Is Bavarian food actually any good?

There's been loads of posts from people about aspects of Bavarian food, but I want a more definitive thread.
I wanna hear from anybody who has had a particularly good - or particularly bad Bavarian treat. I want both sides.

Now, what I don't mean, is people should necessarily post about a particular one time they had something ion one place, I'm more after dishes or delicacies that you have come to like - or seriously hate - I'm not really looking for opinions on a certain restuarant. Apart from Wok Man of course, feel free to vent some steam and rant about that by all means.
Other German dishes, not just Bavarian are also worth a mention if you have something to say.

Me, I'm currently really into stuff like pressac, blood sausage with tongue in it, and sulze. All well nice, and made with novelty parts of animals, which appeals to me. Not a fan of pork knuckles really, but a nice bit of roast pork with those whacking great potato dumplings is always very welcome in my stomach.

I like it. Not my fav. Italian, Mexican, most Asian food, and Indian food beat it, but I am a fan of Bavarian food. The work canteen has a nice Bavarian section.

Favs would include the lungerl with knödel, rollbraten, and hirsh goulash.

Thai Rhodeggs ®©™ Lecker lecker lecker!

A new discovery, that's all I can say for now.

i love that sauerbraten stuff
and saurer leber
lecker

Almost all of it works for me -- now that I'm not a veggie -- with two major exceptions: Blutwurst and Sauere Lunge. Never liked any national variations of blood sausages and the lungs are just... bleah.

voff.

I don't like Weisswurst - at all. I already posted on another thread that I don't like any boiled sausages. I also don't like Blaukraut or Sauerkraut, however, oddly enough, I like Krautsalat - particularly with bacon bits.

I like roast pork, schweinehaxe, and most types of dumplings.

And just for the record - Wok Man serves the worst Asian food I have ever eaten...

never could understand the love of sulze (that's pig parts concealed in gelatine, right?).

i have grown to love knödel (dumplings maybe?).

if people say "let's go eat traditional bavarian food" i would say no just cause it's generally way too much meat for me. if you're a non-meat eater (or rare eater of meat), then you're a SOL.

love all bavarian (apart from pressac)
can't beat a good weisswurst brekkie

You can get some decent freshwater fish dishes at a Bavarian restaurant. The vegetarian dishes are getting better too.

I like Bavarian food, but I honestly like Austrian food more. A little more international influence, amazing strudels and everything comes with tonnes and tons of cream.

Kaiserschmarrn is great, either with apple or plum Kompott.

I'm partial to the odd portion of Heisse Liebe from time to time, as well.
Very nice, it is...

Obazda - bloody lubberly!

I pretty much like most Bavarian food too - when in the right mood. If you want something meaty, heavy and filling, then it's great. At restaurants: dumplings, roasts, sausages, Sauerkraut, roast potatoes, Kaesespaetzle etc. What I don't like are the Blutwurst and 'strange' foods like that. Beergarden food is also tasty; pretzels, Obatzda, potato salad, (no spare ribs though please!), Currywurst, chips etc. On fairs I like to eat sausages in a bun like Wiener, Nuernberger, or Leberkaessemmel, and the sweet things are nice too, like the steamed puddings (Dampfnudel), Strudel, Ausgezogene etc.

Yummy...Rehbraten, Hirsch Goulash, Pfifferlinge in Rahm, Semmelknödel, and lots of other things which escape my mind at the moment. There's a really amazing Bavarian restaurant only two blocks from my house and I eat there almost weekly.

Yes, I like the seasonal fascination with food - it's how cooking should be; plenty of Pfifferlinge (chanterelles) when they're out, asparagus, berries in Rote Gruetze (although this is almost too sweet for me now) etc.

Bavarian food is great in general. If I don't like wurst in any form, that's a personal thing. And it makes great leftovers: Thursday Fleischpflanzl mit Semmelknödel, Friday Gröstl by dicing the leftovers and frying them in butter with a diced onion, adding two eggs just before it's done. Garlic à discrétion.
But Bavarian is a confined term, once you get to Nürnberg you're into Franconian cuisine which is less rich and more into pickling, gathering and game. Good stuff there, too.

I really hated almost all the bavarian food I've ever tried while living in Munich. Aside from a couple of the less daring dishes, I had thought that it was the most horrible food on earth. Well (and I hope I don't ruffle too many expat feathers here ) I have to say that compared to the british food I've eaten since moving here (the UK that is) bavarian food is really good. I had no idea that food could look so much like my american homecooked favorites and yet taste so appalingly not!

Sooo many people don't like stuff with blood or weird bits of meat in them - which I can totally understand, but it still fascinates me to try these things. The least appealing bits of meat are often touted to have the best flavour, and often recipes have been concucted to be frugal, and try and make the tastiest thing possible out of something a bit more challenging than a prime cut that can be simply grilled.

I find it quite interesting that even the lowliest TEnglemanns here will sometimes have fresh chicken hearts and foul (sic) shit like that - something you would be very hard pushed to find even in a frozen form in the glittering temples of food consumerism that are English supermarkets. Your chances of finding pickled lung in Tesco's Express in Putney are well slim - but here they are widely available.

Although in defense, the bread and donuts here are really the bomb compared to germany...

chicken hearts are delicious
i eat them at least once a fortnight

My cats agree.

My ex likes SOUR chicken hearts. One of the many reasons he is my ex.

oooo - SOUR chicken hearts...
now, there's an idea

Zwiebel Rostbraten. The dogs when you get a good one, a disappointment when you get an average one. Depends on the quality of the steak.

