Random Restaurant Review: Heimat House

The phrase "German culture" has not been popular for a while. A lot of people ignore thousands of years of perfectly good history, and concentrate all their attention on Germany in the 1940s.

(Actually, an argument can be made for "hundreds of thousands of years" of history, since the oldest known spears were unearthed in Schöningen, near Hannover.)

However, those of us who lived there for 15 years or so have a somewhat different view of the country. It's clean, well-run, and the food is amazing. So I was interested to see what the food was like at The Heimat House, located conveniently near my job, at 6910 Montgomery Blvd NE (basically at the corner of Montgomery and Louisiana).

I'm happy to say it was incredible.

(A quick aside: Heimat is a German word that doesn't translate directly into English. A close equivalent is "home" or "homeland," but a better description would be that it's the polar opposite of "social isolation." The Nazis tried to subvert the word for a while, but they failed.)

The exterior of the restaurant is still being renovated (not sure how much is actually being done), but the inside was done in dark woods (a line of large-screen TV's by the bar sort of ruined the ambiance, but... America, you know? Can't get through the day without enough distractions).

The Trophy Wife had a vegetarian schnitzel - a fried eggplant with standard schnitzel breading. The outside was crisp and delicious, while the inside was buttery-soft. (Not a huge fan of eggplant myself, but if I had to eat it, this would be the way to go.)

It was served with a cucumber salad (good; very traditional), and a large side of the best spätzle I've had since we left Germany. They were soft, creamy and flavorful, and practically melted in your mouth.

(As long as we're talking about the German language, spätzle translates to "little sparrows" for no particularly good reason any more - at first, they were shaped by hand or spoon, and looked vaguely like birds. It hasn't been true for probably a century or more.)

I had a roulade (a rolled pastry filled with a pork cutlet, herbs and a pickle) in an incredible cream sauce, with some basic pan-fried potatoes and a small eggplant salad (which was definitely OK, but did I mention that I wasn't a huge fan of eggplant?).

Overall, it was basic Bavarian "peasant food," but done awe-inspiringly well. Considering the origins of the menu, I should have thought that the food ($12 to $20 per entree) was slightly overpriced, but the quality of the food easily made it worth the price.

In good (if stereotypical) German style, their extensive wine list was equal in size with their beer list.

We'll be going back.