Paula B.

Review of Gourmet Haus Staudt Gifts

Now, to a critique from an actual German... I was ...

Now, to a critique from an actual German... I was looking for a German market to buy packaged powdered spaghetti bolognese sauce, since I find American spaghetti sauce in glass jars extremely bland and watery and found this on Google. Then I got lulled in by reviews of many Americans who purportedly took their German friend there that said the food tasted just like in Germany and gave the Biergarten section a try. I ordered the Leberkaes (German: liver cheese), looking forward to one of my favorite German meats that you cannot get at an American butcher. At first, I was kind of confused that it would be served on Sauerkraut with an egg instead of a Kaiser roll but I figured that this may be a regional difference (I'm not Bavarian. Never been to Bavaria). I got a measly 1cm thick piece of what looked some type of red grilled spam (didn't look like your typical leber kaes, which is supposed to be pink and juicy with a dark flaky crunchy crust). It tasted like some type of unsavory sausage but it didn't even come close to what Fleisch Kaes is supposed to taste like.
My friend's 1cm thick Nuernberger sausages with the same lame sides of Sauerkraut and potatoe salad didn't look that delicious either. (Seriously, Germans don't eat Sauerkraut at every meal. Growing up, I've eaten Sauerkrat maybe twice a year, at most.) So that's a no to the purportedly German food for me.

Also, I didn't get my side of fries until like 10 minutes after my friend and I were done eating, by the way. If it had been a crowded place, I wouldn't really mind but we came at about 11AM and there were maybe 3 other tables. The waiter and bus boy came by about 3 times saying "oh yeah! Fries!" Also, if you are German and hoping to have a conversation in German with your waiter, this is not the place. The entire staff was American, at least when I went there.

I didn't order any beer since I don't drink alcohol but I would believe that it tastes the same since the beer is imported and not brewed there. It's like going to a German market and being surprised that the imported products are authentic.

Speaking of market, the products there are indeed German and while the selection is very small, you can find your essentials like powdered bolognese sauce, which is why I bumped this up to two stars. However, everything seems overpriced. A square of Ritter Sport chocolate here costs $4.05 (about 70ct in Germany), in comparison, I pay $3,25 for a square at the market at Tressider on Stanford campus (with a similarly large selection) and $1,99 for a square at Trader Joe's (the selection is smaller but they have that dope Leipniz cookie type).