THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406140162
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Sam Martinette
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: Medium
Not that you won't see some familiar faces if you've been there before. When I was in recently, two former owners were there. Lillo Thornton still works lunches, and her former partner, Emma Olson, was in for lunch. Must like the food.
{REST} The new owners typify the kind of customers you'll find dining at the combination restaurant, deli, and cultural emporium (they sell everything from German chocolates and wines to newspapers).
Gisela Oberdorfer is a native-born German who lived most of the past 20 years in the Stuttgart area, where she met her partner, Colleen Hurd, in Germany serving as a U.S. Army supply officer. Hurd, who has food-service experience, said she had always wanted to open a restaurant. The two women came to the states and found Olson and Thornton ready to retire and bought the business. Although the physical look of the place remains the same the new owners have expanded the menu.
``Previously the emphasis was on lunches,'' Hurd said. ``We've added more dinner items, including many Swabian dishes, from the area where Gisela lived.''
According to Hurd, the most popular dinner entrees are the wiener schnitzel (a breaded veal cutlet - $8.95) and the jager schnitzel (a boneless pork loin with mushroom sauce - $8.75), but she also recommends the zigeuner schnitzel (a boneless pork loin with a cream sauce - $9.10), family recipes contributed by Oberdorfer. Another Stuttgart specialty is the kasespatzle (homemade egg noodles with cheese, ham and onions - $6.75).
Other German dishes include the sauerbraten (marinated beef roast - $8.75), kasseler rippchen (a smoked port chop - $8.50), gulasch (beef tips in gravy - $8.75), and a rouladen (beef steak, rolled and filled - $9). Dinner entrees come with German rye bread or rolls and butter, and two side dishes, which include hot or cold potato salad, the homemade egg noodles, red cabbage, potato dumplings, fried potatoes, or a salad.
As for lunches (served between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.), you can get a bratwurst, knackwurst or a weisswurst (all German sausages) for $4, (two for $4.75), served with sauerkraut and potato salad. Sandwiches include Westphalian or Black Forest ham ($3.50), or you might try the smoked pork chop with sauerkraut and home fries ($6.50).
There are daily lunch specials (11:30 to 3), such as Tuesday's knackwurst ($4), Wednesday's gulasch with spatzle and a salad ($4), or Friday's bratwurst with home fries and a salad ($4). On weekends there are menu board specials.
Another goal of the new owners is to build the largest selection of German beers in the area. ``We now have 35 and another 10 or 15 imported beers,'' Hurd said. She hopes to serve German wines by the fall. They are sold to go now.
So far the partners, who both live in Virginia Beach, have felt welcomed by the regulars they've inherited. Oberdorfer, who came to the United States in April of '93, said she likes the area's weather and the people, ``and now I am using my English again.''
Her American partner, Hurd, is fluent in German. ``It's a requirement to work here,'' she laughed. ``And we joined the German-American Society, which is so supportive it's like having a family. When people stop in and want to speak German they know we're here.''
by CNB