Suppenkuche: 12 Is My Limit on Schnittzengrubben
Written: Oct 09 '00 (Updated Jun 29 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The Spitsles
Cons: A Little Loud
The Bottom Line: Serving wonderfully executed German comfort food in a cozy space, Suppenkuche is a perfect winter dining spot
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Suppenkuche |
Which came first: Phil Hartman's SNL character "The Anal Retentive Chef" or that lady with the perfectly coiffed hair and four inch nails with the cooking show on Saturday afternoons? You know who she is. She wears a denim chef's jacket and uses lots of "products" in her hair and she sprays her pans with butter flavored Pam and she just ... can't ...resist ... re ... arranging ... the plates ... her guest chefs put together. Pookie and I love to hate her the way you normal people love to hate, oh I don't know, random blondes on Melrose place.
In the mornings, there used to be a show called "Cooking With Claudine" which appeared to be the otherwise brilliant Jacques Pepin's pitiful attempt to get his befuddled daughter a date. Thankfully, Jacques is now paired with the lady who made tipsy osteoperrotic septuagenarians sexy again: the Goddess, Julia Child.
And sandwiched right there between the inspired "Jacque and Julia" and the crazy Pam lady is somebody's Italian grandmother. Sometimes you just can't figure out what she's getting at. But sometimes she just pulls out all the meat and cheese and fat and spices and throws together something you just can't resist. That's what happened a couple of years ago when she roasted a big hunkin' slab o' cow flesh, and while it was cooking she whipped a huge platter of home-made speatzle. Okay, so, egg noodles right? Only egg noodles that don't have any shape. Big deal.
Yeah, you're right. No big deal. But when she took her hunkin' slab of beef out of the oven and dumped out all of the juices and added some wine and reduced it and dumped it on top of those buttered, shapeless egg noodles and topped it off with beautiful thin slices of beef and some fresh ground black pepper ... Well, it just about screamed "EAT ME." It was January in San Francisco. It was cold and foggy and windy out – like it is right now – and this stuff just looked like the kind of comfort food you wish your mother made instead of stringy onion-soup-mix-covered brisket.
"Get me some shpretzels," I yelled to Pookie (who, I should finally reveal, is never really called Pookie, except here)
"It's Schpaetzle," she said.*
"Yeah, whatever. I need some spittzles. Where can we get some spittzles. I gotta have me some spittzles. C'mon, you know you want some too."
"I'll bet that Suppenkuchen place has it," she said. "And it's called schpaetzle. There's no ‘r'."
So I called the Suppenkuchen and I asked, "Do you serve the Shpittle?"
"Sure, we've got Schpaetzle" she said. And we were off. Only we were off about four hours later because 1:00 is too early for dinner.
Bavarian Chic
The two rooms (and tiny bar alcove) define "cozy." There are eight tables in the front room, and another bench and a few tables in the back room. Each one seats six to eight people. Hard wood floors, raw pine tables and wooden beams across the ceiling. They'll seat you with other parties if there is no room elsewhere, which typically, I strongly object to (I'm not a people person). But each of the times I've had to sit with others, that fact has been almost imperceptible. The other parties are seated as far away at the bench as is physically possible, and the place is loud enough that you don't feel as though you're actually sharing space – and conversation – with the other parties.
Roll Out the Barrel
When my EX-girlfriend delayed our immanent pairing by chasing a fey young communist to his homeland near Nurmberg, she would occasionally call me from the local college bierhaus to complain of the cold and overwhelming German-ness of Germany.
"And how's the food?" I would ask, in my bitter little attempts to get her to give up on central Europe and come home to the American food she so enjoyed: Tofu.
"Well, you know they make great falafel here," she would say, "But mostly I'm just living on the beer and the bread."
Now I can see how someone can live on nothing but beer and bread. German bread is a lunch unto itself. German beer is a tasty and filling dinner. So that's two of your daily meals right there. Never having been to Germany, I can't vouch for this stuff, but the beer and bread they have at Suppenkuche are both pretty damn good.
They've got about a dozen or so real German beers on tap. None of them are Heineken. Mostly they're beers you can't pronounce and have never heard of and I think they all have pictures of Martin Luther on the tap and/or bottle. They're served in big tall powerful German steins or glasses (none of this English pint stuff), and in a neighborhood (Hayes Valley/Lower Haight) that takes its beer seriously, Suppenkuche respectably holds its own.
