Scrumptious spaetzle

Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.

It’s so much fun living in the Midwest. You can experience every type of weather known to man all in one day. It can start off as a bright sunny day followed by fog and finally snow. The same is true with dining out. Almost every cuisine in the world is available only a hop, skip, and jump away. You can enjoy Italian, Asian, Mexican, and just about anything else you can think of. One day I said to myself, “self, let’s get some German food.” After a quick search on the Dining Duo computer, we hopped into our German car and took the autobahn, otherwise known as I-90, to Renate’s German Restaurant in Hanover Park.

Like a lot of the restaurants we have reviewed lately, it’s located in a small strip mall. When you walk in, Renate’s is exactly what you would expect a small mom and pop restaurant in Germany to look like. The atmosphere inside the restaurant just screams German. The décor has German accents like scenic German posters, quaint German tchotchke, and the obligatory German music, complete with yodeling, playing in the background.

When we were seated, we were given a basket with two pretzel buns with butter to munch on while we perused the menu.

We started off with one of our favorites, the (3) Potato Pancakes appetizer ($12.45). These didn’t turn out the way we were expecting them to. They were really thick and made with shredded potatoes. Onions and seasoning were sorely lacking, but the grease wasn’t. All for only $12.45. Seriously???

Nancy tried the Schnitzel ($18.98) which was two large pieces of thinly pounded pork cutlets. Dinners came with your choice of eight starches and either soup or a house salad. Nancy went with red cabbage instead of a starch and a cup of creamy chicken soup. She also ordered a side of spaetzle ($5.15) since she loves spaetzle. She said the spaetzle was wunderbar, everything else, not so wunderbar. Again, the schnitzel needed seasoning, any seasoning, and the red cabbage had too much vinegar for her taste.

Jim being the schwein that he is ordered the Renate’s Sampler Platter ($21.95). This was a brat, kraut, sauerbraten, red cabbage, schnitzel, and a gulasch bowl. He chose creamy chicken soup as his side and potato salad as his starch. He said the soup had dumplings hiding inside and it was actually tasty. Wouldn’t you think his potato salad would have been German potato salad? Wrong, it was plain old American potato salad. The bowl of gulasch was more like a gravy than stew. The rest of his platter was like mine, heavy on the vinegar and very light, if any, on the seasoning.

Since our meals were a let-down, we thought we would treat ourselves to dessert. We decided on the Black Forest Cake ($4.75). This was a small slice of dried out cake that was probably leftover from Octoberfest, even the non-dairy whip cream on top was cracked and looked like a dried-out river bed.

We really wanted to like this restaurant. They seem to be really trying hard, but they missed the mark on so many details that we couldn’t ignore it.

FYI: This restaurant is handicap accessible.

The price for our German excursion was $79.76. Finding the best spaetzle ever, priceless…

Jim’s take: How can they serve such delicious spaetzle and miss on everything else?

Nancy’s take: Best spaetzle ever, the food, not so much.

Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at thediningduo@gmail.com

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