Augustiner Stammhaus — Restaurant in Munich

TLDR: waiters will demand that you tip them, and you must give a suitable amount. Terrible service especially from a bald, big-sized man (the lady waitress who was serving the adjacent tables seemed friendly)

It was an unfortunate experience at Augustiner Stammhaus. It seems that your experience here depends on who serves you. If you are served by a bald and big-sized man, you're down on your luck and should walk out immediately. I came with a group of 4 and we're all clearly not German - hell, not even European. Despite this (and me speaking to him in English first), he proceeded to speak to us in German for the entire time we were there. If I weren't able to speak German (which isn't very good hence why I didn't want to use it), we'd have had 0 clue what was happening.

The food was decent, although a little bit on the expensive side. I had the Schweinshaxe mit Knödel which was great, while my friends who all had Wieners weren't satisfied (they were nothing special in all honesty, felt like supermarket sausages). The beer was smooth and we enjoyed that.

Now came the infuriating part. When asked for the bill, the waiter asked me how much I would be tipping. This is such a weird behaviour as I understand from my German friends that it is not normal for waiters to ask you for it. Nevermind that, when I told him that we can tip 1€ (we're students and where we come from tipping is not a thing), he scoffed and said "only 1€? you ate 60€ worth". Then he proceeded to stare at me until I gave him a number he was satisfied with. Absolutely disgusting behaviour. If I've no choice in how much I'd like to tip, then include that in the price of the food on the menu. A tip should be a small token of appreciation, not money that's enough to buy me another beer.

This was my first meal in Germany, a country I've wanted to visit for a very long time. Yet this was the meal that I'd have to remember it by. Absolutely disappointing experience especially after such a good Schweinshaxe (which is the only reason for the extra star). I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND this restaurant to anyone because of the...

Review back in 2021 was not posted (because it was negative?) so I'm editing and reposting.

Only good thing about this place is probably its location, and I wished we would have walked further down to the other Bavarian restaurants we patronised few days ago instead of settling with this place just because it's in the middle of the shopping street.

Beer was okay, as expected.

Food was bland, and service was non-existent.

We waited for the host to lead us to the table. It was a non-peak hour (before the rush dinner time) because we wanted to avoid overly crowded places in view of the Covid pandemic. The host did not bother to walk further into the hall (it's a huge hall) and led us to a table near the door to share the standard table with another couple. It was Covid time, but the host didn't bother with social distancing. The distance was definitely less than a meter. We saw other local patrons disregard the host and choose their own table, so we followed suit and managed to find an empty table for ourselves inside the restaurant. In fact, there were many empty tables around inside the hall.

Next - waiter who served us, when we asked for any recommendation, told us "I don't know" literally. He didn't seem interested to do his job, just wanted to take order and complete his task. And the English menu was very limited. Later on we saw other guests at other tables had much interesting food served and we asked the waiter about the dishes, only to learn that those are not available in English menu.

Food was so bland (except for the sauerkraut that was so overly sour), and the portion was so small. We had to have a second meal after this dinner, in fact.

Lastly, the tip. To pay by card, we had to walk to the cashier ourselves because they didn't have portable machines. My husband was told that the tip he paid was "not even enough for a child". Wow. He ended up paying about 15% for tip for unsatisfactory...

Food 1/5 Service 1/5 Value 3/5 Racism 5/5

Lots of racism towards Asian people. If you read the reviews that are in Chinese, you'll find that their experiences are similar to mine.

First off, just find an open space and sit down. There are 2 entrances and you can just come in and sit.

We walked through one entrance and then the guy said the entrance was next door. I think he was messing with us cause it didn't matter.

After flagging down one of the servers in such a busy place, we confirmed you can sit anywhere.

When we were ready to order (2 Asian people), it took us 20 minutes of actively trying to get the attention of one of the servers. It was clear they were avoiding our table and it was getting frustrating. We were trying to get their attention by holding our hand up, waving gently and had a big smile. A few servers saw us and we're clearly avoiding eye contact. We saw other people that just sat down get served immediately. We were about to give up until someone finally came to our table...after taking everyone elses orders.

After ordering, we got our food in 5 minutes and 1 (of 2) of our drinks. That's super fast. After another 20 minutes we noticed the server forgot a drink so we had to ask him again and got the drink a few minutes later.

As for the food, we got the signature pork knuckle. It was overcooked and lacked any flavor. It was extremely hard to cut it with a knife not to mention chew it. Along with the order came chewy potatoes (intentional?) And sauerkraut.

The server came by again and we have them $51.55 for our $31.55. the server left $15 and said the rest was for tip. He then ran off.

This was infuriating. The food and service did not warrant a tip. The place is highly rated online so I had high expectations. It's now apparent that this place is ONLY for drinking and don't expect much on the...