Food Bloggers Dinner @ Vancouver Alpen Club Deutsches Haus

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Vancouver Alpen Club Deutsches Haus
4875 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, BC

Once again, it was time for a food bloggers gathering! It seems with each new one, we have more and more joining us. I do apologize for readers for finding over a dozen (!) or so posts from different bloggers on the same day about the same restaurant, please, let us once in a while (as in every other month!) be selfish and have one where we all sit together in the same table and break bread together.

This is the exterior picture last time I was here.

This time, it was Deutsches Haus in the Vancouver Alpen Club, located in Victoria Drive and 33rd. I have been once (previous post, here – warning, poor pictures!) in the past but Karl suggested we should go there as a group in the Maple Grill dinner. Hey, do we really need an excuse to get together and eat? So, with that in mind, I set up an invitation to fellow bloggers with the opportunity to invite others whom I excluded from the list. And, indeed, additional guests were invited! So, here are the bloggers in attendance:

• Anita – La Petite Foodie
• Ann and Dee – Me Plus Food, post here!
• Ethan – Tastes Better with Friends (who was invited by Victoria)
• Jenny – My Secret Eden, post here!
• Jessica – Yumorama
• Jonathan – Food and Tell
• Joyce – Vancouver Foodies, post here!
• Karl – The Friday Lunch, post here!
• Sherman – Sherman’s Food Adventures, post here!
• Victoria – Victoria’s Food Secrets, post here!
• Yen – OMNOMics, post here!

Unfortunately, Mijune and Elaine had to cancel a last moment. I will have to say some of them were eager to meet you two…

While everybody was free to order any dish he/she found interesting, I needed some volunteers to order one “dish” with me: the festplatte. Or, as listed in their menu, “1 eisbein, 2 kassler, 2 bratwurst, 2 leberkäse, 1 schweineschnitzel, mashed potatoes, dumplings, red cabbage, sauerkraut. $80. (serves four people – 30min)“. No, this is not an eating competition where we had to eat it in 30 minutes but the time it takes to prepare this. There were some (won’t be mentioned to protect the innocent/guilty, hehehehe) decided to order separately, most of us seemed to agree with the idea. Given the amount of people, we divided ourselves in small pockets and share this monstrosity. As in this monstrosity…

Oh, wait, of course, after we ordered, there will be some drinks and bread first, right?

Now, some were not that keen for the festplatte, so they decided to order individually. These dishes include (sorry, didn’t catch the names so you will have to check their individual posts).

Finally, let’s try again, the festplatte… This monstrosity!

Here is the breakdown of the components of this plate.

Red cabbage

Mashed potato

Potato dumpling

Hot mustard

Leberkäse

Kassler

Bratwurst

Schnitzel on pork hock/eisbein

Schnitzel

Pork hock/eisbein

Pork hock/eisbein

Sauerkraut

Cut of pork hock/eisbein

If I had to put them in order, I would go (credit to Mijune for her “bullet” point system, hehehehe):

1. Eisbein: Pork hock. C’mon, it is pork! Do I need to say anything else??? At first we thought it was mostly a boiled piece but it kept its pork goodness.
2. Schewineschitzel: Despite its looks, it was still a juicy most piece of meat. Nicely breaded.
3. Bratwurst: In a way, it was average. Not that different from the wurst you can get from Freybee’s.
4. Red cabbage/sauerkraut: They were well done, but slightly bland.
5. Leberkäse: Tasted like smoked chops. It was OK, not much to comment about.
6. Mashed potatoes: not a big fan but it was OK.
7. Kassler: To paraphrase Karl, think bologna or spam.
8. (Potato) dumplings: Man, these were bad. It tasted as if they were fried in old oil (and stuck!)

After this heavy meal, in part due to me being seated in one side of the table with Yen, Jessica and Sherman to share the festplatte, meaning two light eaters for this large plate which resulted in me being the “finisher”, it was the question… Does anybody want dessert? Sherman balked at that idea and the rest.. Well… I said, OK, I am willing to give it a try to anything so..

Apple strudel (Apfelstrudel)

Crepe with ice cream

Actually, I did not order the apple strudel; that was Karl and Jonathan so I can’t say for certain how it was. As for the crepe, I guess I shouldn’t order a more “French” dessert than a Austrian/German one in this type of restaurant. While the crepe was crispy, the ice cream was melted and it was a mess to eat. Nothing too exciting.

In the end, the food was decent. Heavy on meats but, as mentioned in my initial visit to Deutsches Haus, it is something you would expect in this type of restaurants. Probably not for everybody, specially if you happen to be a vegetarian. The fact that service was sparse does not help if you are looking forward to that. In our case, our main intent was to gather on the same table with other fellow bloggers and with that in mind, the Deutsches Haus served its purpose.

Finally, to close this post, have you ever wondered what happens when we food bloggers get together and food is brought up to the table???

Tagged under: European • Vancouver