Last night a couple of my friends and I ventured deep into the mission (side note: I should really not walk alone at night anymore when the surrounding area is mostly parking lots and warehouses) to try out flour + water. Unfortunately, the wait was more than daunting (1.5+ hours for a table of 3). This wasn’t too surprising given they were nominated for a James Beard award, but our stomachs didn’t want to wait.
Instead we ventured to Schmidt’s Deli, a German place nearby. I’ve been to Suppenkuche in the city and loved it, so we were all pretty excited to try Schmidt’s. Standard to any German place is a pretty long list of German beers; surprisingly few on tap though (under 10). We each grabbed a drink during our wait for a table, which we were told would be about 20 minutes (we didn’t want to sit at the bar).
After a while, we noticed an open table begging for us to sit there. We finally asked the waitress what was up and she had been waiting for another party to leave to sit us in a different location so our party didn’t have to be sandwiched in between other groups. The table was easily large enough for us, so we were a bit confused, but whatever.
We were finally seated, ordered another round of drinks and pretzels for the table. The waitress came back and apologized, there was only one pretzel left, but she would bring it to our table. Sadness. About 10 minutes later she came back to inform us our pretzel had been claimed by someone at the bar. Double sadness. Instead she brought us a free bread basket (um, ok). Apparently they always run of out pretzels Friday and Saturday evenings. One would think they would start making more to compensate, but I guess they haven’t figured out the supply/demand relationship yet.
Our sausages finally came and they were awesome. Smoked bratwurst, so good. The homemade potato salad was also great, nice flavoring and not too heavy (for potato salad). The portion on the potato salad was pretty generous as well, so there was no way I was going home still hungry. The table also ordered a side of spaetzel, pretty tasty, but a little too oily in my opinion. My friend was super excited by the prospect of Christmas cookies on the menu, so a plate was also ordered. It would have been nice if the waitress informed our party of three that the place came with two of each type of cookie. We most likely would have asked if we could get 1.5 orders instead. Regardless, I didn’t really like the cookies that much, so it worked out.
As we were gearing up to ask for the bill, the waitress came over with four bottles of Underberg. She apologized for the wait and the pretzel fiasco and said to make up for it, we were getting a free shot on the house and she would take it with us. Underberg natural herbal bitters aka a ‘digestif.’ So we drank and were happier with the service. She realized our frustration and took action to fix it, with alcohol.
Overall, the food at Schmidt’s was good and the service was decent. Surprisingly, when we left around 10:15, the place was essentially empty, probably in part to the location. If I’m hunkering for German food in the future, it’s likely I’ll either try Walzwerk since I haven’t been yet or head back to Suppenkuche because of the convenient location and surrounding bars. Essentially, Schmidt’s was good and I’m glad we stumbled upon it, but not worth going out of my way for.
