Chau Haus Schnitzel Station
224 W. Michigan AvenueI know it’s been a while but I’ve finally got a blog post from Kalamazoo. I’ve enjoyed the traveling these past several weeks but damn, is it good to be home for a while.
You know those days where you tell yourself you’re not going to eat out at work? Yeah, I get those a lot but then I give in. I eat leftovers a lot at home, but when I’m at work, I really just want to pick up something hot that someone else has made.
Early this week, I had one of those days. I sat around until late afternoon hungry but not wanting to give in. Curiosity won over though as I remembered the German place that used to be on Burdick moved to Michigan Avenue….and they had online ordering now so I didn’t even need to call them. Yeah, I ended up ordering lunch.
Chau Haus Schnitzel Station opened up in Kalamazoo’s Vine Neighborhood in the Fall of 2016. I ate their once last winter when I had some time for dinner one night. I really didn’t have much experience with German food before that and I really enjoyed what I had.
Fast forward to last December and Chau Haus made the move to a new location on Michigan Avenue near Rose Street in the Central Business District. They outgrew the old hot dog joint on Burdick and the space that used to be McNally’s Kitchen (then Andrea’s Restaurant) happened to be open.
I put in my online order just before 1:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. Grubhub said it would be about 20 minutes and I had about a five minute walk to the storefront that faces a very busy Michigan Avenue. I didn’t have to worry about parking but if you do, street and ramp parking is available in the area.
The restaurant still very much looks like a family breakfast joint. The brick walls with panel chair rails are covered with art from local artists. The tables and chairs would look at home in most country dining rooms. There are two bakery cases in the space for their German inspired desserts.
I didn’t really see any obvious place to wait for my called in order. The old restaurant was more of a counter service place but this one is a full table service restaurant. I sort of stood by one of the bakery counters until someone from the wait staff noticed me. They asked if I had the call-in order and it was ready and waiting in a warming bag on top of the bakery case. I had already paid online so all I had to do was grab my bag and go.
I headed back to work with a Styrofoam container with a pork schnitzel sandwich and spätzle. The meal set me back just a little over nine bucks.
There was a lot of spätzle in the container so that’s what I started on first. The egg noodles are sauteed in butter and pepper and for an extra $.50, covered in cheese. The noodles are really filling. The taste can be a little bland, but that’s true of all egg noodles. The cheese that was included had a nice crunchy crust to it and the buttery noodles didn’t want to stay on my fork. The sheer volume of noodles is what made this meal so filling. I was filling up as I was getting towards the end, but I just wanted to keep eating.
The pork schnitzel sandwich is not something I’m super familiar with. I grew up in Cenetral/Eastern Illinois and we had this big thing called a pork tenderloin sandwich. What would happen is someone would take a piece of tenderloin, pound it out real flat then bread it and fry and serve it on a bun three sizes too small with pickles. The Pork Schnitzel sandwich at Chau Haus is not that. It’s still a piece of pork pounded thin, breaded and pan-fried but this one had so much more flavor and was so much more juicy than any pork tenderloin I have ever had. The last time I ate at Chau Haus I got the steak schnitzel and really liked it, but this pork schnitzel blew that one away. I was seriously considering about going back for another one…it was that good.
As I said the last time I blogged about Chau Haus Schnitzel Station, it’s something really unique in Kalamazoo. They have obviously made a name for themselves after having to move to a larger space in less than year. I don’t know of anywhere else in town to get this kind of food and even if I did, I’m not sure it would matter. I’ve eaten at Chau Haus both Chau Haus locations now and both times I’ve walked away wanting more…not because I was still hungry…wanting more because the food was so good.
SW Michigan Dining 