Old Europe: Oh, how I wanted to like this German restaurant
Written: Aug 26 '06
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Pros: Well, it's kitschy German, and they offer the traditional favorites
Cons: The traditional favorites taste neither homemade nor authentic
The Bottom Line: If this is the best that D.C. has to offer for German food, then I weep for my fellow Beltway insiders. This is not authentic (or even delicious) German fare.
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| Krissieliz's Full Review: Old Europe |
Having resided in the D.C. area for 8 years, I’ve long lamented the fact that there just aren’t many German restaurants around. I hail from the Midwest (and am ethnically quite German), where good spaetzle isn’t too hard for find, and where sauerbraten, when prepared correctly, is a real delicacy.
When I’ve mentioned this to fellow Beltway dwellers, I’ve been told of a few places in the area that might satisfy my cravings. Café Mozart downtown (which is actually Austrian, but supposedly has delicious spaetzle); Blob Park (a gaudy bier hall 45 minutes away in Jessup, MD; and Old Europe, in Georgetown, which supposedly serves authentic German fare. I’d seen Old Europe before, located on Wisconsin Ave. just past the heart of Georgetown, looking very serious and tudor and forlorn compared the hip, newer eateries around. It’s apparently a D.C. institution.
Well, it’s my last summer in D.C. (for a while, anyway, as I’m relocating to London in about a month) and my birthday happened to fall at the beginning of July. My loving friends decided to pay homage to my heritage and host a birthday dinner for me at Old Europe. I was thrilled – most of my friends hadn’t really tried German food before (so now they would see what I’d rambled about oh those many nights I was tipsy and craving starches.
Now, to be fair in my assessment, I have to say that we were a rather large group of 14. And the restaurant, in fact, is not that large. My friend called the restaurant 2 weeks in advance to make the reservation (they aren’t an Open Table member, so online reservations are not possible). When we all began trickling in the restaurant, we were told by the host that they didn’t have a record of our reservation. After some discussions with my friends, he finally agreed that indeed they did, and they’d put together a table for us. Which, fine. But what on earth had happened? Not only that, but there really wasn’t a reception/waiting area in the restaurant – and the bar is actually at the back of the restaurant (fashioned kind of like a shoebox, actually) with no extra room. So all 14 of us were crowded in that small spot for a few minutes while they put some tables together. I don’t know what people would do if there was an extensive wait for a table. Actually, I don’t know that there would BE an extensive wait for a table here … not in modern times, anyway.
Food and Service
From that point on, when we were shown to our long table in the center of the restaurant, we were handled in a typical German, efficient manner. There really wasn’t any hospitality – we were more a task to be dealt with. Perhaps service to smaller groups is friendlier or more attentive, but we didn’t see that at all. Some of it is to be expected when dining in a large group (on a birthday, no less) but the restaurant just isn’t very large at all, and it certainly wasn’t that full that night (a Saturday night around 7 pm).
Waitresses clad in typical German garb came and took our drink orders. Pretty much everyone ordered a beer – and heffeweizen at that – the list was nice and extensive, and everyone found something to drink. The beers were promptly deposited at our table, and the waitresses began taking orders. Now, this is no cheap German place. Appetizers range from $5.75 for salads to $9.50 for Steak “Tatar” with potato pancake; there’s a filet of smoked rainbow trout for $8.50, and some soup offerings for $5.50. That day, the soup of the day was a chilled cherry soup. Several of my friends ordered that (and rather enjoyed it); I stuck with a tomato and mozzarella plate, which isn’t exactly typical German fare, but it was what sounded good at the time.
It was time to select an entrée. My favorite is the aforementioned sauerbraten, and when prepared correctly it’s to die for. Slices of beef are marinated for many hours (sometimes even a couple of days) in a sour vinegar mixture until it’s literally so tender it melts in your mouth; it’s then served in a delicious gravy. I found “Traditional Sauerbraten” on the menu for $18, and I decided that would be my birthday meal. The side items accompanying the sauerbraten were apple red cabbage and potato dumplings. I substituted spaetzle for the dumplings and called it a day.
