schulte & herr

Alright.  Let's get real for a minute.  Just how many authentic and I mean truly authentic restaurants are there here in Portland?      ...Anyone?

On Saturday afternoon Kate and I finally found and experienced schulte & herr, located at 349 Cumberland Ave.  (No, that's not a misspelling!)

It's a modest looking establishment from the street with it's unassuming green awning and simple sign above.  Once you enter the place you begin to wonder if you're really in Portland or whether you've stepped into some portal that has transported you directly to an eatery in some remote corner of Bamberg or Berlin, Germany.

They only serve breakfast and lunch here at schulte & herr, but what they do is top shelf and worth the trip.  Yes, it's a little off the beaten path from the normal restaurant scene here in Portland, but the experience is worth it.  Just one block down from Congress St, this gem of a restaurant is simple in it's approach: Do it authentically and do it well.  And by authentic, I also mean that the staff can and do converse in fluent German with it's guests when it can.

The menu is small but not without enough choices.  Kate and I each chose a different soup, then we shared an appetizer before having our own lunch plates.  The soups were lentil and pumpkin soup and split pea with smoked ham.  As would be expected, bread was delivered to the table along with the meal.  The breads are baked in house.  Today's breads were both rye, one light and one dark.  Both were fresh and went perfectly with the soups.

The appetizer we shared were a plate of traditional Potato Pancakes (aka. latkes) served with homemade applesauce and sour cream.  They were crisp, hot and absolutely clean tasting. 

It was at about this point in the meal that Kate and I both commented that the feel and atmosphere of this restaurant was very genuine and similar to our own experiences traveling and dining throughout Europe.  No pretense.  No dressing up.  Nothing for show.  Just great food in a very relaxed environment.  The hum of conversations from other tables was a pleasant mix of blended English and German language.  All of which was positive and light.  I had to find out if my own German was still good enough to be understood, so I paid a compliment to the hostess on our meals and asked that she let the cooks know that we were pleased with our dishes.  Apparently I did OK, as I didn't get tossed out on my back side.  (Whew!)

Our main lunch courses showed up and again we were pleasantly surprised.  Kate had ordered the sauteed spaetzle with caramelized onions, emmenthal cheese and fresh chives.  Wow!  I hadn't seen a dish like this for almost 25 years now.

My beer braised beef sandwich with whole grain mustard and horseradish sauce was amazing!  The beef closely resembled brisket and was soooo tasty! (I forgot to ask what kind of beer it was braised in unfortunately.)

Each of our dishes had an accompanying side dish, which we shared as well.  We opted for the roasted beets and cucumber salad with fresh dill and vinaigrette.  The cucumbers were so good I had to put a few on my sandwich!

Needless to say, this was perhaps one of the best "first" dining experiences either of us could recall in recent memory.  Especially since this was lunch!

Mark this one down: schulte & herr.  773-1997.  Open Tuesday through Sunday.

We give schulte & herr a firm 4.5 stars!

....And, I'm going to have to change the name of this blog to Breaking Bread with Joe and Kate soon too!

Cheers,

~ Joe