One of the best Christmas dinners I’ve ever had was at a German restaurant in Milwaukee. Smoked pork chops with German potato salad and red cabbage … mmmmmmmmmmmm! :o
Like most East European cuisines, the food in Latvia is very similar. At one popular restaurant, I had roast pork joint with potato pancakes and sauerkraut. One serving was enough for two people, and dee-licious!
I was passing through there a couple years ago and saw a German restaurant. I’ve been to Germany a few times and had some fantastic meals, but I’ve never found a German restaurant in the states that’s as good. I’d have tried that one in Albany but I wasn’t driving.
Too many Reapers hanging around, for one thing…
Alas, the German places in the area have all gone under. Spa Brauhaus in Ballston Spa was the last holdout and closed in 2015. The Bavarian Chalet has been closed for over ten years. There is a place that serves wurst and beer, but no full entries.
There is a German restaurant in my neck of the woods that is to DIE FOR. I hosted Ivylad’s 50th birthday there. Live music every weekend, a line out the door, a deli around the corner, and quite reasonable prices. I would bathe naked in their spaetzle. They’re consistently voted best in the county.
Plus, they’re a Mom and Pop place that is closed for Mother’s Day for Mama Hollerbach. How cute is that!
“German food” is pretty much the local version of Northern European food–beer, potatoes, bread, sausage, cabbage, onions, and if you’re lucky a herring or something. It’s not distinct enough from British or Irish or Scandanavian or Slavic food, and note that none of those cuisines have ethnic restaurants either. It’s basic home food, which you can serve at home, and so why would you go to a restaurant for it?
Sure they do. There’s at least a few dozen Polish restaurants around here, plus Bohemian, Lithuanian (OK, that’s Baltic, not Slavic), as well as Scandinavian and British and Irish.
And there’s a handful (I could think of about 6 or 7 off the top of my head) of German restaurants here, too, including the iconic Berghoff in the Loop (though that’s been stripped down a bit from its former glory.)
This thread is making me miss Milwaukee so much. It was a Christmas tradition to go to one of those restaurants. I always thought Karl Ratzsch’s had better food, but I prefer the atmosphere at Mader’s.
German food is the only thing I miss about Milwaukee. We were partial to the Gasthaus in Waukesha (maybe because it was really close to home), but Google maps says it is permanently closed.
I’ve never seen a German restaurant in the US that wasn’t primarily a Bavarian restaurant (the lederhosen/dirndls are a Bavarian thing). Would love to find somewhere to get my all-time favorite German food, Schwäbische maultaschen…
THat’s a good point (well, not the Milwaukee part–Milwaukee’s awesome), but the maultaschen/regional foods (although maultaschen are found commonly in Bavaria, too, from what I remember.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen maultaschen at a German restaurant here, either. I’m not 100% sure, though, as it somehow has never occured to me to actively look for them. There is a pierogi place here, though, that makes pierogi stuffed with maultaschen filling (meat, spinach,and herbs and spices.)
I really miss the old John Ernst Cafe. And the Bavarian Inn. Never did make it to the Gasthaus.
The Hofbrau in Sheboygan is long gone too. Oh well, I can make a damn good sauerbraten in the pressure cooker. But dumplings and spaetzle are something I never mastered. Nor good schaum torte.
There are several German restaurants in Louisville, which had a sizable German population at one time. I’ve not been to any though. Why go out when I’ve got 30 pounds of cabbage fermenting in the kitchen right now?
A German restaurant that got an award for being the cleanest restaurant? Did they also get one for alway opening on time?
Anyway, German food is lovely when cooked by my mother!
You’ll notice it doesn’t say which 7 years, either. :dubious:
Cardigan, I’m going to break something to you… Those Potato pancakes… not the most inspired cuisine. Look it’s OK, the Germans don’t need to be great at EVERYTHING.
Just be happy your Germanic people have such identifiable ideals of the quintessential German woman in popular culture. Frau:
Indeed. Was ist ein “vegetable?”
Ich lachte. 
Yes, but what fun is a restaurant where you can read the menu?
We ignore them until we are 70, and by then it’s too late.
Mmmmmm, dill in everything.
Well, with a British food we did a cunning thing. We’ve taken our food all over the world but we just didn’t call the places that sell it restaurants.
Pretty much every major city I’ve been to has had Several British style Pubs selling British food. Here in Stockholm I could probably run off ten without having to think too hard.
We can be a very sneaky people.
Yes indeed. I remember it well. Also the Ideal – were you ever there? More of a diner than a restaurant, but plenty of sausage and sauerkraut. And a sort of cafe/pastry place whose name escapes me at the moment, on 86th Street.
And there was Schaller & Weber, the delicatessen. Great stuff could be had there.
And the Elk Candy store
I went to high school in Yorkville. It’s certainly lost its German character since then.
Schaller & Weber is still there!
Still has excellent house-made brats, bauenwurst, knockwurst, liverwurst, frankfurters and weiners of every shape and size, and that heavenly Hungarian smoked kielbasa, redolent of garlic and paprika.
Plus a wide variety of egg noodles, Central European cheeses, mustards, and even dried spaetzel for when you’re too lazy to beat flour and an egg together.