subcon

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Author: subcon
Date: 04/14/2007, 05:03 pm

in close to five years and 350+ postings, i've never made a negative comment on a given establishment. here is the first (and i do it more to inform than to whine):

the weinhaus schneider on sparkassenstrasse is unquestionably the worst dining experience i've had in 35 years of european travel. mark me that it's not the food but, rather, the overall lack of ambiance or courtesy on the part of the owner and staff that sink it.

to begin, it's april 8 (easter sunday), a very slow day for restaurants in germany. we enter at approx 8:30. a four top is the only table available and we (a couple)are immediately informed that we must move should a foursome arrive. where to we can only surmise but having some experience in the food and beverage industry, i can understand this. actually, a two top becomes available and i offer to move. but no, alle ist in ordnung.

they tout themselves as a fondu specialist, so we order fondu with vegatables. now i don't know what fondu means to you, but to me, it's intrinsically linked with cheese.

what we end up with is a pot of boiling water, a boullian cube, some raw vegetables and a wire basket in which to cook them.

if i had wanted to go camping, i'd not be prepared to pay so much for it. be that as it may, the server (the only other staff) looked upon us as mystified as we were with this offering. i made the obvious mistake of suggesting that this was not what we had ordered.

well, all hell broke loose: the owner, a female in her late 40's, charged the table insisting that this is what we had ordered (from her) and we WOULD pay for it. she was so far into my face that i could count her nose hairs. i mean this was pre-reaction to the max. after i embarrassed her into calming down, we negotiated (so i thought) a fair resolution.

i agreed that we would pay for the veggies and she would bring on the cheese (as originally ordered!!!). i had to ask for the bread cubes to dip into the cheese (and they sucked...yesterday's unused).

let me go further: when she asked if we wanted water, i told her tap water was fine and her response was that she couldn't make money off of it. i mean, straight out like that!

let's talk about the background music which was one continous loop of one song (mit yodels) over and over. apparently, the cost of a full cd was too much.

well, now to rechsnung (the check): this person charged us 7.5e a piece for a martini and rossi short coctail. an entire bottle of m&r is 6.25e. we saw them laughing about it after they gave us the check.

we ended up spending 98e on a miserable meal. but the internet gives us the last laugh...avoid this place like the plague!!!

logos999

You shouldn't have gone there in the first place. It's not difficult to get that information here, ask first and you won't be sorry later. Around Marienplatz you need to be extremly careful with your choice of restaurants. You learned and won't make that mistake again

swandav2000

Unfortunately, there are many kinds of fondue -- one is cheese, and another is Chinese or beef, which is cooked in boiling water. Looks like you got the beef kind modified for vegetarians.

I know that my Swiss hotel once advertised fondue night for dinner, and I was mightily disappointed to find it was, yes, beef fondue. In Switzerland!!

s

annhig

hi, subcon,

I suspect a real culture/language barrier here, plus very poor service combined to ruin your night.

for starters, fondue is not necesarily cheese - as an awful lot of uk cupboards can tesify. There was a fashion here for the type where you have a pot full of OIL boiling over a burner. in it you cook meat, [beef steak usually] veggies like courgette [zuccini to you] mushroom, cauliflower, etc. Millions were sold as wedding presents, only to languish in unseen corners.

Then there is the sort you encountered, which i believe originates in asia. you can drink the resulting soup once you've eaten the veggies.

but of course this should be clear from the menu, which obviously it wasn't. and once they realised the mistake, the restaurant should have bent over backwards to provide something you'd like.

hope the rest of your trip was more satisfactory!

regards, ann

walkinaround

<<<<<
Millions were sold as wedding presents, only to languish in unseen corners.
>>>>>>

many fine examples can be found today in britain's charity shops. as the said wedding present recipients are starting to die off the apparatus is released from the unseen corners and into the charity shops.

annhig

hi, walkinground,

some of us are still breathing!

regards, ann

nancy

Ordering food in another country can be very tricky. I spent a month in southern Germany and three times ordered meatloaf. The first time it was the best I'd ever had but they wouldn't give me the recipe. Later, I ordered meatloaf in another town and got a huge slice of what I'd describe as Spam! We laughed heartedly over that. Then I did it again in Munich and got Spam!! Would be nice to see a sample of what you will get Had I paid anything near what you paid I would have cried. This was 1996 and the meal was probably around $10.

