Ol Heidelberg Cafe — Restaurant in Huntsville

We stopped in for a date night to get a taste of some great German fare at Ol' Heidelberg. This review is written with the caveat that I still believe Hildegard's is the best German restaurant in Huntsville. That being said, I have no complaints with Ol' Heidelberg, and therefore I will give it a 5. In reality, I guess it's a 4.5 for me.

Anyway. Styled a bit like a campy German lodge, the walls of this restaurant are forest green, and oompa music plays in the background. Yes, it's dim inside the restaurant. I rather liked it.

The waitstaff maybe wasn't as...effusive or warm as I typically like, but they were prompt, not unfriendly, and patient when we asked to go look at the dessert case. Our food and drinks came out quickly. My boyfriend's medium size beer was the perfect amount for him.

I had the chicken schnitzel and he had the jaeger schnitzel, both with pan fried potatoes. Each dinner comes with bread and cucumber salad. The bread was pretty simple -- two slices of white, two slices of dark, but both were warm and dense and went well with butter.

The cucumber salad was also tasty and about what you'd expect, with some cucumbers sliced a little too thick. Yummy and refreshing.

Our schnitzels were both delicious. They weren't pounded as thinly as I typically expect schnitzel, but they were still very yummy. They were also particularly crispy, with a slightly heavier breading, which any fan of fried food should love. Jaeger gravy was so thick, smooth, savory, and buttery. You could drown in it. The pan fried potatoes were, dare I say, maybe a little TOO crispy, as they had a bit of a crust on them that bound them together, rather than separate potato chunks. Again, still tasty. Portions were large, overall, but I do feel the prices are a little high.

We also binged and got two pieces of cake, as we couldn't pick just one. We had the 7 layer chocolate, and took the German chocolate home (yes, I know German chocolate cake is not actually German. It is, however, delicious). Both were good, with preference going to the 7 layer chocolate. Dense, moist, and not too sweet. Very dark chocolate-y.

Again, I'd have to give Hildegard's the edge in basically every category...but if I'd never been there, I'd regard this as excellent German food. What I'm trying to say is, this place is very good and I'd definitely recommend it. It's not my favorite place, but it deserves high marks...

Overall the restaurant was very good and had dog friendly covered seating outside. It was obvious that our server was anxious around our dogs, but we just found her body language humorous and we were not offended. To balance this out, a young man who worked there came out, and very politely asked if it was OK to put our dogs. He was obviously a dog lover, and he was as nice as could be. The outside looks like a typical strip mall, but the inside is low-lit with a lot of character. It’s like you stepped into Narnia. I got the schnitzel cordon bleu, and my wife got the honey pecan chicken. Mine came with fried potatoes and slaw, and she had the fried potatoes and red cabbage as her sides. A salad is an additional $5 and bread is $1 per person. The bread came out, fresh and warm and was well worth the extra cost. We both were surprised to like the red cabbage as much as we did, and the entrées and potatoes were so delicious. We ordered a Reuben to take home with us, and it was one of the best I’ve had. When we told our waitress, we might want to get a couple desserts to go, she seemed a little frantic and was pressing about which ones we wanted. I told her I’d need to go inside and see what they had. They have a very nice display case with a large variety of cakes and cheese cakes. I selected a caramel cheesecake and a slice of carrot cake. They were $10 per slice and their size didn’t match their price, but were very tasty. When it was time to pay our waitress advised us that their credit card machine had just gone down and was rebooting. I said that’s no problem, we will just hang out for a few minutes. Her reply was that the last time it happened it was well over an hour before it came back online. I went out to the car in the rain to see if I had enough cash to cover our bill, and luckily I did. I would think that some patrons in the restaurant would not be so fortunate, and I wondered how the restaurant would handle that. This restaurant has lots of character and great food, but be forewarned that some of the staff can be a little sharp edged in their interaction with you and their desserts are good but a bit pricey. I would...

I heard about this place from a friend and it happened to be 3 miles from where my friends and I were going to be all day. It was an excellent end to a fun day and the food was terrific.

The size, decor, menu and atmosphere are what I expect from a German restaurant. Small, quaint and genuine are adjectives that immediately pop into my head.

This was our second time going. This time, we talked more of our friends into joining us.

I'm not certain what everyone else ordered, but I had the chicken Berlin. The hours leading to MY meal were a little hectic and stressful, but the flavor of that dish melted away all my frustrations and worries (nothing related to this restaurant!).

I also ordered some bread (not currently complimentary, due to current prices, but Inwas totally fine with that.) and it was so soft and perfectly warmed, it emotionally prepared me for my delectable entrée.

I ordered a tasty hefeweizen and it happened to pair perfectly with the meal (in my opinion).

I ordered dessert and the Reese's pie (actually a cake) did not disappoint. Their menu explains what is in each dish and how it is prepared. Their dessert menu rotates a bit, so you can either see for yourself or ask your server for what's available.

One of my friends ordered the liver (wasn't available on our previous visit) and she said it was delicious.

I have yet to order the potato salad and I forget which style they serve there (apparently, Germany has two distinct styles of potato salad, Northern and Southern, I believe).

They close earlier than some other establishments and there can be up to an hour wait at times, but I can tell you that it is worth it. The staff all seem friendly and helpful and am looking forward to trying a new dish on my next visit.

Highly...