Alpine Village Restaurant
833 W. Torrance Blvd., Torrance

We visited Alpine Village Restaurant Saturday @ 1:30 pm
Dish we will try to cook – Jaegerschnitzel, $10.95

Restaurant Visit
Never have we laughed so much while visiting a restaurant for the blog. And we weren’t even sure why we kept laughing. We chalked it up to the novelty of Alpine Village Restaurant and the 1950s music we were treated to while eating. If you’ve not visited the village before, it sits just off the 110 freeway in Torrance and is comprised of several white, kitschy façade buildings hosting such businesses as a dental office and traffic school, a small chapel, a German market and store, restaurant and swap meet area. Since we visited late on a Saturday afternoon, we didn’t get to see the German village in its full splendor but we did get to listen to a wonderful German lad playing an accordion outside the market area and see the tail end of the crowd from the swap meet.

The restaurant at Alpine Village doesn’t seem to have a proper name, other than a sign that reads “restaurant.” Which, we guess, is enough to tell someone all they need to know. The size and design of the interior does the rest. Upon walking in, we realized just how large the restaurant is. There are several small rooms for private parties and one large room for the everyday diners. In the middle of the restaurant is a themed Alpine Village stage and, as expected, a impressive bar runs along one entire wall of the building dispensing 15 varieties of beer on tap. Many tables had guest seated, but overall the crowd was pretty quiet during the afternoon and surprisingly, we weren’t the youngest people in attendance.

We aren’t ones to take it light for most meals, and when eating German cuisine for lunch, it is simply impossible. Thus, we dove right in, ordering their sausage trio with brier mustard (a tasting of Alpine Village’s famous sausages – polish bratwurst, buffalo chicken and Hungarian bratwurst- skewered, grilled and served with our house-made brier mustard dipping sauce) $4.95 for an appetizer. We followed this with the jaegerschnitzel (sautéed pork cutlet topped with a mushroom cream reduction. Served with roasted garlic mash and braised red cabbage) $10.95, and beef goulash (beef chuck braised in red wine with paprika, caraway seed and other spices. Served over buttered spaetzle noodles and sautéed seasonal vegetables) $9.95. And if you’re going for gluttonous, why hold back. We further stuffed our bellies with the apple strudel a-la-mode (classic German apple strudel served with vanilla ice cream and a bourbon-caramel sauce) $4.95, for dessert.

The sausage trio was served with 3 pieces of each variety of sausage, on 3 different skewers. Easy to eat and full of juiciness, this was a great way to start the meal, with the polish bratwurst being our favorite. Neither of us are fans of mustard, but were both surprised to enjoy Alpine Village’s brier mustard. The sauce was more sweet than mustard-y,if that is a word. Each entrée came with either a cup of soup or a small salad, so needless to say we were pretty full before even starting the meal. We channeled our inner German ancestors (well, one of us as German ancestors, the other just pretended) and managed to eat about half of each entrée. The jaegerschnitzel was thinly cut, tender pork topped with mushrooms and sauce. Cranberries lent a tart flavor to the red cabbage that was both an interesting and welcomed addition. Of the two, this plate seemed the least rich of flavors. Eating the beef goulash felt like eating spaghetti with beef sauce, yet with a German twist. Normally, noodles are very uniform in width and length. Spaetzle noodles, on the other hand, seem to be a random grouping of egg noodles that are in all different widths and lengths. Some were almost round while others were a few inches long and very organic in shape. Maybe we were given the bottom of the pot of noodles, but the rustic experience was very playful and they were delicious. The side of sautéed vegetables almost fooled us into thinking we were sort of eating healthy. But, there was enough butter and salt on the veggies to counteract any nutritional value received.

Our hearty expectations of German food were not only met, but exceeded by Alpine Village Restaurant. We enjoyed our visit, yet know that we missed out on probably an over-the-top experience by not visiting at night to listen to the live performances and can only imagine the mayhem that place exudes during Oktoberfest (chosen by USA Today as one of the best Oktoberfests in the world). In fact, we may just have to drive back down to Torrance in October to truly see the restaurant in full swing. If you go, be sure to arrive hungry and thirsty!

Shopping
(prices reflect the cost of the package, not the portion we used.) The rest of the ingredients we already had in the kitchen.