As to fondue, it certainly should have been specified. And, I think you should send your post to the restaurant. Luckily I never ran into rude service; on the contrary, every server was helpful.

Then to the fondue pots: I occasionally use mine for a small dinner party (4-6 people). Fill the pot with butter and peanut oil to cook filet mignon and perhaps shrimp along with several dipping sauces. It's always a hit and a very congenial way to dine. Only need side dishes that won't get cold quickly.

I've ordered meals in other countries and still laugh at what I got. Luckily nothing tasted bad but certainly not what I expected. Oh, well, the experience of travel.

Dukey

First mistake:

"now i don't know what fondu means to you, but to me, it's intrinsically linked with cheese."

Second Mistake:

"i made the obvious mistake of suggesting that this was not what we had ordered."

Third Mistake:

Not cutting your losses and leaving right then and there.

Fourth Mistake (which I am glad you didn't make):

Thinking that getting a recommendation from some anonymous poster about a restaurant anywhere is sure-fire and fool-proof.

Chalk it up to experience and, hopefully, someday you'll be able to look back and laugh about it.

Phil

subcon,

adding to Dukey's list:

5th mistake: thinking that a restaurant with menus in 10 languages (as they claim on a Munich tourist web site) is not a tourist trap. ;-)

We live and learn....

Happier travels!

Phil.

NeoPatrick

Sorry you didn't understand the concept of various types of fondue. What you got is an acceptable one. You really can't blame them because you assumed that "vegetable fondue" would include cheese.

This is not unlike seeing "spaghetti" followed by other words on an Italian menu and then being upset because it wasn't topped with tomato sauce the way you're used to it. Or ordering a Latte in Italy and yelling because it's only milk and there's no coffee at all -- like it would have at Starbucks.

Eating in a foreign country, you cannot expect your expectations of certain foods to be right.

I'm sorry this was such a problem and I'm not going to defend the restaurant as I wasn't there, but I really am trying to picture why the woman would become so "in your face" and "all hell breaking loose" and insisting you were going to pay for it unless you had already suggested that you weren't paying for it. Frankly it really was NOT their fault that you ordered something you didn't understand. That's still the bottom line of the problem, but I realize it all went downhill from there.

yk

I think subcon made a "reasonable" assumption about the "fondue" he ordered.

I didn't find out until last year that there are several types of fondue in Swiss culture, and one of them is Chinese Fondue - which is the one that subcon got.

subcon - I'm sorry this happened to you. I do agree that the service and attitude you received was unacceptable. Thanks for posting.

janisj

I have no idea if the lady was out of line or not.

But before you post something smug like &quot;<i>but the internet gives us the last laugh..</i>&quot; you should make darn sure you are on firm footing. <b>Of course</b> there are types of fondue other than cheese. And if you ordered the &quot;wrong&quot; type and then indicated you would not pay - just maybe she was totally justified to go off on you . . . .

logos999

&gt;they tout themselves as a fondu specialist
Welll, I can understand the reaction, ordering what they call &quot;fondue&quot; and not real local food. You made experiments with exotic foods. Why don't you do look where the locals go and try their food. Fondue of any kind surely isn't part of the Bavarian diet. If you're progressive, get a D&ouml;ner Kebap, if you're traditional, sausages and Schnitzel will do. And if you're wise, you don't frequent any of the restaurants around Marienplatz.

