Alp Chalet

We found friendly staff serving good German beer and good curry sausage. I imagine it gets a bit uncomfortable when it gets full, but we found it just half full and really enjoyed ourselves!

The Christkindelmarkt in Millennium Square now has a ‘proper’ restaurant! You can book it by email though you must do it at least two days in advance. We didn’t, we went on spec as part of our Wednesday jaunt.
The décor has gone a bit overkill on the beer garden look! The furniture is very new, untreated pine, looks lovely. There are some red and white gingham covered cushions but not enough to go round and the benched are very hard on the bum after a while. The tables are shared, so it’s not a very romantic set up, but then it’s not the place to go for romance. Our table held four groups so if the people on the inside want to get out, their neighbours have to get up; the benches have backs so you can’t just step over. Not a place for conversation either as the Oompah Band were very very loud; ambiance is fine but you can have too much of it. It might have been better if they’d known some German tunes instead of Oomaphing versions of really bad 70s stuff.
The service dispels the myth of German efficiency; I can’t imagine what would happen if you booked, because it’s a place where you find your own seats. What if you’ve booked and there aren’t any? Or the only ones are mid row? Anyway, I’m going off track, when we arrived they weren’t at all busy so we got a seat near the door; bad idea as I got a howling gale every time someone came or went. it was about half full but it still took a while to catch our waitresses eye and asked her for a menu, this seemed to surprise her. It took a while to catch her again so we could order. Only the people across the aisle were eating and we couldn’t decide if everyone was waiting for food, everyone had finished eating (they were terrifically good at clearing dirty plates) or if most people were just drinking. I was beginning to worry that we were in another Tong Palace situation, when the food arrived.
The food is very similar to the food in the Frankfurter Scheune (shares a website), but more expensive, apart from the drinks. I had the gluhwein and because they don’t do any juice, my beloved had a fanta. I had the boiled ox-​breast and he had the crispy knuckle of pork, at £8.50 and £8, these were just about the cheapest main courses. I had the better meal, it came swimming in a creamy sauce with a nice dollop of strong horseradish sauce on top, the salt potatoes looked pretty much like boiled potatoes but tasted slightly different and very good, while the creamed savoy cabbage was enough to make me reconsider brassicas in general! Beloved fared less well; his crispy pork could have been crisper, but the meat was good and it was huge, the bacon coleslaw, though nice (I tried some) contained no bacon at all, the gravy and dumplings were fine but nothing special. The people across the aisle seen to have the Traditional German Snack Plate to share; it looked very good and they seemed to enjoy it.