Café Obermaier

The menu here offers the kind of food I love but 15 euros for a schnitzel is pricey for Kreuzberg so it’s got to be good. In all honesty, it was the worst schnitzel I’ve ever eaten. It looked perfect but was like chewing a tyre. How is it possible to do that to a schnitzel?
The other half chose veal strips in a mushroom and cream sauce. The veal could have been anything; pork, beef, take your pick. It was like rubber. The sauce was remarkable: unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before and ever want to taste again. Was it a tin of mushroom soup? Nasty synthetic taste. A mushroom and cream sauce, how can you mess that up? It came with a potato rösti which worked magnificently as a sponge to soak up the grease from the frying pan.
Everything was under-seasoned. Even the other half who prefers less of the old sodium chloride was piling the salt on.
I had considered choosing another dish (“zwiebel braten”?) but was glad I hadn’t judging from the way a guy in the corner was sawing away at the chunk of meat in front of him.
I’d heard many good things about this place and about how difficult it can be to get a table. We were there on a Sunday night and it was half empty. Chef’s night off? It was so bad it was interesting! Every waiter or waitress in Berlin asks how the food tasted when they clear the plates. Ours asked nothing. It was as if she knew things weren’t right…
If I’d paid 9 euros for the schnitzel (and you can) I’d be less amazed. But for these prices? I’ll never go back there, no matter what they say.
A trip to the gents gave a glimpse into an empty kitchen where two pots of foul, indecipherable gunk were bubbling away.
Waitress was efficient but the guy behind the bar was the personification of moribundity.
Beer was nice though.