Bavarian Food

I started to title this post "German food" then realized I may still not know anything about "German food" because everything here is "Bavarian." I get the impression that Bavaria is very distinct from the rest of Germany. Even the dialect is very different, I'm told. But I've had quite a lot of traditional Bavarian food and overall I really like it! I was afraid of coming to Germany and not liking the food or it all being way to heavy to enjoy day after day, but it hasn't been a problem at all. The biggest problem is knowing what to order. Supposedly in big cities restaurants have English menus... this is not a big city. Some restaurants have had English menus and generally we've had German co-workers with us to translate or the waitress spoke enough English that there weren't any problems. Until last night. I accidentally ordered liver. We all just picked something at random off the daily special menu, and we joked about trying to remember the German word for liver to make sure we didn't get it. I turned out to the be lucky one that got the liver. I'd never had it before, so I wasn't even sure what it was. Craig, my co-worker, suspects that it's veal liver since it wasn't as bad as other liver he has had. It actually wasn't that bad, but I certainly wouldn't order it again on purpose!

Here's a picture of the meal, plus the menu in case you want to try to figure out which word means liver! My meal was the 17 Euro one.

Aside from the liver, I've had some really great food here. Cheese plates are available at every restaurant, as well as the breakfast buffet in the hotel. Yum!

There is a grocery store just a short walk from the office, and it's been a nice alternative to eating out every day. I've had a good time looking at all the food and differences between German food and food in the US. I'm still amazed that so many places beer is the cheapest thing to drink. See the picture below for an example, if you can blow it up big enough! The beer is the cheapest item in the case, other than a 0.25 L coke that is listed on the prices but they don't actually sell. We learned there is a law that at least one non-alcoholic option always has to be cheaper than beer.

Here's the menu from a Mexican restaurant where we ate. Not very different from US Mexican restaurants, except for the baked potato and hot wings sections!

Gummi Bears are EVERYWHERE in Germany. There are tons of Haribo brand options at the grocery, but there is also a whole store of gummi bears - Bear's and Friends. I'll be bringing sour gummies home as souvenirs!