The weather was beautiful in that October-in-New Orleans way. We had to do something different. Something special. We decided to go back to Bratz Ya’ll, the charming biergarten we discovered the previous week.
Bratz Ya’ll is tucked away in the Bywater in a deep lot next to Pizza Delicious on Piety Street. You walk through an open gate into a wide open space that goes deep into a yard with games like cornhole. Against the right wall is a row of red picnic tables with umbrellas. In a pre-Covid world these might be shared by strangers, but now it is mostly two people. Luckily there are lots of these tables scattered about the yard, because lots of people want them. On the left side of this lot is the entrance to the small space for seating and the counter for ordering. There is also a window for ordering from outside but this was closed.
Randomly placed partitions of wood with flower boxes set a mood. This is unmistakably a German biergarten. If you missed that, there is a display of hanging pretzels inside the darkish room where you place your order at the counter. These hanging pretzels look extremely appealing. I do not listen to myself reminding me that I have never liked a single such pretzel I have ever had. The order begins with a pretzel and cheese sauce.
My mother was part German and I love German food, but good German food is hard to find outside of Germany. I am undeterred by this and scroll down the menu, wanting everything. My eyes stop at currywurst and I chuckle. The mere sight of it on this menu brings me back five years. ML and I are standing in a line in the snow waiting to enter Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. Ahead of us a group of international students were snacking on a hot dog cut into disks with some fries and their dipping sauce. All of this had a strong unappealing smell, even though it looked like ketchup. I asked what it was and everyone but me apparently knew it was currywurst, which seems to be the signature dish of Berlin, but had spread to all parts of Germany. In Berlin it is ubiquitous, with quick stands everywhere. I finally tried currywurst before leaving Berlin and I see its appeal. A superior hot dog with fries and ketchup spiced with curry. How bad can this be? In the States I have only seen it once in Los Angeles at a stall in the century-old market downtown.
But I didn’t want to waste tummy space on currywurst. There were real dishes of the cuisine here, roast pork and sauerkraut with spaetzle. Schnitzel.
Tom wanted a NOLA Schnitzel, allowing a choice of pork or chicken. The NOLA Schnitzel is one of the best sellers at Bratz Ya’ll, and it’s easy to see why. It is a sandwich with a schnitzel and Cajun coleslaw,. Tom chose pork, and what arrived at the table was a schnitzel of exactly the right thickness, breaded just so, fried a golden brown, and properly tender. The Cajun slaw was described appropriately as well, with a dressing with a little kick, the vegetables chopped in a way for easy eating, but chunky enough for some heft. This was a delicious mouthful. The bread it was served on, described as muffaletta bread, was outstanding in and of itself.
I got roast pork, sauerkraut and spaetzle. This was the best version of spaetzle I have encountered outside its country of origin. The pork was generous, fork-tender, and covered with a delicious brown sauce. The sauerkraut was not as perky as I would have liked, but it is a mild complaint. This spaetzle was great. I like spaetzle. I like its shape, its easy-to-eat size, and I like its texture. This version gets high marks on all three. I wanted to eat all of this food, but it just wasn't possible.
It could be that the giant pretzel we got, and surprisingly ate, helped to fill us up. That pretzel was in a class by itself in pretzeldom. Coated with just the right amount of kosher salt, it was properly chewy, but it was the special flavor of this bread that intrigued me. These kinds of pretzels are usually just a curiosity, a cliche, but this was actually good. A very pleasant surprise.
What is this little gem doing in the Bywater? I returned from ordering food to see a man sitting with Tom who could explain all of this. As Eurostylish as Horst Pfieffer-what’s with these guys?) Sven Vorkauf is the owner of Bratz Ya’ll, a native of Berlin, born in Kreuzberg, (my favorite neighborhood in all the world - kind of like the Bywater but scarier.) He knew Tom when Tom judged the Po-Boy festival and Sven won for his Drunken Pig, marinated in dark beer and spices, served with caramelized onions and mustard. I had to know more about all this.
When Sven decided to leave Germany, he sold his food business with multiple locations and went to the Fiji Islands to dive. There he met some people from New Orleans and returned with them when they came home. He fell in love with this city, met a girl, got married and settled. Though he firmly swore off the food business when he left Germany, this food-centric city lured him back in. There was no representation here of his native cuisine to make him proud.
He started on the festivals circuit and the warm reception to what he was doing (and all the awards) made him want to open Bratz Ya’ll.
When ML and I went to Germany we traveled the whole country, but flew in and out of Munich. We stayed at The Charles Hotel there which is close to the site of the ‘72 Olympic Munich Games The hotel overlooks a park and just beyond that is Oberpollinger, an enormous and renowned Munich department store. On the top floor there is an enormous food line with every imaginable iteration of pork, the favorite German food. It was so good we kept returning here to eat instead of seeking out “real” restaurants. Also, we had been on the road all day. (In a week we covered 2,500 miles of Germany. The rental car people were most impressed.)
One day we were stopped near Dusseldorf in the worst traffic jam of our lives and we just had to get out of it. There was a tiny town and a little restaurant where I got some schnitzel and spaetzle. This was delicious soul-satisfying food, exactly like everything we had at Bratz Ya’ll.
With its delightful flower boxes and hanging vines and umbrellas and select German beers like Bitburger, the food doesn’t have to be as good as what you would find in Germany. But it is.
Next time, currywurst.
