Munich Food Trucks

I just came across a list of food trucks in Munich via an American Haus post. They are hosting an after work evening full of food trucks every few months, so if you are interested in checking some of these tasty businesses out, it might be worth checking out.

I’m a big fan of food trucks and would love to see more of them in and around Munich.

Munich Food Trucks List

Twitter accounts for Munich Food Trucks

@ISARDOGS
@TheCaveMunich
@intolerante_Isi
@MuchoGustoTruck

If you are a EU business don’t book on expedia

After weeks of back and fourth with Expedia.de / Lufthansa and my credit card, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never use Expedia.de for business travel booking again. In all I’ve logged 6 calls to Expedia, 4 to Lufthansa and two to my credit card company.

Scenario

I booked a recent trip for 2 to the US with Expedia.de. Where it gets complicated is that the processing and charge on my credit card was billed directly by Lufthansa. This apparently is the normal model for travel agents, so in this case I have a contract with Expedia, for the billing, and Lufthansa for the flight, while Expedia and Lufthansa have a payment agreement between themselves. They settle their books seperately

When it came time to submit my expenses, I see that my booking only has a ‘Buchungsbestätigung’ or booking confirmation. But no receipt. The Buchungsbestätigung shows one bill, but on my credit card there’s two entries, one for each of the passengers. The sum adds up to the total in this confirmation, but I still don’t have something that says it’s a receipt and matches my credit card.

In the end I may not be able to submit this expense.

Expedia.de stance

some correspondences in German from Expedia.

leider ist es nicht möglich eine Rechnung mit Mehrwertsteuer für einen nur Flug Reiseplan auszustellen.

Erklärende Anmerkung zu Rechnungsanfragen: Expedia muss in der EU keine MwSt. auf Reiseleistungen abführen, da das Unternehmen seinen Sitz in den USA hat und auf Buchungsleistungen keine MwSt. erhebt. Wir stellen daher keine Belege mit MwSt.
Als reiner Vermittler, nicht aber als Direktanbieter der Leistungen, die Ihnen berechnet wurden, kann Ihnen Expedia laut Gesetzgeber lediglich einen normalen Kaufbeleg aushändigen.

Finding the best coffee in airports

Watching people, and seeing what they do can really show you some great insights. If you look at people as a group, seeing patterns in behaviours can be really telling about what’s going on around you. It’s a bit like looking at web analytics, what I spend a fair bit of my time doing at blackdog.ie. Seeing trends / patterns in real life people is a lot more interesting than web traffic, I’ve found.

Most of the time we don’t have the opportunity to sit back and observe, to take the time to see why people are doing what they are doing. But this morning I’ve had an extended stay at Cork Airport waiting on my flight. I was looking for the best place to have breakfast and what to have, and the best place in the airport to have coffee. I had time on my hands so I started to look at people.

Within 15 – 20 minutes of watching what people do and where they go I was able to see the the better breakfast place was different to the coffee place. Smokers tended to drink one type of coffee, and people on the go went somewhere else. I actively ignored flyers, concentrating on the staff members, as they have to get breakfast / lunch and coffee every day.

I’m sure you can apply similar analysis to other things around you, just stop and sit back and try to observe some trends.

btw.

  • the best coffee in Cork airport : ReFuel (downstairs), get an extra shot for 50 cents ,
  • best breakfast in Cork airport : Food Market (upstairs), granted there isn’t really much of an option. But I did see that the toast was very popular.

Can’t get through to Lufthansa Miles & More credit card service ?

Are having an issue trying to contact the German team at Lufthansa Miles and more credit card on the following number
069 – 667 888 700
Basically what happens is at busy times (read all the time) and you are told to call back later when they are not so busy. The issue here is that they just disconnect you, and you are left high and dry. So if it’s an emergency, or you don’t mind being on hold, there isn’t anything you can do. After doing a bit of poking around and checking I saw that you can try this alternative number
069 – 667 888 500 

milesandmore

I think this is for the Miles and More Gold members, but it’s not advertised as much.

