Possibly the hardest working in London, these waiting staff are in danger of heading for deafness at an early age. They should be awarded with medals for their top service in the face such a racket.
German food, like British native food, does not seem to travel well internationally, at least not without being first maligned for being stodgy, porky and plain. Nothing wrong with any of these qualities if the food is prepared well. I've never quite understood why us Brits, of all people, should snigger at German food. We invented the pork pie after all. If you're a veggie, granted, you're going to stuggle a bit with Deutsch grub, at least with the pub grub type menu Germany is most famous for.
It was this kind of pub food we sought out when a eight of us headed into City Road for Mrs Dukc's birthday do - no, I don't reveal her age, though she is considerably older than me.
The restaurant's website describes the Beerhouse thus: "Bavarian Beerhouse is an unique
combination of excellent food, outstanding service, great German beer and fantastic atmosphere."
The description is oh so accurate, but for one thing. We'll get to that later.
Let's start with the good bits. The food at the Bavarian Beehouse is pretty authentic. I'm not exactly the widest-travelled wanderer, but I have been to Berlin twice and the food served at at the Bavarian Beerhouse tasted very much like the real deal to me.
My starter was a cheese special "Obazda Cheese" which consisted of a soft pretzel with a mixture of different cheeses which tasted like a grated cheese mixture bound together with mayo. My main was about as typically German as you can get, Munich Roast Pork. Four thick slices of butcher quality pork, in rich beer infused gravy, served with a large, gravy-soaking potato dumpling and piles of delish sauerkraut. For dessert, I had a light cinnamon-y pancake with spray-on cream. Cream aside, the cake itself was light and tasty. All in all, the food was fairly close to the perfect German experience.
After not such a promising start with the service, it got better and better, and the German waitress serving us became more efficient and polite as the evening went on. She deserved a medal for staying calm as this was one of the noisiest restaurants I've been to. I was with a bunch of blindos and therefore, only two of us could read the menu. After being told the music could not be turned down (the music being a loop of the ten "best" Christmas tracks in the world...ever" (special limited restaurant edition), I had the bellow the menu to my friends like a crazed market trader. To be honest, I was glad to get away from the noise.
The restaurant has a wide range of German beers on tap too, which I'highly recommend, the dark wheat Pauliner beer being my favourite with a rich, fruity taste, and one suspects, rather higher than you'd expect in alcohol content.
So, overall I would give this restaurant a "wait and see" verdict. I can hardly fault the food and happily give it an 8 / 10 mark. The service was pretty good too, at 7/10. I think even the world's best waiting staff would struggle under these conditions. Tables were set out five-aside 'stamtisch' style and the main clientele on the evening we appeared seemed to be office Christmas partygoers simply having a wonderful corporate time. By the end of it, I was beginning to hope that the guys sharing my air were all employees of Woolworths having the last fling before receiving their redundancy notices.
To conclude, this is s a restaurant let down by its customers. I am going to give this restaurant a "recommended" rating because I really want to like it and intend giving it another bash in January when hopefully things are back to normal. It does exactly what it says it will do on the on the tin. But Christmas party season isn't the best environment in which to relax with friends, unless the Christmas party is your own.
Information about the restaurant and its menu can be found here:
http://www.bavarian-beerhouse.com/
Food: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 2/10
Value for money: 7/10
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