Whole Foods
Whipping Cream $3.99
Organic Pork Chop $7.92
Mushrooms $2.99
Cabbage, 1 head $4.44
Garlic $1.82
Parsley $1.49
Russet Potatoes, 3 lbs. $3.87
Shallots, .22lb $1.10

Recipe
Below is our take on German jaegerschnitzel. While we have no idea exactly how they prepare theirs, we looked around online for recipes then combined that knowledge with the flavors we tasted in the original dish and went from there.

Makes 2 servings.

Jaegerschnitzel

Braised Red Cabbage
1/2 head medium red cabbage, cored and sliced
3/4 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
1/3 cup red wine
3 TBSP red wine vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
1 TBSP brown sugar

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add brown sugar, mix and cook until sugar is completely melted, about 2-3 minutes. Add vinegar and cranberries. Cover and cook until cranberries pop their skin, about 5 minutes. Next, add cabbage and cook until cabbage is slightly wilted, about 5 minutes. Add wine, salt and pepper, turn heat to low and stir occasionally. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until cabbage is tender.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes
1 head garlic
1 TBSP olive oil
2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 TBSP butter
3/4 cup heavy cream
salt and white pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut off very top of garlic head. Place garlic in foil and drizzle with olive oil. Wrap foil tightly and place in oven (you may want to place foil on top of baking sheet or glass dish so olive oil doesn’t drip to bottom of oven). Roast for 45 minutes, or until garlic is completely tender. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly. Remove garlic from skin and mash. Boil potatoes in a pot of salted water until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and place potatoes in a large bowl. Add garlic and mash. Add cream, softened butter, salt and white pepper and mash until smooth.

Pork
4 pork cutlets, 1/4 in. thick
2 TBSP olive oil
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Season pork with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Next, add oil to skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Place pork on skillet and cook for about 5 minutes. Flip pork and cook an additional 5 minutes, or until browned on the outside and slightly pink on the inside. Remove from skillet and set skillet aside for mushroom cream reduction.

Mushroom Cream Reduction
1/2 lb white mushrooms, quartered
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 shallot, finely minced
1 TBSP butter
salt to taste

Using skillet from pork, drain excess fat until about 1tsp remains. Heat over medium-low. Add shallot and cook until translucent. Add butter and cook until melted. Next, turn heat up and add mushrooms and salt. Cook mushrooms until soft. Once mushrooms have browned, add white wine and use wooden spoon to deglaze pan. Add chicken stock, turn down heat back to medium-low and cook until liquid is reduced by two thirds. Once reduced slowly add in cream. Mix, then let simmer until sauce is rich.

Plating
Place one serving of red cabbage on a plate. Create a tower of garlic mash beside the cabbage (we used a pastry bag with a 1M tip). Next, place two cutlets of pork side-by-side, half lying on the plate and half leaning up on the mash and cabbage. Spoon a generous portion of sauce and mushrooms onto the pork and finish by sprinkling chopped parsley over plate. Serve and enjoy.

Rating- We give our dish 4.5 out of 5 stars.
We gave ourselves a pat on the back this week. Usually, the sauces are always the hardest part of us but we seemed to have replicated Alpine Village’s pretty spot on. The two parts of the dish that we felt were slightly off were the flavor of the cabbage and a few of the spices on the pork. Our cabbage wasn’t as sweet as theirs, which we liked better. But if you prefer a sweeter side, this could easily be remedied by using more sugar with the cranberries. Next, you can see flakes of pepper on our pork, yet on theirs you weren’t able to visibly see the black specks. The flavor is about the same, but the visual presentation doesn’t match up. Alpine Village Restaurant also used slightly larger pieces of pork in their dish.

The sauce is truly what takes this plate from a simple pork chop and mashed potatoes to a cohesive grown-up dish. White wine and cream seem to create magic together and have left us with happy stomachs twice now. This recipe is relatively easy, if a little time consuming to make all three components but will definitely be enjoyed by you and your guests.

How would you rate our recipe? We look forward to hearing feedback from you guys. Have any of you visited Alpine Village during Oktoberfest? Feel free to email us if you have any questions on the recipe and don’t forget to vote for next week’s restaurant!