It had been months since Jason and I went out for an 'exotic' meal at an ethnic restaurant (mostly due to the fact that there were only about ten foods that actually sounded edible to me for a 3 month period - thank you pregnancy). But, come May, I was starting to feel much more like myself, so we planned a day date to the city and decided to hit up an ethnic restaurant while we were out there.
I have been having mini-cravings for sausage, so we decided to do a German restaurant. Neither one of us have smart phones (keeping it real, folks), so we brought my iPad with us and were going to figure out the restaurant once we got into the city. Unfortunatley, my iPad was not getting good service, so we went to the Hyatt, pretended to be out-of-towners staying at the hotel, and asked the front desk for a good German restaurant. They highly recommended Suppenküche in Hayes Valley (Yelp review here).
We were welcomed by a huge crowd and an hour wait, which is always a good sign. The restaurant totally reminded me of Germany: it was loud, crowded, and had a bunch of large tables where you sat with others (do not go here on a first date...no privacy and you can barely have a conversation due to the noise).
I enjoyed an entertaining visit to the bathrooms while we waited. This gave me a good laugh.
Once we were seated at our table (with two other random couples), we enjoyed looking at the menu. I got a kick out of the beer menu, which reminded me of my trip to Oktoberfest in Germany. The guy at the bar behind us was actually drinking one of the boot beers, and we had a great time cheering him on and watching him finish his TWO liters of beer.
I settled for the 1-liter.
Just-kidding. No drinking for this pregnant lady...this was circa Oktoberfest 2006.
For dinner, I ordered the bratwurst.
It was almost as good as the real-deal out of Germany! (Again, circa Oktoberfest 2006).
Jason ordered the wiener schnitzel.
Both were quite tasty, but neither compared to the apple turnover we had for dessert. Yum!
Overall, I would give the restaurant a 9 out of 10. I mostly rate it down because of the ambiance, but I guess it gives you a good flavor for German culture :)
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