Actually, I'd heard of this soup joint from this terrific post by snbuzzelli. This kitchen is located in the heart of the Viktualienmarkt, the large food market located slightly southeast of Marienplatz.

We easily found the restaurant in the Viktualienmarkt and spent some time deciphering the menu. Huhnerbruhe? Rinderbruhe? Huh? With help from my phrasebook, we found the former is chicken soup and the latter, beef soup. You had a choice of noodles, dumplings, or pancakes in the soup and also whether you wanted some of the meat in the soup, too. There were other vegetarian soups and a liver dumpling soup, and that day, they had a goulasche soup. We chose a chicken noodle with meat and a goulasche soup to split. You can have pretzels, dark German rye bread, and other goodies to go with your soup, but we chose to have them straight up.

The place is self service. Place your order either inside or outside (inside, you can see the other foodstuffs available; at the outside window, you have a view to the cauldrons of soup). Your soup is placed on a tray and you can have it standing up inside or on picnic benches outside. I can imagine it being very pleasant during the summer, but there's not much to fear in the winter. The outside area is surrounded by thick plastic sheets to keep out the cold, and there are powerful heaters to keep you warm.

Oh, my goodness. This soup was terrific. It was a clear chicken broth with tender noodles (they cook them separately) and plenty of chicken meat. (If you don't want meat in your soup, they just give you the broth.) Yum. And the goulasch soup was full of soft beef and potato cubes. We were hooked.

However, on the following Sunday, we wanted more, but it was closed. The entire Viktualienmarkt was closed - even the Nordsee. Oh, when were we going to get to eat soup again?!

We found that second chance on our penultimate day in Munich. We spent the morning buying gifts for friends and relatives and then headed over to the Viktualienmarkt again for lunch. This time, goulasch soup was off the menu - and I cannot remember what its replacement was. We had another chicken noodle soup and a beef soup with dumplings. The lady who helped me seemed pleased when I massacred her language! Yum, yum again! The dumplings were not at all what I expected - they were a dough with a green filling (spinach?) rolled up like a jelly roll and then sliced. They were delicious!

There is another branch just by the Dom, northwest of Marienplatz. If you do find yourself in Munich, I heartily recommend a visit!