The bread comes in two or three varieties. The thick cuts of pumpernickel are rich and dark and better than any other pumpernickel I've had. The thinner seeded bread is also delicious and filling. And it's all served with a small terrine of sweet, not salted, butter.
Ich Bin Ein Cheesy Pasta Dish
Yes, just as Jack Kennedy declared himself a jelly donut some 37 years ago in an effort at solidarity with the isolated Berlinese, I now declare myself to be a heaping plate of Schpaetzle with cheese. I have dumped so much of this stuff in my gullet over the last two years that I believe I am actually 20% Schpaetzle at this point. This is delicious, salty stuff covered with a rich and ripe white cheese. If I lived in the neighborhood, it might replace my thrice-weekly nacho fix. But I don't, so I usually order other stuff too.
Among the other stuff that is both appetizer and delicious is the gravlox: smoked salmon served with a thin potato pancake, sour cream and a viscous (and sweet) dill sauce. Last time I went, five of us split these two appetizers and the delicious heavy bread and that was plenty.
But if you feel you must have more in the way of latkes, they've got ‘em here as a separate dish unto themselves, and they're every bit as good as the ones you'll get at your favorite deli.
Entrees: More Shpittles !
Usually, when I go to this restaurant, I look to see which entrees are being served with the schpaetzle. It weighs heavily in my decision of what to get.
If I go to a place several times, whether or not I've already decided to like it, I eventually rest my judgment on the baked or roasted chicken. It's a simple dish with relatively few variations that can be screwed up by even the most otherwise competent kitchen. So, while I may keep coming back to a place that I like, I always think of chefs who make bad baked chicken as hacks. They don't really care what I think though.
The roasted chicken at Suppenkuche is middle-of-the-road stuff. It isn't great and the skin can be a little soggy from the red wine sauce, but the meat is tender enough and not overcooked. They serve you a whole half chicken on a bed of potatoes. It's good enough for the not-so-adventurous.
Suppenkuchen also serves a hearty dish called "Meat Balls in Cream Sauce with Capers" which is a sort of odd combo, but pretty darn good. The meatballs are guy-jantic and rest in a meaty, creamy bowl of broth that's perfect for soaking some of that pumpernickel in, if you have any left.
I've only had venison at two places in my whole life: Suppenkuchen and a great little restaurant in Los Angeles called Café Bizou. Suppenkuchen's was not the better of the two. But it may be an unfair comparison, because everything at Bizou is incredible, and I'm not a venison expert. About Suppenkuchen's version, I can say that it is not in the least gamey, and the meat is tender and flavorful. I was somewhat turned off by the vinegary accompaniments, but that's my fault, not theirs. I only like vinegar in my salads.
They have a Pork Loin thing in a mushroom sauce that Hanski says isn't as good as the one at LuLu. But she finished most of it anyway, twice now, which she usually doesn't do. She also says she doesn't think she would bother ordering anything else when she came back.
Like any respectable German restaurant, Suppenkuchen serves sausages and saurkraut. The sausages are good and cooked all the way through and not grisly with chunks of who-knows-what. They're served with mashed potatoes, which are buttery and lumpy, which I like. The thing that impressed me was the saurkraut. I hate saurkraut, but Rock-Star Tony convinced me to try a little bit of his the last time I was there, and it was like no other I had ever tried. It wasn't overwhelmingly vinegary and tasted so fresh and un-mushy that I hesitate to even call it saurkraut.
The last two times I've been there, I had the meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The meat loaf is very tender and cooked with an egg in the middle and bacon wrapped around the outside. The onion sauce that comes with it is a little sweet for my taste, but it's a good comfort food dish all around.
Most of the entrees run in the $11.00 to $14.00 range. With a few shared appetizers, a beer or two and tip, you can easily get out of here for under $25.00 per. On my last visit, the five of us went to town and the bill ended up around $125.00. I've had dinner for four for $60.00.
Parking / Transport
I've never had problems parking in Hayes Valley, but I know others disagree with me on this. There are two small parking lots within a block, and you can frequently find street parking to the north on Fell or Grove. The restaurant shares a valet parking service with the restaurant across the street. Also, it's only a couple of blocks off of Market Street, so public transportation is rarely difficult. Cabs cruise down Hayes all night long and since Suppenkuchen is at the far end of the row of popular restaurants, you can usually snag one ahead of those people standing out in front of Absinthe. If not, the nice volkswaiters will call one for you.
*Note: I take no responsibility for the actual spelling of this stuff
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Mr.Eyore
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Reviews written: 129
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About Me:
I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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