I was staying in Bonn for a few weeks on business. Someone in the hotel told me that they had the ‘perfect’ day in the ‘beautiful’ town of Königswinter that was a 20-minute U-Bahn ride from the hotel.
Being a Sunday, there was not much else to do (other than work which wasn’t exciting me), so I cajoled a colleague to join me and off we went.
We got off the train and saw a Sea Life centre, some snow and a very dull small German town. We had been told to cut through the town and find the railway, which would take us up the ‘mountain’. We managed to find said train easily, however we decide to walk up – which was probably a stupid decision in the snow. Suffice to say that the walk up was not worth what awaited us; not much more than a building site. We walked back down the hill and found this pub almost at the bottom. In we went; we had certainly earned a beer.
I was excited upon arrival – this was a traditional eatery, which probably has a very exciting history. There was lots of wood, bar stools, old-fashioned beer glasses and random artefacts (plastic grapes, trinkets etc.) scattered around and I was particularly amused at the outside toilets. I had been in Germany for long enough to realise that you don’t wait t be seated so we found a table and admired the view – you could see the city of Bonn and the Rhine.
We were given some menus fairly quickly and worked out that this was likely to be the most authentic German meal of our stay. Authentic German can mean only one thing…sausage. In addition to the stereotypical meal, there were a few more adventurous choices on the menu – spit roasted boar served with potatoes croquettes and salad was my personal favourite.
We ordered 2 large Pills (as you do in Germany), which arrived after I had noticed a delay, but tasted good. I opted for the Zwiebelsuppe (onion soup), which was served with cheese. My colleague had the Gulasch along with the sausage special with potato salad. I pointed at something that came with fries and hoped for the best.
Soup arrived quickly and was tasty – both kinds – and each was served with a big chunk of crusty bread. The mains were delivered just as we had finished the soup. My mystery dish turned out to simply be 2 sausages with chips that were still glistening with oil at the table. The sausages were not nice. I mean really unpleasant, fatty and greasy with a few chewy bits too.
My colleagues dish looked like a smoked sausage (or savoy), which was a little bendy. It tasted a lot better than mine but was still pretty hard to finish.
The cost for 2 beers, 2 soups and 2 sausage meals was EUR 33, which wouldn’t have been bad had we manage to eat it.
If you happen to climb a rock in Germany and fancy a beer after then please visit this place – they had a good selection of beer available and it was cold and reasonably priced. If you are hungry then consider the soup. If you are really hungry then go elsewhere… or try the spit roast.
Drachenfelsstr. 100, 53639 Königswinter. Tel: (02223) 21469
