This Year's Second Big Trip

Condo Week is coming! Condo Week is coming!

Yes, this year's Condo Week will be in Blaine, Washington, just across the border from the Great White North, and I'm already on my way. I left San Antonio yesterday, drove up the freeway (yecch) all day to spend a Monday night in Oklahoma City. (I had to put the top up when it hit 95 degrees; it topped out at 104. Today, by contrast, it never hit 80.)

Several years ago, Oklahoma City did some advertising that made it seem the kind of place I might like to spend a weekend in, so this trip started with a test of that idea. I think now that I'm cured of my desire to spend several days there.  The most interesting thing I saw was the pedestrian bridge across Interstate 40, which connects a large park on the south side of the freeway to what I hope is the seediest area of downtown. The old Union Station, now used for the city's Parking Division, sits at the north end of the bridge, but beyond that are about six blocks of absolute waste before you get to downtown proper.

Note the truck on top
of the self-storage place

From there it was off to Bricktown, an entertainment district in the corner of downtown between two freeways. It seems to be a recently renovated area where they've dug a canal in imitation of
San Antonio's River Walk. Looks like they bought all the old-style river barges when SA upgraded some years back. Maybe in 20 years it will be nicer, but it seems right now to be a shamelessly and pathetically commercial endeavour with none of the charm that makes the Paseo del Rio such an attraction. With luck, though, local businesses (as opposed to the national chains) will move in to give it a uniquely Oklahoma flavour that it now lacks. Right now it's more like a Las Vegas-style mall spread along a fake river.


The thing that most struck me was a sign I saw in a small grassy area next to one of the new upscale apartments just north of Bricktown. There's something radically wrong with the nanny attitudes of a place when they post signs that forbid letting your dog poop on the grass. I think next time I come to Oklahoma City I will save up my dog's output for a couple of weeks, and deposit it along the sidewalks in that area.

Early Tuesday I was out of the hotel, planning to spend a couple of hours hiking in Red Rock Canyon, about an hour west of town. A pretty place: you descend sharply on a tightly curving road until you're in a small forested canyon between sandstone walls. Unfortunately, the only trail in the park, Rough Horsetail Trail, was closed because of flood damage, so I only spent about half an hour in the park.


Then it was up to Liberal, Kansas, where I saw the Land of Oz, which, to be honest, was not worth stopping for. It's the kind of tourist attraction that gives small towns their reputation for being lame. It actually is lame, though I'm sure Liberal is a nice place to live.

From there I went up to Monument Rocks, possibly the country's best-kept secret. I was there a couple of years ago with a friend; this time I spent about an hour wandering around the hoodoos by myself, not another soul in sight. The sky, this time, was more dramatic, and it was later in the day (and much cooler!). I loved it, and took way too many pictures (most of which can be seen in the online album).

And if anybody (besides me) is keeping track, today I went through the last two unvisited counties in Kansas. Tomorrow I'm off to see a Pony Express station and the Highest Waterfall in Nebraska. And I should go through six new counties in that state this trip.

Only 5th?

Winzer Stube
516 2nd Street
Hudson, Wisconsin

Near my house in San Antonio is a taquería that was once selected, by a supposedly reputable national food magazine, as the Best Taco House in America. Most of us taco aficionados in that part of the world didn't even consider it the best taco house on that street, let alone in the country; so I have some personal experience that leads me to question the value and significance of such titles. Now I come to the pleasant little burg of Hudson, Wisconsin, and find this German restaurant claiming, with almost unbelievable pride, the title of 5th Best German Restaurant in America. My lord, they even print it on the check! They never say who, exactly, awarded them this title, but it doesn't really matter. The point is, they believe it, and they are proud of it.

What's that mean?

Me, I'm not so sure. I think they might be shortchanging themselves. Admittedly, I haven't been to the higher-ranked German restaurants; don't even know where they are. I'm only sure that there ain't one back home, because I've been to all the better German restaurants there (and San Antonio is a city with a strong German heritage that most outsiders are unaware of), and none of them comes close to Winzer Stube for quality food, ambience and authentic German-style service. 

