The Münster nightlife is in the Kuhviertel (literally, the "Cow District"). Students started the fun at Cavete, a lively pub in the Kreuzstrasse, and it spread through the district. Now anyone seeking an engaging evening in Münster thinks first of the Kuhviertel.

Long before the popular pub Cavete served its first beer, Pinkus Müller was already a Münster fixture. The restaurant (also a brewery) offers superb regional cuisine, so regional that the menu includes a glossary of local terms: surmoos for sauerkraut, prümkes for plums, and töttchen for savory pork ragout. Appetizers include regional sausages and Westphalian ham, as well as dark bread with schmaltz.

Another specialty is Altbier, beer aged about six months to yield a mellow, slightly sweet, almost wine-like character. It's often served as an Altbierbohle with sliced fresh peaches or strawberries. Food prices are moderate, and typical choices are pork hock with sauerkraut and pureed potatoes (wonderful, albeit artery clogging), steak topped with baked cheese, medallions of pork, and pork filet with prümkes and plum sauce. Dessert has to include rote grütze - a cooled, just lightly boiled and sweetened ragout of fresh berries, topped with cream or vanilla ice cream.

"Pinkus," known to his parents as Carl, was sixth in a line of nine Müllers since the restaurant opened in 1806, and local residents delight in explaining his name, a derivation of the German word "to tinkle." When young Carl was a teenager, he and some friends made off with vast quantities of beer from his parents' brewery. After considerable consumption, he felt full of both self and bladder and bet he could put out the town's lights. He made a valiant effort and was henceforth known as "Tinkler." Today, the restaurant is owned by Pinkus' son, Hans (no known nickname) and his wife Annemarie.

Just a hop, skip and an Altbier from Pinkus Müller - but just outside the Cow District - is the superb and fun Restaurant Grosser Kieperkerl. In earlier days, a kieperkerl carried goods on his back between the family farmhouse and the city, stopping for shopping requests (and gossip) along the way. The kieperkerl took on the symbolism of stability and permanence, an image ironically shattered in 1945 when a U.S. Army tank flattened the former statue of the kieperkerl that stood outside this fine restaurant.

The statue has been replaced, and the food has never been better. With 140 seats inside the half-timber building and 80 outside, the restaurant features regional specialties like Westphalian wedding soup (beef broth with fresh vegetables) or Münsterländer Kalbstöttchen - take the calf's head, simmer it down and make a savory stew of the meat that falls off. It's much better than it sounds. Less regional but still delicious dishes include sauerbraten, chicken breast with chanterelles in cream sauce with buttered spätzle, salmon filet with horseradish crust, and chanterelles in cream such with semmelknödel (dumplings).

This article appeared in its original form in "Gemuetlichkeit German Travel Newsletter".  www.gemut.com<//a>