Mountain Brauhaus Restaurant

great german food. sausages and pretzels were top notch. decor is a bit outdated and funky. lines can get pretty long too so prepare during weekends to wait.

I totally get the love shown here for the German food on the menu because they do it perfectly. I grew up in Cincinnati and I'm part Hessian, so I do, I do so love the pretzels and the schnitzel and the spatzel and the brats, mets and krauts.

But if you stick to the main menu you're going to miss the most amazing thing about this resto, which is the specials. The chef is a diehard locavore using the freshest and most amazing local (ie Gardiner area) ingredients.

You're used to "specials" meaning "that stuff we need to get rid of." Forget that. It's the best part of the menu. They have amazing slappin-fresh vegetarian offerings.The salads alone are worth their own review.  

And this trip I learned their draft beers are not only awesome but you can take home a growler. Which I did. Of German black beer, Köstritzer Schwarzbier, that tastes like prosperous honey magnates made it in a fit of schadenfreude to show off to the hot chicks they couldn't get a date with in high school. It pairs well with awesome.

Just don't crowd the place up so Iso can't get in next time.

Really annoyed with our experience here today. Everything started well enough, but at some point it became clear that our food was taking a really long time. Probably around the time that people who had arrived after us started getting their food and our server stopped making eye contact with us a avoiding our table. We finally flagged her down and she gave some weird excuse about it saying they were just waiting on the fries, and then leaving without offering a) an apology for the wait or b) to refill our empty beers or waters. 10 minutes later the food came and unfortunately was not worth the wait. The burger was overcooked and had been assembled poorly (probably rushing it). It was over-sauced, so the pretzel bun that seemed like it would have been good was completely soggy and fell apart immediately. Those fries we waited so long for were clearly not fresh out of the frier. A really bad experience all around. Will not be back. Oh, and they weren't even busy. Note to servers- if it's taking a really long time for someone's food to come out, don't ignore/avoid the table, just makes it worse. Check in, refill drinks, offer bread, apologize for the wait, it will go a long way.