For starters, there's the location in the cellar of a building in the quaintly gentrified center of Hudson, a town with the youthful exuberance of trendy parts of Minneapolis but without the traffic. You open the street door and are faced, unexpectedly, with two staircases, one going up, one down. After a moment's uncertainty, you notice a sign indicating your objective is down. Very much a rathskeller feel. You enter the bar room, a long bar fading off into the distance, a few tables on a raised platform to the right. Posts and bracing emphasize the underground feel. From that vantage point you don't realize there's more to the dining area, and an aura of charm settles around you; a feeling that lasts even when you notice how much larger the space actually is.

We were settled at our table and presented with cards showing the daily specials, a bound drinks list, and menus elegantly printed on scrolls. They list an interesting and mouthwatering collection of foods for every course, making choosing a meal here one of the toughest restaurant decisions I've had to face in quite a while. In the end, I went with a cup of Hungarian goulash, followed by Schlemmertopf "Weiskirchen". My tablemate chose the cream of mushroom soup with his entrée of Koenigsberger Klopse, translated simply as "meatballs." What prodigious pleasure lay behind that mundane word!

But I'm getting ahead of myself (and if I keep this up I will have to put off writing to go heat up the leftovers in the fridge downstairs). First, the soups.

The goulash was delicious. Thick. Meaty. Seasoned, with paprika and caraway. I want more. It was, though, not the best choice as a first course. I probably would have been better off having a lighter soup, just enough to whet the appetite. But I'm glad I tried it nonetheless. My friend's cream of mushroom soup would have been a better choice, for example. Despite being made largely from cream and butter, it was a light broth with excellent, even delicate flavour and remarkable body. Both soups were nicely complemented by a heavy German bread.

I don't know what "schlemmertopf" means, but suspect it means something like "pot" or "saucepan." Tells you nothing about what's in it. Hiding inside (it actually is served in a covered saucepan) are several thick, exquisitely seasoned and grilled chunks of beef tenderloin, a great many thick slices of fresh sautéed mushrooms, and a smattering of spaetzle, those thick German noodles that my Italian relatives would jealously dismiss as mere artless dumplings. All this was lightly coated with a surprisingly light cream sauce. (That surprising lightness seems to be a theme here, doesn't it? Maybe that's because it goes against the reputation of German cuisine.)

The schlemmertopf would have been the highlight of any other meal I've ever had in a German restaurant, in the US or abroad. But in this case it was overshadowed by my friend's meatballs. The dish consists of four large balls of pork and beef in a cream-and-capers sauce, served with parslied potatoes. These things were incomparable. The seasoning of the dish was impeccable, and the sauce was rich and (here's that word again) light. The meatballs were cooked through without the least bit of rubberiness or crusting. All in all, a magnificent accomplishment that, sadly, is not on the regular menu. 

The service here was, as I said earlier, authentically German. That can be a double-edged sword, perhaps, as the Germans are not noted for their cheerful, easy manner.* It may be that the waitstaff here are not of the cheerily bubbly sort that is expected in American restaurants; but it was polite, effective, attentive and prompt, leaving me with nothing to complain about.

Nothing, that is, but the up-charge of $1.50 for the choice of goulash as my soup. My dish came with choice of soup or salad, and the goulash is listed as a soup on the menu, so I would expect it to be available at the same price as any other soup. At the very least, I would expect to be told that there would be an additional charge, but was not. A small grumble, really just enough to satisfy my curmudgeonly urges, but a valid one. 

I feel better, and not just for having said that; also for having nipped down to the kitchen during the writing of this for a bit of that leftover schlemmertopf Weiskirchen. Mmmm. 

* In Germany, I once met a man in the tourist business in Latvia who told me that in his home town of Riga, "We get a lot of German tourists. You can always tell them from the others, because they never smile."