Heidelberg Restaurant

Sunday brunch time is the best time to crave some comfort German food. I have been here a couple of years before and I recall it to be excellent. Today, the excellence persisted when I re-visited with a friend.

Leberknodelsuppe: two liver dumplings (actually dumpling shaped meat balls) in bone broth. Salty and umami, and not a lot of the organ taste to it. You can definitely taste the texture of the liver: a bit mushy like paste, with some blends of herbs. One dumpling is like thumb length and one bowl of liquid is really large. By the end, it leaves a bit of the saline aftertaste.

Ochsenmausalat: marinated beef tongue on top of citrusy fresh salad and then topped with pickles. Refreshing refreshing refreshing. The tongues are thick-cuts and are still pink in color. The marinade really steeps into the meat and it is such a grease cutter despite it is beef tongue. The salad to tongue ratio is good to deliver major citrusy notes with hints of sweetness.

Schweinsbaxe: the roasted pork shank is my go-to comfort food. The crispy skin with gelatinized collagen with part-tender-part-charred meat, what can I ask more for happiness. The pork itself doesn’t carry much flavor (besides its intrinsic subtle sweetness). I swapped the potato with the creamed spinach and with sauerkraut. Eating the shank with grained mustard and the sauerkraut is the key to keep on digging so you don’t get fat-saturated. Their creamed spinach is such a surprise item! Creamy and buttery and good to sneak in some veggies lol.

Gebratene Ente: another my favorite item the roasted duckling with plum sauce! It was the item that left me hanging even after 2 years and it is even better than I remembered. The roasted duckling has a perfect layer of duck fat between its tender meat and crispy skin, which was glazed with plum sauce. You get duck flavor combined with hint of tangy and major sweet note and you also get the textural contrast between the skin, fat, and the meat. The sides were mashed potato ball and marinated cabbage. The cabbage was also marinated sweet, and was great to complement the dish to balance off the fat.

The portions are typical German and they are huge, even after sharing. Didn’t have the stomach room for the dessert yet I see they have German chocolate cake there (wonder if they have Black Forest gateau but that’s for next time). They also have a daily special, the creamy mushroom porcini soup. Considering how great their creamed spinach, I am eager to try it next time during my mushroom season.

Service is a little slow but that’s due to short on hands I think. They also have a secret back garden but it wasn’t open to dine in on the day I went. So sad, because the lighting inside of the restaurant is dark and Viking, yet outside is nice and shiny.