Emirates MUC-DXB-SIN & Air Berlin BCN-DUS-MUC: Strong Beer & Schweinshaxe (Part II)

[yflyer]

After Barcelona (Covered in Part I, here), I headed to Munich via Dusseldorf on Air Berlin, and spent a few days there before flying home, MUC-DXB-SIN, on Emirates.

This side trip to Germany was for work but while there, why not indulge in their local specialities, not least the Schweinshaxe, or roasted pork knuckle, which I would seek out on this trip, based on CarbonMan’s recommendation.

Why did I fly to Munich via Dusseldorf? Simple. It was one of the cheapest options available. There was a long transit stop in Dusseldorf (Which probably contributed to the rock bottom fare), but this gave me the opportunity to head into the city, my first time there, for a quick recce and a meal. I would also get to check out Air Berlin, a member of Oneworld, which I had never flown before.

I know colleagues who try to choose the shortest connection possible when connecting. To save time, you know. For them, any additional minute beyond MCT is time wasted. These are the same folks who complain like mad when they miss their connections.

I welcome long transit stops -- the longer the better! All that buffer time gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

On this occasion, the long transit stop in Dusseldorf also meant that I could leave the airport and head into the city to look around. Perfect.

[yflyer]

There were no queues at the Air Berlin check-in counter at BCN on Monday morning. The Schengen zone airside departure area in BCN was large and spacious.



Today’s flight was operated by an A320 (or was it an A319?)…



At a nearby gate, this Delta 767-400 series was being readied for departure. I have never flown this extra-long variant of the 767.



Air Berlin are also an Etihad partner.



The cabin was single-class, laid out 3-3. Not that this mattered, since intra-Europe business class is almost always laid out in pseudo 3-3 anyway, with the middle seat left empty.

On this aircraft, the first few rows were “preferred” seats, with extra legroom. The emex row seats are also labelled “preferred”. My seat was 1D, a preferred seat in the 1st row of the plane, which I reserved online without having to pay an additional charge – possibly a Oneworld Sapphire perk?

Although this was a full flight, the middle seat remained inexplicably empty. I stretched my legs and spread my arms wide over the armrests.

How ironic. Mine was a cheap fare in a single class narrow-body, but in terms of hard product, I was in as good a seat as my last A320 flight in J into BCN over a year ago, in BA Club Europe…



Cabin crew, both male and female, were dressed in smart black uniforms.

[yflyer]

On this 2 hour sector, beverages and a snack was served.





But apart from that, there was also a full for-purchase menu available, including hot dishes.









The hot selections looked particularly tempting. Air Berlin has a tie-up with Sansibar, a popular restaurant on the small island of Sylt in Northern Germany. I had never heard of Sansibar, or Sylt, before this.



I could not resist ordering Currywurst from Sansibar…



Piping hot sausage, covered in curry sauce, with a sachet of extra curry powder to sprinkle on top for good measure…delicious!

Overall cabin ambience was fine…



The last page of the inflight magazine had an interview with one of their pilots...



Why doesn’t SQ also highlight a member of their staff each month in the Silver Kris magazine?

Overall a very pleasant flight. Warm, attentive cabin crew, great inflight service, and a wonderful first row seat.



We landed on time in Dusseldorf.



…a very promising first flight on Air Berlin!

[yflyer]

My hold luggage was checked all the way through to Munich, and I had my onward boarding pass already in hand.

I headed into Dusseldorf for a quick look around. I took a taxi into the city…taxi’s here are very expensive! Next time, I need to check out public transport options…

I began near the Rheinturm, or Rhine Tower, a telecommunications and radio tower along the bank of the Rhine…



...and walked along the footpath and park along the Rhine river, towards the Altstadt, or old town…



My luggage (And PT attire) were still in the aircraft hold. It was cold and windy that day, but even so, if my PT attire was available, I would have changed up and gone for a run along this very scenic route.



Towards the old town, the waterfront was lined with F&B outlets…



It was till fairly early in the day, so the area was fairly quiet, but it was clear that this place would get very busy in the evenings, or on warmer nights…



I ended my walk at a brewery and restaurant named Im Goldenen Ring…



I didn’t have a restaurant in mind for dinner when I arrived in Dusseldorf. Standing in front of the restaurant, I did a quick online due diligence check of the usual travel and F&B websites on my iPhone. It showed that this was a decent, if run-of-the-mill, choice. Three and a half stars and ranked almost 300th out of 1300 restaurants in Dusseldorf by the fickle, and sometimes dubious, reviewers on TripAdvisor? I was cold and hungry. This would do.

I was warmly welcomed when I entered, and shown to a table. This was a huge restaurant, but thankfully I was there at an off-peak hour, way before the dinner crowd.

I began with a beer. This came in the smallest beer glass I had ever received in Germany.

