Walzwerk is a tiny establishment, tucked into the little space in which the exquisite Tandoor E Taj flourished so briefly. It's billed as an East German restaurant, and it is only somewhat far-fetched to claim that East Germany's 40 years of semi-isolation have resulted in a new and distinct cuisine. Assuredly, this isn't one of those central European restaurants where every item on the menu ends in "...with fried potatoes and gravy ...with fried onions and potatoes ...with dumplings and cabbage ...with boiled potatoes and raw onion ...with roasted onion and sausage..." Still, there is little at Walzwerk to shatter stereotypes about German food: Cabbage, potatoes, meat, and beer appear here in equal measure. Some familiar dishes have been updated and improved upon, often with fresh vegetables. A handful of seafood dishes evoke the north, and there are even a couple of vegetarian entrees and other hints of change.
Location Info
Details
381 South Van Ness (at 15th Street); 551-7181. Hours: Tuesday through
Saturday 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Muni: 12, 14, 22, 33, 49, and 53.
Parking: possible. Reservations: recommended on weekends. Noise level:
exuberant
Related Content
More About
Walzwerk's name means "steel mill," and the spare interior of the restaurant, though refreshingly not industrial-chic, evokes a certain aura of cheerful deprivation (much more appropriate to the present inhabitant than to the previous Indian tenant). The largely bare walls are dotted with regional photos, the chairs, tables, and tableware are not matched sets, and table decorations include beaded coasters that look as though they were made by talented children at a Communist summer camp. Fresh flowers, polished wood, and a cheerful staff brighten and cozify the ambiance.
You are encouraged to start your meal with beer. Walzwerk has a tasty list of imports, all $4.50 or less. One of the more interesting choices is the Berliner Weisse, into each glass of which is plunged a shot of sweet, colored syrup to offset the beer's sourness.
Usually a list of nightly specials augments the smallish regular menu. The featured soup has recently been cream of roasted cauliflower and potato ($4.50) -- perfectly delicious, smoky, and earthy, and an excellent antidote to San Francisco's blustery winter. The remainder of the soup list evokes eastern Europe, comprising soljanka, a ruddy vegetable-based soup containing a significant fraction of some unfortunate animal ($4.50) and a sweetish roasted beet soup ($4).
In general, the chef has a sure hand with starters. They're simple but powerful, low-concept but high-performance. The potato pancakes ($6) are small and puffy, neither too dense nor too light, dry on the outside but moist on the inside, and topped with a chive-inflected sour cream whose tartness allows the subtle potato flavor to come through. For the potato lover, these alone are worth the visit (indeed, the potato lover is advised to visit here).
In sharp contrast to the small, subtle pancakes stands the herring bowl ($7), a helping of sweet pickled herring swimming in a Nordic cream sauce, served with wonderful thin-sliced solid pumpernickel. The fish is nicely mild and firm-fleshed, but the portion is large even for sharing four ways; a lone herring-eater who isn't a penguin or a sea otter may well be overwhelmed. There is no such problem with the house-cured salmon ($7), a few elegant slices of tender herb-crusted filet served with horseradish sauce, a mound of pickled beets, and nutty bread. The fish dissolves beautifully in the mouth, leaving only gentle memories of the sea.
Entrees are more creative, but sometimes that's not enough to save the flavors from dullness. The Wiener schnitzel is served with peas, a (presumably East German) innovation my Viennese tablemate found so repellent that the schnitzel was not permitted to approach; instead, we settled for the vegetarian Wiener schnitzel ($9.50), which comes with green beans. This latter dish consisted of two types of ersatz cutlet, one a slice of celery root and the other fashioned of mushrooms, both duly breaded and fried. Of the two, the mushroom is the more succulent by far, although the celeriac round is also pleasant. In addition to the green beans, the dish includes mashed potatoes, which are given just enough butter to add a bit of flavor, but not enough to improve their texture beyond "pasty." Whether this is a relic of shortages suffered behind the Wall or an innovation catering to butterphobic Americans is unknown, but it is regrettable in either case.
Thuringen, the East German state from which the proprietors hail, is commonly considered the ancestral home of bratwurst. Though the prodigal sausage has strayed far, these Thuringerinnen know exactly how to deal with it. Parboiled in a flavored broth, then lovingly grilled whole, it is infused with a delightful smokiness while remaining burstingly moist. Its mild but distinct seasoning is counterbalanced by a golden side of sauerkraut, redolent with vinegar and punctuated with meat. The whole plate (there are mashed potatoes too) is $9 and quite satisfying.
The only real disappointment on the menu is the potato dumplings. In ordering potato dumplings, one hopes for... not delicacy, but at least a degree of levity. Walzwerk's dumplings ($8.50) are three pale spheres, each slightly larger than a billiard ball and only slightly more succulent. The texture is the gluey starch one explicitly tries to avoid when making dumplings, mitigated by rice-sized pellets of undercooked and unintegrated potato. (If this is exactly how you like your potato dumplings -- maybe your mother's were just like these -- my apologies.) Each dumpling has a tasty little piece of toasted bread in the middle, but it is hardly worth eating through to get there. They are accompanied by what the menu calls a mushroom sauce (actually a broth, quite flavorful and with many delectable pieces of wild mushroom) which is, unfortunately, no match for the hulking, baneful dumplings. A cream-based mushroom sauce, like the ones so common in Russia, Poland, and other mushroom-loving countries, would at least adhere fattily to each bite of dumpling, making them more tempting. As it is, all too often one removes the bits of bread and the pieces of mushroom, and leaves the eviscerated dumplings floating, corpselike, in their brown tarn.
foam order.com
