2009 Fall Dining Guide

By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

You don't have to look hard to find a restaurant around here that serves pad Thai, kitfo or seviche. Goulash soup and Black Forest cake, on the other hand? German kitchens are few and far between in the region. Helping to fill the gap is the 21-year-old Schmankerl Stube in Hagerstown, Md., which offers those and other dishes in a warren of cozy dining rooms that suggests you're enjoying a feast in Bavaria. Ja, the waitresses wear dirndls, and ja, the music brings Oktoberfest to mind. Pork is a signature. Try it as a pink smoked loin shored up with lush sauerkraut and tender spaetzle or, better yet, as pork shanks massaged with garlic, caraway and paprika and baked for hours (a Wednesday night special). It's easy to gorge on bread when it comes, as it does here, with a spread made with cream cheese, anchovies and capers. But go easy, because there are herring dressed in sour cream and a wurst (sausage) sampler to check out, too. That Black Forest cake is moist with whipped cream and fueled with drunken cherries, by the way, and though beer is the best way to wet your whistle, I'm charmed by how the wine is dispensed: from an elegant glass carafe supported by a leafy metal stand.

Sietsema Review

Journeys Close to Home
By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 29. 2008

Sound Check: 66 decibels; Conversation is easy
Let's go to Bavaria! implores a framed travel poster on the wall of Schmankerl Stube. Yet to look around the 20-year-old restaurant, whose waitresses are costumed in dirndls and whose music could accompany Oktoberfest, is to suggest we're already in Germany. And once the drinks and food start hitting the table, there's no doubt that this warren of cozy dining rooms, 70 miles from downtown Washington in western Maryland, is what Germans would rightly call echt -- real or genuine. I'd be pleased to make a meal of nothing but bread and butter here. Sunflower seed, says my server, offering thinly sliced bread. The spread next to the butter is identified as cream cheese, anchovies and capers. Having been here before, I know to go slow, because the main dishes in particular are apportioned as if a soccer team would be eating them.

But first, there are some appealing starters to consider. Light appetites should aim for the herring, its vinegar tang foiled by crisp bits of apple dressed with sour cream. Heartier eaters should consider the goulash soup, crammed with vegetables and bits of meat, their intense flavor matched by the the dark-red color of the broth. Two or more people could easily share the wurst sampler, four kinds of sausages (spiced bratwurst is a favorite) partnered with a trio of dips, including a fine house-made curry sauce.

If you love meat -- and you had better if you visit Schmankerl Stube -- plan to go on a Wednesday night. That's when chef Dieter Blosel serves what might be the single best, and possibly the biggest, savory item on the menu: pork shanks. Rubbed with garlic, caraway and paprika, and baked for almost four hours, the meteor-size chunk of meat emerges from the oven with a crisp rind and a succulent interior. It's about as subtle as oom-pah-pah and brings out the caveman in whoever eats it. (Insider tip: While pork shanks are a Wednesday special, at least a few are made each day; call 24 hours ahead, and you can request the entree on a different night of the week.) The glory of pork is also trumpeted in the pink smoked pork loin shored up with lush sauerkraut and tender little dumplings known as spaetzle, flavored here with mushrooms.

My imaginary overseas holiday is interrupted by several unwelcome details, including tough sauerbraten, softball-size dumplings that resemble wads of wet Wonder Bread and baby carrots that smack of a freezer bag. The wine list is dreary, too, but even Fetzer tastes better when it's dispensed from an elegant glass carafe supported by a leafy metal stand. The beers, poured into tall glasses, place me firmly in Germany. And the youthful servers are as efficient and knowledgeable as they come. Desserts, presented on a large tray, are made on site and ring true. Black Forest cherry cake is moist with whipped cream and spirited with drunken cherries, while the cheesecake made with cottage cheese proves surprisingly light and lemony. In The Sound of Music, Maria von Trapp included apple strudel as one of her favorite things. The version at Schmankerl Stube, with its light wrap of pastry and delicate apple crunch, has me singing its praises, too.

Entrees: $18-$26