I was expecting a half litre or even one litre mug, like the ones in the Munich Biergartens. Instead I was handed this…



It was almost a relief to receive this tiny glass. At least I would not have to explain to the waiter why I needed a small glass and not a regular (German) man-sized brew.

Later I would find out from a German friend that the system of serving beer in Dusseldorf was different from Munich: everyone was served these small 200ml glasses, but they were constantly being replaced with fresh, full glasses: the idea was that these small glasses would always contain fresh and cold beer.

But of course, you were still expected to consume vast quantities of beer…

My main was Schnitzel…



…thin, hot and savoury…perfect for a cold day!

That was pretty much all I saw during my transit stop in Dusseldorf…just a taste of a city, but enough to whet my appetite for a return trip!



There was a convenient taxi rank in the square nearby. I caught a taxi back to Dusseldorf airport for my flight to Munich.

[yflyer]

DUS is a large and well designed airport.



I spent some time in the Hugo Junkers Lounge (Covered here) before boarding my 2nd Air Berlin A320 of the day for the short hop to Munich.



The aircraft was similar to the BCN-DUS flight. Here are a few pics of the emex rows…





Just a chocolate bar and a beverage on this short sector. I had a tomato juice with black pepper added…I learnt to add pepper to tomato juice on previous Lufthansa flights after observing other pax do it!



It was snowing lightly when we landed in Munich.



After splurging on taxi fares in Dusseldorf, I thought that I would check out the rail service to get to my hotel in Munich.

[yflyer]

My hotel was the Aloft Munich, right across the street from the Hauptbahnhof.



The Aloft in Munich is a very new hotel, done up in a modern, hip and playful style that may not appeal to everyone, but I quite like the house “look” of the Aloft brand.



Breakfast area and self-service snack counter (Charged to your room).



The rooms themselves are very consistent with other Aloft properties, such as the Aloft San Francisco Airport, or Aloft Kuala Lumpur: Spacious and modern, although desk space is not as large as some other hotel rooms.







My room faced an inner courtyard…



The lobby bar in the evening…



…and the lobby during the day…



There is something to be said about the benefits of staying right across from the main train station. Connectivity to the rail/subway system, including the line to the airport, is superb, and means that you can easily get almost anywhere by subway/train. There are also many dining outlets in the train station, and several supermarkets as well – very convenient.

[yflyer]

The subway system here works very well. Spacious stations and very regular trains…



This is not a new subway – the train interiors are quite “retro”…but the trains are very clean.



The ticketing system is a refreshing surprise as well. While many other cities have turnstyles, ticket readers, contactless systems, Munich has the ultimate wireless subway access system: Honesty! You validate your ticket on machines near the entrances, but there are no barriers or turnstyles. Anyone is free to enter and leave the trains and train stations. Obviously there must be ticket inspectors, but I didn’t see any during the week when I was there. I can’t imagine this system working in many other cities. But it does say something very positive about Munich to see it working here.

Before my meeting schedule began, I managed a quick stroll around Munich…



…where there was a light dusting of snow covering the old town…





Nespresso lovers, note that Nespresso capsules are a lot cheaper here than in Singapore…

[yflyer]

For lunch, I headed back to Ayingers, opposite the famous Hofbrauhaus brewery, where I had eaten the last time I was here…





A delicious liver dumpling soup…



…and then pork knuckle with dumplings…



Very tasty! But wait…something was not quite right…



While the pork was delicious, as I sliced and bit into the tender meat, it slowly dawned on me that there was no pork crackling! In place, there was a breaded crust, nicely flavoured, not unlike the crust on fried chicken. It tasted very good, but I couldn't help thinking that if KFC ever decided to introduce pork knuckle on their menu, it would taste like this...

The pork on the ham hock was very moist and had wonderful flavour, but I missed the crunch of pork crackling.

No such reservations about the accompanying dumplings, these were quite delicious.



So a good meal, but I was determined to eat a proper roasted pork knuckle in Munich…

That evening, I headed to Agustiner Keller for a business dinner, in a beer hall of all places…Thankfully it was an informal dinner, and the beer hall ambience – long common tables and cheerful staff in traditional dress carrying large trays of beer and food, made for a lively setting, great for conversation. No pictures from that evening, but I ordered another pork knuckle, which came in brown sauce…another style of pork knuckle that came without crisp pork crackling. Hmmm…so I had struck out twice so far in my search for a satisfying Schweinshaxe…

[yflyer]

A couple of days later, my colleague and I headed to Paulaner Am Nockherberg, a beer garden in Munich which is something of an institution here.





I was handed a German menu.



I don’t speak German, but by now I probably knew enough German food terms to get by…



I scanned the menu…yes! Schweinshaxe!



“I’ll have one of those, danke schoen!” I said, pointing to the keyword "Schweinshaxe" on the menu...

While Oktoberfest in Munich is the most famous festival on the calendar, I was here during another famous festival period: Starkbierfest, or strong beer festival, where they served what was known as strong beer, which as the name implies, is an extra strong (and nutritious!) beer the local monks used to brew to give them energy during Lent, where the monks had to fast.

