For some reason, this year was for me a year of visiting expensive Austrian skiing places off the skiing season. It started with Ehrwald near the border with Germany, followed by Sölden and Kitzbühel. Today I am quite close to Germany again, at least judging by the number of cars with German number plates around me. Indeed, from the mountain I was on today I could easily see the Ehrwalder Alm and the Zugspitze.
Restaurants in such places are rarely cheap, but I think I have managed to walk into one of the more expensive ones. The menu offers burgers for over 30 euros without any sides, but there are also homemade beer – served in mugs of one liter and more – and spare ribs. It’s not a chance I can miss.
The spare ribs arrived within a minute of my order, the fact I found quite strange. Yet, they were hot and well-presented, in a “pile-them-all-on-the-plate” way. I was happy I had not ordered the XXL version, for finishing even the standard portion was quite an effort.
Marinated in some sort of beer sauce (“malt beer glaze,” as the menu explained), the ribs had a rather good taste by themselves, apart from the occasional over-burned and over-salted pieces. The meat was notoriously difficult to separate from the bones, however, and at the end of the day I broke my principles and started eating the ribs with the hands. As good as the marinade was (most of the time), the dip was next to useless, tasting like a watered-down ketchup.
Looking back, I don’t think I would order the ribs at Bräukeller again if I get a chance. Maybe I will try the “short beef ribs” instead, or the pork cut from the well-known organic farm in Styria that I had visited last year (how the pork made it to Tyrol is quite a mystery). I would certainly order the beer again, however – it was very fresh, tasty and indispensable in fighting the excessive salt from the ribs.
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