Crew Ale – Munich Micro beer

A lot can be said about the quality of Munich beer, but sadly not a lot can be said about the local diversity. The main breweries :

  • Augustiner
  • Späten
  • Paulaner
  • Löwenbräu
  • Hacker-Pschorr
  • Hofbräu

all brew similar enough beer, especially when it comes to their Helles. Over time many of the smaller Munich establishments that had breweries, like the Drei Groschen Keller, ended up going out of business or being sold to the larger breweries.

Munich’s newest brewery

I’m always excited about new local businesses or startups, be they selling cupcakes, french food, proxies, mexican food or dropbox managers. I like to get to know something about these local small businesses, and I’ve made some great connections with some of them.

Today I wanted to write about a new brewery, by 2 guys Mario Hanel & Timm Schnigula, Crew AleWerkstatt (www.crewale.de). I first discovered them in one of my favourite local bars that serves a diverse selection of beer, namely Vivo (www.vivo-muenchen.de). Right now they sell two types of beer, a pale ale and an IPA. I hope in the future these guys will branch out to other sorts like seasonal beers, I guess only time will tell.

Munich Crew Ale

Crewale is different

One great thing I like about these guys is that they will deliver to your door, via the postal system for free if you order 20 bottles and are in Germany, check out their shop online. My only criticism is that you can’t order 10 pale alse and 10 IPAs (get on it lads !).

The price for beer is more expensive than that of the main-stream breweries, but that’s more than likely to do with economies of scale. A beer, delivered to your door will cost about €1.30 for 33cl, where as in a shop you can buy 50cl for about €0.85. In my mind it’s worth it, and I recommend that you check these lads out.

Check them out at www.crewale.de.

Looking for Karl Bauer / Karl Hunt

In 2007 – 2009 I worked with a Dr. Karl-Peter Bauer at the EPO (European Patent Office) in Munich, and I’d very much like to get back in touch with him. If you know anything about him perhaps you can get in contact via this form. Some other information leads me to think his name was origionaly Karl Hunt. He lived in Munich, Germany since 2005, and possibly worked in Frankfurt before that. He said he was married to a Carolin Bauer, and they had a child together in 2008. He used the name Karl Bauer after this. I last had contact with him in 2010, via email, these email accounts now seem to be cancelled. He said he had a Swiss father, served in The Marines and in Northern Ireland, and in 1996 he apparently broke his back in a ski accident. This all appears to be made up and a lie.

Karl was born on 3/10/1963.

About Karl Bauer

I don’t think he was actually a PhD. doctor, nor any other kind of doctor. He has a strong IT background, and has worked in the IT and finance areas. He said he was originally from Birmingham, with family connections in Switzerland as well. I can’t verify if any of this was 100% true. I’ve been able to track down some information from addresses he gave but they all turn up nothing concrete.

  • Mansfield, Nottinghamshire
  • Glascote Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire B77 2AE

He might also be in the Zurich area of Switzerland with a friend Barbara Simonet.

A picture of Karl Hunt


At the time we lost contact, end of 2009, he said he had MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and that he was going to Thailand for some treatment. Some people I know sent Western Union money to him there, so I can be pretty sure he was there, and then afterwards he went back to the UK. But after that he seems to have disappeared from the face of the planet. Now I don’t think he is a scam artist or anything like that, he was a genuine person when I knew him, but over time his stories didn’t match up.

Possible locations

2003 – 2004 England (London, Birmingham )
2005 – 2010 Germany (Frankfurt & Munich)
2013 – Switzerland (Zurich)
2014 ??

Connected people

Josephine Bauer
Carolyn / Carolin Bauer (born 1981)
Barbara Simonet

Information on Karl Bauer

If you have any info that you would like to share, you can contact me here.

Tasty Chicken Dish

Recently we tried a great recipe, and I thought I share our great results. We had General Tso’s Chicken and with a little bit of broccoli it was indeed a very tasty meal. Lauren is really good at finding these recipes, and what’s great about this one is that it’s a lot healthier than the battered and fried version. As we are on a bit of a healthy kick at the moment this tasty baked alternative worked well, and if I’m perfectly honest it was nicer than the fried version. It’s an easy recipe and well worth a try.