Probably not cheap, but much easier and just as good as trying to make it from scratch.

The above info was provided by: barbiejane, beesting, cinzia, elfenstar, Katrina, mysteryman, profundo, sally, Gen

Cooking a Turkey - instructions from Meister Chef Don Riina

Cooking a Turkey is really simple. People get scared about it because of horror stories involving people buying frozen turkeys, and not getting them out of the freezer early enough to thaw.

Basically, the simplest way to roast a turkey is as follows:

Get turkey, give it a clean inside and out, and dry with kitchen towels. Stuff the bird (this is only if you want stuffing of course, and yes I can also supply millions of recipes for that sort of thing, but just look on the web).

Smother the skin with butter. Remember that butter is hard in the fridge, so take some out 30 minutes before you wanna use it so it softens.

Put turkey in a roasting tin, breast side up (there is a school of though that says you should roast it on its back for half the time to produce a juicier meat, but forget it - the turkey will be butter basted anyway).

Weigh the bird, and put in into a roasting dish, and cover loosely with foil. Cook for about 20 minutes per pound (or 20 minutes per half kilo) at about 180 degrees in your oven - every 1 hour you should take out the bird, and baste it with the juices in the pan.

1 hour before the end, pour away the excess fat from the pan, and half an hour befoire the end remove the foil so that the skin can brown up nicely.

Now stick a skewer or small blade into the turkey thigh. If the juices run clear, you are OK; if they are at all pink, put back into the over for 15 minutes, and test again.

When the juices are clear (and the bird therefore done) cover TIGHTLY with foil, and leave to rest for 15 - 30 minutes before carving. This helps the meat relax after the hot oven, and will produce more tender meat. Also, it will be easier to carve!

Done. Or as a certain mockney prat witha tongue thats too big for his mouth would say, 'pukka'. Thats about it really, it is very simple. You can do other stuff of course. I get loads of bacon rashers, hammer them out to make them thinner, and build a latticework of bacon over the breast. Nobody ever sees this, as I do it as a chefs treat, and eat the bacon in a sandwich! No better way that I know off to cook bacon than to roast it on a turkey.

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/bacon.jpg[/img]

One final point, the idea of flipping the bird (could not resist that one!) is to get the juices to run back into the breast. I have always been a little dubious about the science behind that (after all turkey meat is hardly a porous sponge) but really I am a little against it for fear of the skin sticking and ripping. Or otherwise phrased, I find that rolling the bird over can result in the chickenskin getting stuck or even ripped which can affect the stuffing a bit.

Gen, on the other hand, always flips her bird. Although this year she's thinking of brining the turkey.

[Gen]

All the info here is still valid btw.

[Owain Glyndwr]

except that you can't get a turkey to feed 7 people for €34. I paid nearly €50 for ours from Höhenrainer.

[sharpe]

Seems unrelated but is it national holiday in US on Thursday and Friday or just Thursday?

[MrNatural]

Thursday only. But hangovers, tummy aches, late nights, travel... all these conspire to keep people at home on Friday. So many businesses just plain give up and formally grant what has been taken for granted.

[Lavender Rain]

Here's some links for Thanksgiving recipes that I found laying around in my inbox as I subscribe to these two sites that I thought I'd share with you.

This one has recipes to make a Thanksgiving feast. Here's just one of the many recipes from the Southern Living link below. Elegant Pumpkin-Walnut Layered Pie

http://www.southernl...amp;PromKey=XET

This link has recipes for 7 ways to cook sweet potatoes and much more.
http://www.myrecipes...=edit-ws-111907

[MSMunich]

Thanksgiving nov 27, 2008 - where to go in Munich :

As I am just working on a thanksgiving special on ganz-muenchen.de, I though I might equally update the restaurant info in Toytown Germany:

The Restaurant in the Marriott Hotel Munich serves a Thanksgiving buffet. Celebrate a traditional thanksgiving evening with live music from Mark Tyson (New Country- and Folk-Music). Buffet: 49,00 Euro incl. red and white wine and beer. The Marriot is a 4 star American based hotel chain so you can be sure that the food will be top quality. Prior reservations are advised. Marriott Hotel Munich, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Tel. 089 36002862, www.marriott.de/hotels/travel/MUCNO

The Big Easy bar in Munich-Neuhausen offers a Turkey Dinner nov 27, 2008. Please reserve well in advance! Generally the Big Easy is a very respected restaurant/bar in Munich. A good night is usually had here any day of the year. The Big Easy, Frundsbergstr. 46, Munich, Tel. 089 15890253, TT's review of the Big Easy, www.thebigeasy.de

The Hard Rock Café offers a turkey dish all day on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Turkey Dinner & American Football @ Hard Rock Café nov 27, 2008. Reservations requested. Hard Rock Café, Platzl 1, Tel. 089 2429490. TT's review of Hard Rock Café, and www.hardrock.com.

Piazza Linda has closed in Summer 2008, no Thanksgiving there anymore at that location

[Carm]

Was at the Tenglemann by Prinzregentpl the other day and they had FRESH cranberries (aus Kanada).

[Darkknight]

Yuck.. Canned cranberry sauce is much better

[DDBug]

Cooking cranberry sauce is a job I usually delegate ;-)

Ikea usually has a couple things that help out - cranberry jam-stuff, oatmeal cookies, gingerbread cookies and house kits and I also noticed a very Thanksgiving-looking ham out there.
I'll be heading out this week (to get an extendable table, unless anyone has one here to get rid of cheap) if anyone in town has a shopping list.