My friends ordered other typical German fare – wiener schnitzel (veal steak breaded and sautéed, with vegetables and home fried potatoes) for $20; bratwurst with sauerkraut (pork sausage with sauerkraut and potato dumplings) for $18; and pork loin with sauerkraut and potato dumplings for $17. One friend, having recently returned from a month in Germany, branched out a bit and tried the goulash (beef stew with spaetzle and vegetables) for $17. There are a couple of lighter items on the menu – trout with Riesling dill sauce for $19; vegetarian platter for $11.85 (just specified as being “daily vegetables” – which I suppose was probably 3 types of potato and some cabbage); and a vegetarian omelet for $12.45 (I guess it’s difficult to find many vegetarian items at a German restaurant).
We had all finished our beers by the time the waitresses cleared our empty appetizer plates; we were in a festive mood and certainly would have drunk more had they given us the opportunity. But they were so efficient in clearing our plates that it was almost impossible to distract them and order more beer. Some of my more persistent friends were successful; others weren’t. Old Europe really messed this up – all they had to do was offer another round for everyone, and we all would have agreed. We were there to have a good time.
Anyway, the entrees arrived, some people were successful in getting more beer, and then the waitresses disappeared. I tried my red cabbage first – delicious. Absolutely delicious. Then I tried my spaetzle – bland and rubbery. We’re talking no flavor at all. What should be buttery and slippery and gritty potato-ey was just not good. I tried a friend’s potato dumpling – even more bland than the spaetzle! These side items were sorely lacking – where was the butter? Where was the pepper or salt?! But by far the biggest disappointment was my sauerbraten – the entrée I’d been craving for so long. But this resembled nothing I’d had at a good German restaurant back home, which is usually so melt-in-your-mouth tender and tangy that you won’t want to eat anything but it for a few days. The Old Europe version of sauerbraten took the easy way out. As far as I could tell, it had hardly been marinated at all. It was a tough and dry piece of beef that I had to use a steak knife to cut – and it was topped only with a small bit of sour gravy. Old Europe – you know better. This is not sauerbraten. I couldn’t believe they would charge $18 for this hoax.
I was pretty disappointed by the food. My friends seemed reasonably happy with theirs – it tasted fine, but was perhaps a bit overpriced. No one was in love – there was simply nothing spectacular offered to us. I decided I wanted another beer. But no waitress came around again for 10 minutes. No one checked back to see how we liked our food. After waiting 10 minutes, everyone was nearly done with their food, and then it felt like it was too late to order another beer because we wanted dessert.
We all pretty much ordered either a slice of black forest cake or of German chocolate cake. The desserts were fine. They put a candle in my cake. There was no singing, and no smiling. I don’t mind about the singing, but it would have been nice if the staff had treated us warmly at some point in the evening. Checks were brought out in – what else? – an efficient manner, and we all paid up. By this point we had only been there 1.5 hours, had 3 courses of food, and quite honestly we were ready to leave.
German ambience?
Old Europe touts itself as being “the mid-Atlantic’s premier German Restaurant and Rathskellar.” It opened in 1948 and has been serving German fare ever since. I’d like to think that the quality has declined over the years (how else could a place like this have stayed in business for almost 60 years in fickle D.C.?) The atmosphere inside the restaurant doesn’t quite mix with the attitude they give. It’s pretty kitschy German décor – cuckoo clocks, family portraits, wooden crafts all jumble up the walls like an ethnic Friday’s. It’s very cluttered in there. So they need to play on that kitsch, pump up the cheesy oom pah music, and let the beer flow freely. And maybe smile once in a while. Instead, they’ve got this ridiculously fun décor and these intimidating authoritarian waitresses serving mediocre food that sure isn’t authentically German. Do people in D.C. just not know German food? It’s possible. I don’t know why people would pay upwards of $20 an entrée for this.
Final thoughts.
I so wanted to love this place. It’s a Georgetown institution, one of very few German restaurants in the area, and from all pre-visit accounts (primarily, a visit to their website at www.old-europe.com), it looked like a fun way to spend an evening with friends. I’d like to think that maybe we just hit it on an off-night (a Saturday?) or caught them by surprise with our large group (but we made reservations?) but quite honestly I am not sure it’s even worth a trip back. I’d rather pop open a beer, put some bratwurst on the grill, pickle up some cabbage, and call it a day. And leave the good, authentic German cooking to those who are willing to put the time and effort into it.
Recommended:
No
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations Stick with beer and sausages.
Best Suited For: Friends
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Epinions.com ID:
Krissieliz
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 104
Trusted by: 287 members
About Me:
I'm a lawyer who loves to laugh, nap and watch bad TV.
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