Knödels are revolting things in my book.

I've never knowlingly tried chicken hearts, but then again, I've lived in Asia, so maybe I've eaten them in some strange roadside novelty meat soup. I dunno what I'd really do to them, but I assume you could treat them with relatively standard flavours like sage or mustard/worcester sauce. I saw a bloke on TV eating yakitori, and he almost gagged on a chicken heart kebab.


Thats a bit of a blanket statement seeing as there are loads of variations - liver, bone marrow, potato, bread etc - or do you just mean the potato ones?

@topsy how do you cook your chicken hearts?

Bavarian food, a friends description
'A slice of cow and two squash balls'

she eats 'em raw, straight out of the chicken, still beating. Its one of her strange rituals...

after the ritual sacrifice is it?

edit: damn SiM!

Don Riina - I can understand how you think that 'strange' foods [sic] are tasty - I'm from the home of black pudding, and ate that, suet pudding (which is pretty gross when you think about it, but tastes great with golden syrup), liver and kidneys when I was a kid... but I just don't like overly meaty dishes. I am much more a white meat person, and bacon.

any country that comes up with a dish called spotted dick is all right in my book.

Bavarian favorites: schweinehaxe and obatzda

@kza
Strictly speaking you should prepare them by slicing them down the middle and removing the stringy bit, but I normally can't be arsed. I don’t find it particularly stringy or difficult to chew.
I just simmer them in chicken stock for about 20 minutes or so to get them cooked through.
Then I finish them off by frying them with some onion to get them nicely browned.

My ex showed me how to cook them this way, so I'm pretty sure it's a Kurdish dish. They tend to cook all their meat that way (boil it for a bit, then fry it with onion or whack it in a sauce).

Anyway, I love it.

I love all Knödel - i.e. Grieß, Leber, and anyway. The former are really easy to make, just take egg, Grieß (durum wheat), parsley and a little nutmeg. Plop em into simmering beef or chicken stock soup.

Leber Spätzle are great too. You get to work with a "Fleisch Wolf" as well, fun stuff.

Normal spätzle, with swiss cheese and onions...lecker!

Obatzda - LOVE it in the summer at a beer garden. Highly addicting and best with red onions.

Käsespätzle - Our current favorite is from Bachmeier on Leonrodplatz. Really like that restaurant.

Nürnberg Rostbratwurst on sauerkraut and mashed potatoes - Current favorite is homemade with "skin on" garlic mashed potatoes and the wurst straight from a co-workers butcher where he lives in Nürnberg, who makes the wurst a bit spicy.

There are others we like quite a bit as well, but really these 3 dishes are probably our favorites for simple folk like us.

... oh, and the beer is quite nice too.

well Switzerland is effectively Germany so I'll add Rösti

Mmmmm, Rösti. When (Mrs.) thejarvii lived in Basel before we were married, during a few visits there we hit this great restaurant in Olten (just outside Basel) that did such an excellent Rösti. Had the cheese, hash browns, and fried egg all layered in a pan and was just scrumptious.

@Topsy

Now I've read how you cook hearts, I've got a suggestion; I'm feeling all creative n' shit.

Simmer the hearts in stock like you do now, then drain them and dredge in a little flour - maybe that griessler stuff, its well good for this sort of stuff, oh, and great to quickly flour spuds before roasting. Then fry up your onions as normal, add the hearts for that browning - which will now be more intense due to the flour - then deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine vinegar. The flour should thicken it a bit as it reduces, then add some of the stock (and maybe a bit of soy sauec to get a deeper colour), reduce it a bit, then whisk in a knob of butter.

I reckon that'd be wicked. You could deep fry some sage leaves as a garnish, serve with some rösti and even make it totally posh. Awesome.

that sounds fab, don, thanks

Man, I've had things like that. Soooooo nice. With bacon too. Man, I am ridiculously hungry.

I think "Bavarian Food" is generally OK but "Food in Bavaria" is as a general rule friggin awful.

Off topic, but:

@DR:


But what do the Germans do with a chicken anus, is what I wanna know.

Last night treated to Korean cow's head stew, along with a big plate of tripe and blood sausage. Lucky thing I grew out of that picky eater phase I went through as a child, s'all I gotta say.

you lucky thing, p_g, i love tripe
i don't think i've ever seen tripe over here, though..

what exactly is tripe anyway?

cow's stomach, i think

tasty stuff, anyway

i got my chicken hearts in for tomorrow's tea, so i'll try out don's recipe and let you all know how i get along

Topsy, you will find tripe at the Cam Yi on Rosenheimerstr. by the Motorama. Its on the menu- I think in the DimSum part.

Every soup I've had here so far has been awful because they are always far far too salty. My favourite thing has to be a tiroler grostl after a days skiing, the absolute bees knees. As are germknodels with lashings of custard.

It was a blanket statement.

It's spelt Kam Yi afaik. There's another between Mplatz and Sendlingerstr too.

favourite dish: Blut & Leberwurst with Sauerkraut

least favourite dish: Saure Sülze

Brezn. Brezn, Brezn, Brezn. Large or small. With Obatzn or without. But with Weißbier. Gröstl. And Semmelknödel. And Würstl and Kraut. And a really crispy Haxn. And all that incredibly jaw-breaking healthy dark bread. Radi. Schnittlauchbrot.
(must be the weather making me dream of beergardens)