Dinner last night was certainly interesting.  Joel, Cheryl, and I went into downtown Munich to Marienplatz and sought out in search of traditional bavarian fare.  We walked in to a large hall where the posted menu boasted that “the best part is the offals”, with an interesting selection of miscellaneous parts and preparations of meat that I´ve never before experienced.  Excellent…

We walked inside, and the host pointed us in the direction of a table that appeared to be full.  Alas, it was only partially full with a family of three who appeared to be German tourists, one old guy who was clearly a regular, and three empty chairs for us.  After a brief glazed-over look at the menu, we had to pull the tourist move of ordering an english menu (not before snapping a few pictures of the wonderfully immature pairings of the word “weiner” all over the menu).  When the english menu arrived, the depth of just how freaky this menu was became apparent.  I personally couldn´t choose between the pig diaphragm with fried tongue, or the calf´s head.  After much debate, I settled on the diaphram meal only to be told by the waitress that they were all out.  Whether there was a huge demand for diaphram that night, or it was just on the menu to scare away tourists and they never had it in the first place I am unclear.  I tried for a different veal diaphram meal (because if diaphram´s on the menu, really how can you pass it up) and once again was denied.  In the end I settled on a mixed meat platter, with various cuts of pork, veal, a liver dumpling and of course a big pile of sauerkraut.  Cheryl got something similar, but with different random cuts of meat.  And Joel ordered a big sausage plate (…biting commentary far too easy, so I´ll leave that to your imagination).

The food was all excellent, as was the beer.  Unfortunatelz for Joel, he stepped out to the men´s room during the most exciting part of the evening.  From a few tables behind us, we heard a ruckus.  I turned around to see two men staring each other down, their noses almost touching and the rage in their eyes quite apparent.  Combatant number one was a relatively normal looking person, weighing in at maybe 175lb.  Combatant number two however was a burly man who weighed in at about 300lbs and was decked out in a clearly well worn set of lederhosen.  His legs were bare even in the freezing temperatures of a bavarian winter.  His calves were like tree trunks wrapped in wool stockings, he was drunk and he was angry.  This was not a guy who I would mess with, and he had a table full of lederhosen-wearing buddies (it was picture worthy in its abstraction, but neither I nor Cheryl dared to pull out a camera.)

Words were exchanged (no idea what they were, but they sounded serious), bar staff rushed in to separate the men, and they walked the smaller combatant out the door.  On his way out, he shouted something back in to the restaurant and lederhosen guy bolted through the crowd to take care of some assen kicken.

We couldn´t see clearly through the antiqued glass windows, but someone went into the bike racks and a small crowd had formed on the sidewalk to watch the melee.  After a few minutes, our lederhosen friend returned and everyone in the restaurant averted their eyes as he rejoined his table.

So, that was our exciting night in downtown Munich.  A story to retell for awhile for sure!