G is for: German {Suppenküche Restaurant Review}

Suppenküche means soup kitchen in German. A great place for friends to gather and have a great time!

Yup, these two photos pretty much sum up our night at Suppenküche.

A little hazy, a little out of focus, but a lot of fun. (And a TON of beer).

Suppenküche is a little German restaurant in Hayes Valley. My co-workers Adam and Matt have been going here pretty much since they moved to San Francisco, and Adam has declared it his favorite restaurant in the city.

So naturally, when I started the blog, they were determined to find a way to get me to Suppenküche without having to wait all the way until “S.” Beer…for B week…was the first idea, but that was too early. Lederhosen…for L week…that could’ve worked. But eventually, we decided on G…for German.

If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it just for the experience alone. You step in from the cold streets of San Francisco and you are immediately welcomed into this warm, loud, boisterous, and extremely social environment. Before you even have time to take your coat off, you are handed a gigantic, 2 liter boot filled with beer and instructed by your friends to drink from it. Well…when in Rome….errr…..Germany. Das Boot!

The place gets packed, so naturally you drink while you wait. Once you are finally seated, a full smorgasbord of German delights await on the menu. Almost everyone in our group of 9 ordered something different (and not even on purpose!) so I got to sample pretty much everything on the table. (The benefits of having a food blog). These aren’t the sexiest of food pictures, but I can tell you I enjoyed just about everything this place had to offer. So I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. Enjoy, and PROST!!

For appetizers, we ordered pretzels. I love pretzels, and these were maybe some of the best I’ve ever had. It came with this zesty cheese sauce for which my friend Kim blurted out a genius description, but of course, I didn’t write it down and can’t remember what she said. I think it was something to the effect of: “A mixture of cream cheese, Sriracha, and nacho cheese.” Whatever it was, it was delicious.

I normally wouldn’t think of ordering lobster bisque at a German restaurant, but this was fantastic. Look at all those meaty lobster chunks!

The quintessential German dish…Wiener Schnitzel. Schnitzel is basically a pounded, breaded, and fried meat, in this case, pork. Generally, it’s served with lemon wedges and potatoes. This was JC’s dish. (JC is the super excited guy in the beer photo at the top of the post).

This was my dish. Jägerschnitzel. The pork is still pounded very thin, but it’s not breaded, and it’s topped with a savory mushroom sauce. It also came with spätzle…which is the stuff on the left. It’s a German egg noodle with a really soft texture. Sort of like a German mac and cheese but without all the cheese if that makes any sense. I can confidently say it was my favorite dish of the night.

A close second favorite was the half chicken. Cooked to perfection with a crispy skin and juicy meat. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. OK, maybe this was tied for my favorite.

The rest get honorable mentions…including the meatloaf. (“Ma….the MEATLOAF!)

Snapper Schnitzel…like fish and chips, but better. I could’ve eaten the whole ramekin of housemade tartar sauce.

Sauteed Venison Medallions in Red Wine Plum Sauce with Red Cabbage…also very tasty.

And…since there were no less than 12 birthdays in the restaurant that night, we decided to celebrate our friend Drew’s birthday about three weeks early. Just for the record, we were by far the loudest happy birthday singers of the whole place. So much so that Pam, who was also celebrating her birthday, brought over cupcakes made by the pastry chef at one of Michael Mina’s restaurants. Score! Just goes to show how incredibly social and fun this restaurant is.