DECATUR – When German food comes calling, you say yes.
It’s not often my college roommate Sam Sauer, who works in Arkansas, is in Central Illinois. So when she called to tell me she was going to be here for one night only eating at a German restaurant with her boyfriend and some high school friends, I was in.
After the invite, I perused their website where I found a detailed menu and description of how the German restaurant ended up in Central Illinois. The original owners Peter and Erika Schnabel moved from Berlin to Champaign in the 1980s. They opened Bayern Stube, German for “Bavarian living room,” in 1991.
Bayern Stube was expanded in 1994 to include a banquet room where we sat. Daughter, Jeanne Schnabel, took over the restaurant in 2005.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m pretty clueless when it comes to German culture and cuisine, so I was looking forward to the foreign treat. After about a 90-minute drive from Decatur, the sign on the door in an otherwise quiet downtown Gibson City ensured me it was indeed authentic German cuisine. I was met at the door by a waitress wearing dirndl, the traditional dress of German, and a “wilkommen” on the menu.
First came the beer. The list was full of weisses, biers and wassers and I settled on a Berline Weisse with a shot of raspberry syrup that soon arrived in a tall glass that did little to rival the giant liter around the table.
Taking a chance to look, around I realized the walls were studded with mounted animals and hundreds of beer steins. The menu explained that the wild game trophies were donated by Erika’s father, a game warden near Frankfurt. Banners and flags hung from the ceiling, a reminded that we had just missed their popular Oktoberfest celebration.
Another glance at the menu and its lists of appetizers distracted me. I went with the cheese spatzel, or egg noodles sauteed with Swiss cheese and onions, and wasn’t disappointed. A giant pretzel was ordered for the table along with herb butter that quickly disappeared. The waitress dropped of basket of earthy bread along with a smoked pork spread we nicknamed “meat butter.”
I would have been satisfied with a full plate of spatzel, that deliciously cheesy concoctions tops my list of favorite noodles, but I wanted to branch out and try a variety of dishes.
Thank goodness for patient waitresses, because “is that how you say it?” came out my mouth at least three times while ordering. I ordered the Scnitzel Dietrich, which was topped with portabella mushrooms and Gorgonzola cheese on a bed of glaze. My sides were sauerkraut and potato pancakes.
When our plates came, the silence that compliments good food followed. Instead, we dug in and shared dishes, trying sausages and red cabbage that I wish I had ordered.
German food is homey, heavy and perfect for cool weather. As my friend Sam Sauer put it, “it felt like it could be served in a home.”
Our waitress brought out a tray of desserts, and I finished off dinner with a delicate apple raisin strudel that was extremely flaky.
The bill came out more expensive than what I’m used to paying for dinner, but if you’re looking for a taste of Germany without the cost of a plane ticket, Bayern Stube is the place to go.