Wallace W.
Yelp
While making plans to stay for a week in New Braunfels, I was particularly interested in eating at the Alpine Haus restaurant there. Finding good German food can be difficult and based on the Yelp ratings I saw, this looked to be a real winner. Sadly, my experience did not reflect my hopes and both I and my wife were really disappointed with our meals.
I did call to make a dinner reservation as I had read that often it is quite busy. We found out that there was no need to have reserved a spot that night as there were many tables open. We actually had a bit of trouble finding the venue which is set back a bit from the street with a dimly lit sign. Upon entering we were quickly seated. There were several German and Belgian beers to choose from which hit the spot. We ordered our dinners, I, the rouladen and spaetzle with a side of split pea soup and my wife, a Weiner Schnitzel and potato dumplings with a salad on the side. Both dinners included a small portion of red cabbage on the plate. Our dinners came out from the kitchen without our having first been offered our soup and salad. Our server apologized for her oversight as we pointed out the missed delivery and brought out both to accompany our meal.
We were both unpleased with nearly everything on our plates. My wife had upgraded to veal for her schnitzel which bumped the cost up a bit. But with veal so hard to find in the USA anymore; she decided to treat herself. The breading veal were unremarkable and tasted kind of old, even with a lemon squeezed on the dish. The potato dumplings were so dense and unappetizing that she left them uneaten. And the red cabbage was overcooked, mushy and flavorless. To top it off, the "salad" was made up of two leaves of wilted green and red lettuce, which seemed to be almost frozen, topped with an unremarkable dressing.
As for my rouladen, when served, it looked like a big brown sock stuffed with a flavorless mass onions and a couple of what may have been mushy pickles. This was inside of a couple of layers of overcooked, grainy and flavorless meat that did not appear to be top round, which is the preferred cut to make rouladen. Maybe they just cut off slices of sauerbraten to make it and called it good. Not the same thing! The gravy that covered it was weak and made with corn starch and the spaetzle didn't taste good in it as it had no rich flavor at all. And to top it off, the runny split pea soup I was served tasted like an old dish towel had been soaked in water to make the broth. A couple small bits of ham which didn't have any flavor couldn't offset its distastefulness. So disappointing to say the least. At least the beers were good. And thankfully we had one great German dinner in Fredericksburg that salvaged our Deutsch experience while in Texas. I'd suggest avoiding the Alpine Haus if you are looking for authentic German food with its typically great rich flavors.
