Liter House

Hubby and I went to Liter House the other night. We had been before, but there’s been some chef shake ups, so I wanted to wait to write about it until the new chef had been in charge for bit. The current chef is Adam Ditter, formerly of Longbranch and the Vanguard. You can see some of his Longbranch/Asian influences on some of the specials, such as the one I ordered, but overall the menu maintains its German theme.

We started with the potato latkes topped with raclette cheese and sauerkraut ($10). This was a generous serving and so, so good. There were a couple of large crispy potato pancakes topped with the melted creamy cheese and then some caramelized sauerkraut and onions. This was such a good combo with the crispy edges of the potatoes, the creamy richness of the cheese and the acid from the sauerkraut. I would totally get this again. They also do a version with mortadella instead of the cheese, but I don’t know how you would pass up the cheese.

Hubby ordered the pork schnitzel ($18). This was an intensely tender piece of fried pork tenderloin topped with a creamy mushroom sauce and homemade spaetzle. Wow, this was such a great dish. The spaetzle was tender and held up really well to that mushroom sauce. It was a great combo. Everything was cooked just right, and I was impressed. Luckily hubby was up for sharing, because I ate a fair amount of his.

I ordered one of the specials of the night, which was the mapo tofu ($14) Let’s face it. I will order mapo tofu just about any time I see it on a menu. German restaurant? No exception. So it’s hunks of tofu on rice with a sauce that had black beans, garlic and a hot Chinese sauce that was so hot, it was almost too much for me. I have had the chef’s version of this dish at his other restaurants, but I feel like this was the hottest one yet! Definitely a lasting residue of spiciness with this one. I love this dish and general, and this one was well done, but it was to the point heat-wise that I would likely not order it again here because it detracted from the taste of everything else (luckily that creamy sauce on the schnitzel helped). If you really like super spicy though, I would go for it. Also, they might want to warn people about the heat level.

We had some time to kill before we picked up our daughter, so decided to have a dessert as well. We had the chocolate cheesecake with pretzel crust and blueberry beer compote ($8). Wow, another great combination of flavors with the sweet cheesecake, the salty pretzel crumbs, and the tart compote. Get a little but in every bite and it was perfect.  I appreciated how all the food overall was so well balanced.

Hubby was also happy to see more German style beers and appreciated the price points as well. He had the Dunkel for $6 and was pleased. Our service was very good, and the crowd was pleasant. It was busy but not ridiculously loud. I also really appreciated the fact that it was the proper (warm) temperature in there for a winter night. I hate freezing in restaurants and I always seem to whether it is summer or winter. My only complaint about the atmosphere is that we were seated at a high-top table in the bar and the either the stools are too short for the table or the table is too tall for the stools. I felt like I needed a booster seat. As it was, I sat on my foot all night to prop me up a bit. 

I have also heard that they are working on opening a Texas-style smokehouse in the back and I look forward to trying that when it opens as well. 

Overall though, I was very impressed and look forward to trying more things on the menu. What have been your favorite things?

Liter House

5301 N Wintrhop Ave

Indianapolis, IN 46220

463/221-2800

www.literhouse.com 

Rathskeller -- Revisit

My husband has been nagging me to go back to the Rathskeller literally for years. Let’s just say, it didn’t make a strong impression on me then. And let’s also just say, that may have changed, but not for the better.

We went with my son and my in-laws. They are always game to try somewhere new and had never been. We started with an order of the onion dill bread with herbs and provolone ($9.95). This is a pretty tasty item. It’s a piece of bread that’s cut and seasoned and topped with cheese and herbs. It’s gooey and tasty. Honestly, it was one of the better things we had, even though you really don’t need to order it because you get a nice bread plate with every meal. Speaking of which, my favorite part of this is the warm pretzels in that basket. I truly wished they offered some sort of cheese or even better, beer cheese, to dip them in. The pretzels taste good, but the super spicy mustard they serve it with is so spicy, it’s not even really very good. So let’s just say the strengths of this place mainly start and end with the breads. Ok, and the soup. I had a cup of French onion soup ($5.50) and salad for my meal, because so much pork was being ordered, I knew I could eat off everyone else’s plates. The soup was very tasty. It had the rich beefy stock that you need, plus the onions and cheesy bread. Oh wait, there you go, more bread.

The salad I ordered was the spinach salad ($11.50). It’s a big hearty salad with a ton of spinach leaves. They are topped with bacon crumbles, cheese, hardboiled egg, tomatoes, red onions, and mushrooms. They serve it with a little server of warm bacon dressing. There was so much spinach in there, you really needed to take about half of it out in order to have the right amount of dressing. It was actually kind of hard to eat because the plate was so full, you couldn’t really toss the dressing with the salad much. I kind of got frustrated trying to get it right and gave up and stuck with my soup. I didn’t care much for the dressing either, which had a kind of artificial sweetness to it.

