Rolf's

I think that this blog post can be filed under "too little, too late" considering that the holiday season is over and the decorations are already most likely down, but I thought I'd give a shout out to Rolf's. Located on the southeast corner of 22nd St and 3rd Ave in Manhattan, Rolf's (sorry, no web site) is a small German restaurant that goes absolutely bonkers with Christmas decorations. Think the Indian restaurants on 1st Ave in the East Village, but with all of the lighting and hanging decorations Christmas-themed instead of random-themed. And with higher ceilings.

There was a spell in my teenage years where we used to go to Rolf's every year around Christmas time to take Grandma (of Austrian heritage) to get some old school grub and to see the decorations. These days, the food at Rolf's isn't what it used to be. Not bad, don't get me wrong. But there are much better German restaurants that you can go to (Nurnberger Bierhaus being my current favorite). Rolf's has done some weird thing with they've added American and French dishes and the German food seems to have suffered at their expense. But it's totally worth a trip if you're in the Christmas spirit. I took R there on New Year's Day date and I wouldn't be surprised if we do it again next year.

While there I had one of these bad boys. A delicious, bready, full-bodied doppelbock that went great with my beef stew and spatzle. The Altenmunster Doppelbock has just the right noticeable level of alcohol without being overwhelming. Great stuff.