Paulaner’s strong beer is branded Salvator (Translation: Saviour!), and is quite delicious…



Salvator tasted rich and heavy, with a very slight sweetness. I am not much of a beer drinker, but I found Salvator to be quite delicious!



Luckily I was warned before hand about how strong it was, so I did not gulp it down too quickly. A few more of those, and I would probably have been dancing on the tables…

Before the schweinshaxe, both my colleague and I enjoyed bowls of liver dumpling soup…perfectly prepared.



Soft dumplings in rich, hot beef consomme…a very light starter in anticipation of the Leopard Tank of a main course to come…



Porcine perfection! There was the crackling that I missed from the previous two occasions…

[yflyer]

My European colleague ordered exactly the same…we both tucked in…



A miracle…crisp delicious pork crackling on the outside, and incredibly soft, moist flesh on the inside, still hot from cooking…this seemed to defy the laws of thermodynamics. How did they do this? This was a home run….



My colleague’s knuckle was even more photogenic…



His crisp crackling looked good enough to be photographed for a pin-up calendar.

But as we ate, we realized in horror that I ate all the crackling but just some of the meat, and my colleague ate all of the meat, but left the crackling untouched.

We stared at each other's plates, and regarded each other with suspicion…

“Next time, we will just order one pork knuckle to share. I will eat the crackling, and you can eat the meat!” I remarked, only half joking…

We had no space for dessert, not even apfel strudel…but my colleague suggested schnapps in lieu of dessert…



This came in precisely measured 20ml portions…a nice way to round off a very satisfying meal.

[yflyer]

The next day, I headed to Munich Airport for my flight home, via Dubai.



I am starting to form a theory that you can tell a lot about a country’s psyche by the feedback touchscreens installed in their airport toilets.

In Germany, they get straight to the point…3 choices instead of the 5 you get at Changi. You either like the toilet, or you don’t!



I visited the Emirates Lounge (Covered here) for a very nice dinner, before heading to the gate.

The gate area was fairly congested (This was an EK A380 about to board, after all), and no J or frequent flyer priority boarding queue could be discerned…



I asked the pleasant and courteous staff member at the counter where the queue was, and he said there wasn’t one, but that I could just wait here and board first, which I did…

[yflyer]

Today’s flight was on of EK’s older A380’s: A6-EDD, a 7 year old plane, MSN 20.

This had one of the earlier A380 interiors, with large crew rest island in the rear of the main cabin.



But even a first generation A380 cabin is fairly state-of-the art, with comfortable seats and widescreen AVOD.





A/C power for US/ European plugs only on this plane, though. You had a universal socket that fit UK plugs on the newer EK A380’s, but not this one.


Cabin service was warm and friendly on this flight…



We took off into the night sky…five and a half hours from MUC to DXB this evening…



I was so tired that evening that I forgot to take a picture of the dinner menu, but dinner was well up to Emirates’ standards: a delicious spiced meat and rice combo…





Landing in Dubai just before sunrise…



Transit in DXB…not too crowded at security that morning…



…and then boarding EK404 to Singapore, this time on A6-EEC, a much newer plane, just 3+ years old.

[yflyer]

It was now the month of March, and Emirates’s IFE was now advertising Star Wars: The Force Awakens…



Lunch today…



…a choice of main of either garlic prawns or roast chicken…



I chose the prawns…







A good meal…Emirates Y catering remains quite impressive!

On this day-time flight, I subscribed to inflight wifi, which at USD1 for 500MB, was a bargain, even if surfing speed was not great.



Note that they actually tell you how many passengers are online at that moment, so that you can guess the performance of the internet connection and then decide whether to surf or not.

I asked for cup noodles in the flight, and received this. This was one of those sectors where cabin service was efficient, rather than warm. I went to the galley to ask for the noodles, and had to wait while the cabin crew member searched for the noodles then poured in the water, and handed me the cup to bring back to my seat without so much as a word. Very different from SQ’s approach, where I would usually have been asked where I was sitting, and then had the noodles brought to my seat when ready, typically together with a glass of water, and a big smile from the cabin crew too…



A snack was served prior to arrival…a savoury sandwich and cookies…not too bad…

[yflyer]

On the way into Singapore, we flew over the Nicobar Islands…another photo opportunity!







Seat 81K…which, along with 81A, is the best seat in the house if you are a single traveller in Economy…



A dusk descent into Singapore…





And an on-time arrival into Changi.

Thanks for reading!

[CarbonMan]

Those close-up pics of the schweinshaxe is killing me!

You're right about the Nespresso capsules. Apart from Switzerland, they are the cheapest in Europe. At half the price of what one pays in Singapore, I normally buy them by the boxes - easier to ship home.

Dusseldorf looks very pretty. Thanks for the TR, yflyer!