The Mountain Brauhaus, the standard bearer for German cuisine in the region, was my next stop. Located at the foot of the Shawangunk Ridge, the Brauhaus is always packed, with waitresses in dirndls ushering trays of sauerbraten and wiener schnitzel to and fro while diners drink mugs of Spaten. As a fan of stick-to-your-ribs cuisine, a meal at the Brauhaus is a sentimental journey for me, taking me back to my grandmother’s beef rouladen and German potato salad. On most trips, I’ll order the pot roast or the bratwurst, with sides of red cabbage and potato pancakes. The Brauhaus’s reputation for flavorful, generously portioned German food is well deserved.
On a Father’s Day visit, I ordered the oddest thing on the menu—sulze. Served as an appetizer, sulze is the German version of head cheese. It’s served luncheon-meat style, a few disks of gelatin spotted with chunks of pink meat. Visually, it’s disconcerting to see bits of meat suspended in a clear gel. But that doesn’t detract from its fascinating taste. As sulze is made with pickles and vinegar, it has a tang that snaps in concordance with the snap of the sulze’s texture. The taste of the meat? Like boiled meat with pickles and vinegar, corned beef’s bite-sized cousin. The Brauhaus’s sulze was no revelation, but it was tasty and respectable for what it was, well made un-comfort food.
GONE TO THE DOGS
A dedicated carnivore, I don’t traffic much in protein substitutes—tofu, seitan, and the like. For instance, if I’m going to eat a hot dog, I’ll buy a couple of franks from the guy with a cart around the corner from my office, and not ask too many questions about the provenance of the meat. Sauerkraut and onions hides many an imperfection. So it seemed fitting, un-comfortwise, to venture to Soul Dog on Main Street in Poughkeepsie and try their veggie dogs on gluten-free buns. Opened in 2004 by a couple who wanted to create a place where people with dietary restrictions and food allergies could go for comfort food, Soul Dog offers about 25 toppings, ranging from old standbys like onions in red sauce to marsala mushrooms, guacamole, and vegetarian chili. In addition to veggie dogs, they also serve Sabrett all beef dogs and Applegate chicken dogs. I ordered one of each, all on gluten-free buns, along with a Redbridge, a gluten-free beer made from sorghum by Anheuser-Busch.
The Redbridge was a bit disappointing, in an odd way. It was light-bodied like a pilsner, but also contained heavier, syrupy notes due to the sorghum that crept in every few sips. The dogs, however, were a delight. On my veggie dog, I ordered the day’s special topping, the “Jackie Chan,” peanut sauce and jalapenos. The chicken I had with roasted poblano pepper salsa. The Sabrett was served with “Soul sauce,” the house hot sauce/salsa. The veggie dog itself was bland, but that allowed it to be a blank slate for the spicy peanut sauce and pinpricks of heat in the diced jalapenos. The poblano pepper salsa was a winner, chunky and with a smoldering heat that knew how to play nice with the chicken dog. The true revelation at Soul Dog was the gluten-free buns, made with chick pea flour and lightly toasted. Having become accustomed to bleached white flour buns, usually primed for soggy disintegration under any overly moist topping, the chick pea flour buns had an actual flavor to them (the subtlest hint of toasted chick peas), and didn’t taste like they sprang fully formed from the Wonder Bread machine. Soul Dog is now my go-to hot dog stand.
BEST FOOT FORWARD
Next door to Soul Dog, at the West Indies Jamaican Restaurant, I picked up the most un-comfortable food I encountered in my travels—cow foot. A take-out joint patronized solely by Jamaican-accented folks on the day I stopped, West Indies Jamaican Restaurant had a sign on its steam table that read “Cow Foot.” When the woman behind the counter asked me what I wanted, I asked to see the cow foot. She beckoned me over to view a mass of bone and cartilage in an oily broth. I ordered the medium size for $8, served on a bed of rice and beans and reheated-from-frozen vegetable medley.
