Meine Culinarische Reise durch Münster : Pinkus Müller

Yesterday, I made my first visit to Pinkus Müller , a family owned German brewery and Westphalian restaurant operating since 1816. I was instantly impressed with the dining area. The inside of the restaurant (the dark wood-paneling, timbered ceilings, comfy chairs, old-fashioned fireplace, hanging Westphalian hams, etc.) offers a rustic dining atmosphere.

• [food] I started out with an alcohol-free beer called Pinkus Honig Malz’. It smells ok..How does it taste? Well, I cannot find a proper word to describe it….I am not going to say it is bad as I have never had alcohol-free beer before. It tastes like ‘cold fizzy roasted barley tea with some honey and (maybe) mild Indian spices’?!...Pork and beef are featured main dishes offered by the restaurant. There are few vegetarian options (I was told by my Muensterian friends that those are not really local specialties). Since I want to experience the regional cuisine, I opted for a bacon dish (after about 20 years of being ‘meat-reducer’!!). I ordered the Westfälischer Topf’ comprises Kasseler (smoked pork chop), a Mettwurst (sausage made from raw minced pork) and a gebratener Speck (fried bacon) served with Surmoos (sauerkraut = cabbage relish) and fried potatoes. The portions were really big. While I appreciated the different flavor combination, I wasn’t too excited with the smoked pork chop and sausage as they were bland and salty; I was just content to enjoy the fried bacon and chunks of fried potato ;)
• [service] The service was slow - very slow!! We waited more than 10 minutes for the waiter to take our order and more than an hour to be served. The hard surfaces and high ceilings combined with the huge crowd made the restaurant loud, but somehow it was tolerable.
• [price] Little pricey, Beer + Westfälischer Topf + Water = 25.00 euros!
• [food rating] 3 1/2 stars

My overall experience with Pinkus Müller: Slightly better than average - it’s kind of place to try Westphalian food, but I am not sure whether it will be on my regular list of places to dine.