Several people at the table got various forms of the schnitzels. The regular schnitzel ($24.50), the Jaegerschnitzel ($26.50), and the schnitzel cordon bleu ($26.50). Ok, these are all pounded and fried pork tenderloins that are covered (or not) with various sauces—the plain one just comes with lemon, the Jaegerschnitzel with a red wine sauce with mushrooms, herbs and shallots, the cordon bleu, with you guessed it, ham and Swiss cheese. Here’s the problem. The schnitzel is bad. You can dress it up (or not) however you want, but it’s just huge and dry. So dry you can barely cut it with a knife and fork. The cheese and ham were probably the best addition as it added, well, cheesiness. But no one was overly happy, and I am pretty sure my in laws will never return. On the bright side, one of the sides chosen by several, the creamed spinach, was pretty tasty. It was probably the only side dish that anyone commented on. You do have a lot of different choices though. But I would recommend no to schnitzel.

Hubby ordered the wurst plate ($26.95) and contrary to its name, it was actually the best entree. (Haha).  It’s a combo of bratwurst, kielbasse, bockwurst, and a German wiener. They steam them in beer and then grill them. Interestingly, they serve them with a couple kinds of mustards—the really hot one and a not so hot one. It makes you wonder why they don’t offer this with the pretzel. He also got the creamed spinach as well as a house salad with blue cheese dressing. This salad was pretty tasty, and I liked this dressing. I would stick with something like this if you’re in a salad mood.

Ok, I know it’s a big deal in Indy, and an historical building/restaurant, but there is very little that would lure me back it. Hubby says maybe a beer and pretzels and that’s about it. And I agree. So are you guys going to yell at me about this one? I’m curious, because let’s face it, the food is just not very good.

The Rathskeller

401 East Michigan

Indy 46204

317/636-0396

www.Rathskeller.com 

Road Trip: Brau Haus - Oldenburg, Indiana

We have some friends from Cincinnati that we meet every so often sort of halfway between our houses—this puts us just about squarely in Oldenburg and now we have made it our personal goal to try all the restaurants in the very cute German town. This time we hit up the Brau Haus, a charming looking place set in what looks like an old house—it’s actually quite small on the inside. Just a 6-8 tables on the family side and about the same on the bar side.  It feels very German, with wooden booths throughout and plenty of Warsteiner available.

For our Vorspeisen (appetizers), we shared a couple of orders of sauerkraut balls with Dusseldorf mustard ($5.99). I was kind of wondering how much I would like these, but these were actually really tasty. Inside the breaded balls, there was chopped sauerkraut and some corned beef. They all sat on top of lightly browned sauerkraut and were served with strong spicy mustard—similar to Dijon but even stronger—a fair amount of kick. We all really enjoyed these. It was a great combo for sure.

This town seems to battle over fried chicken, and I am game to try it all of course. I had a half chicken with a side of mashed potatoes ($13.50) (it also comes with a salad bar, but honestly, we completely forgot about it with all of our catching up). This chicken was good—it was more of the seasoned really crispy skin with less breading than others—and while it was seasoned, it wasn’t as peppery as Wagner’s, which I assume is their main competition since the restaurants are shockingly similar—in décor and menu.  It is pretty tender inside though, which can always be a curse with white meat. They cut the breast into smaller pieces (including a keel), which may make it more even to cook. I enjoyed the chicken, but I’d say Wagner’s wins that particular battle.

However, hubby ordered the pork schnitzel dinner ($13.99) and it was outstanding. It was a big, fairly thick piece of pork tenderloin that is breaded and seasoned and pan-fried. Wow, was it good (and look they put wedges of boiled egg on top! How lovely!). The pork, while thick, was tender and cooked just right and the seasoning was more prevalent than in the chicken. There was also rich brown gravy on the bottom that hubby enjoyed, but I really liked it best with just a squeeze of lemon.

The schnitzel comes with red cabbage and potato pancakes (also the salad bar) and whoa—I loved, loved those potato pancakes. They were fairly dense patties made with shredded potatoes, a fair amount of seasoning, and then fried. Seriously, they had such fresh potato flavor and just exactly the right crispiness. You didn’t need anything with them. Nothing. There is no way I would ever go here again and not get these. Actually, I think with as generous as the portions are, hubby and I could easily split his dinner and be totally happy and full.

Overall, it was another positive Oldenburg dining experience. I can’t say that this would be the healthiest town to live in, and dine out in, as everything I have really enjoyed has been fried, but it’s tasty. And hey, there are still a couple of other places to check out on future visits.

Brau Haus

22170 Water Street

Oldenburg, IN 47036

812/934-4840

www.oldenburgbrauhaus.com