NeoPatrick

&quot;well, now to rechsnung (the check): this person charged us 7.5e a piece for a martini and rossi short coctail. an entire bottle of m&amp;r is 6.25e. we saw them laughing about it after they gave us the check.&quot;

Have you ever been to a restaurant anywhere in the world before? Have you ever ordered a cocktail anywhere? A Martini and Rossi cocktail for 7.5 euro is NOT outrageous. In fact it's cheap by many standards. If you buy a $10 glass of house wine in a nice restaurant in the US, you will find out that the entire bottle in a store probably sells for about $7.99. But what does that have to do with anything?

You think they were laughing BECAUSE they charged you that for the drink? I suspect you misjudged completely what they were laughing at.

yk, it's nice that someone is taking the side of the poster, but why on earth do you say that it was a reasonable assumption to think that a vegetable fondue would have cheese to dunk in? It doesn't! Pure and simple.

NeoPatrick

By the way, google &quot;vegetable fondue&quot;. You will find dozens of variations and recipes. Most are for cooking vegetables in oil or in broth. One involves making a dipping sauce of pureed vegetables to dip meats into. But I could not find a single version of vegetable fondue that includes cheese at all.

toedtoes

As someone who is not a foodie, doesn't venture into &quot;exotic foods&quot; or &quot;fancy cuisine&quot; and who has never eaten or seen fondue before, I always thought &quot;fondue&quot; was, in reality, the act of using sticks to dip foods into a bowl of something being warmed by a flame. The &quot;something&quot; could be cheese, chocolate, or some other sauce or cream. The dippees (for lack of another term) could be bread, fruits, veggies, meats, etc.

I wouldn't have assumed that ordering fondue in another country would be anything like what I knew here. Heck, even if it was cheese, it would likely have been a completely different taste than a cheese fondue back home.

TTess

I can't believe you've traveled in Europe for over 35 years. The place sounds like a huge tourist trap. They're all over Europe and easy to spot. Get over it, already. The only people getting &quot;the last laugh&quot; here are those reading your postl

walkinaround

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
and not real local food. You made experiments with exotic foods. Why don't you do look where the locals go and try their food. Fondue of any kind surely isn't part of the Bavarian diet. If you're progressive, get a D&ouml;ner Kebap, if you're traditional, sausages and Schnitzel will do.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

when i worked in munich, my local colleagues ate very little traditional sausages and schnitzel. but for the first few months, they would take us to places serving things like that...until finally we told them to just take us to places where they would actually eat if they were not entertaining foreigners (ie where they normally would go for lunch). after that point we invariably ended up in italian restaurants, chinese, thai, vietnamese, etc...even mexican. we did have the occasional 'bavarian food' but quite rarely. never a doner kebab takeaway shop as most are complete rubbish (as they are here at home) and are usually only consumed when too drunk to find proper food.

since munich is quite a cosmopolitan city, the food that locals eat extends far beyond schnitzel and rubbish doner. i'm not suggesting that the OP's restaurant is somewhere locals would go (i have no idea about this place and it does sound like rubbish) but to advise tourists to each schnitzel and doner kebabs in order to 'eat like the locals' is pretty strange.

logos999

You havn't got the slightest idea, sorry! I bet you were working at O2 ;-), that's the only place they would accept &quot;foreign consultants&quot; and speak English. Fondue, surely isn't on the list of what anybody would eat, unless forced to

walkinaround

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
that's the only place they would accept &quot;foreign consultants&quot; and speak English.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

in fact, it was an initiative for a very large german bank. the working language of the project was english (not sure why you are on about that). the consultants and bank staff were from many european countries including france, czech, croatia, switzerland and our team from the uk. many of bank staff members on the project did not speak german either...they were from eastern europe and the bank's investment division in london.

you have a strange and insular view of your city. companies like bmw and siemens would die if they didn't use english as a working language for international projects. strange that you think such companies don't use english. btw, i have also did some shorter term work with munich re and allianz...all in english.

most of the germans that i know who have advanced business degrees were taught in english. do they even have any german language MBA programmes in germany any more? i'm sure they do but they don't seem very popular.

your munich may be a city of schnitzel eating oom-pahs who only speak german...but that's not the munich that i know.