Burgrestaurant at Thallichtenberg

Burgrestaurant at Thallichtenberg near Kesel, Germany

Traditional German restaurant on an old castle grounds

You can't really throw a stone without hitting an old castle in Germany. Mark's aunt took us to one near her house, a place called Thallichtenberg which has a lovely restaurant on the premises. It probably doesn't look much like the place where the castle residents dined in years past--the specials are listed on a large rolling mirror--but it's charming and the staff are extremely friendly and attentive.

We started with pumpkin soup, which didn't have a strong pumpkin flavor but did taste of creamy saffron. Unexpectedly light for pumpkin soup at a German restaurant. Next we moved on to salads, a simple combination of lettuce, shredded carrot, and shredded cabbage (white and red, only slightly sour). Mark and Tim both enjoyed the creamy dressing, tangy like ranch, but with a sweeter flavor.

The main courses were wild boar stew, and pork medallions with herbed cream sauce, both served with mushrooms and spatzle, traditional German noodles. Mark and Tim both loved the spatzle, like fresh pasta but with a softer texture and a creamy taste, almost of potatoes (though it is not, we believe, a potato noodle). The wild boar in the stew wasn't as gamey as boar we've had in the past--apparently Germany has quite the large population of wild boar (we would later see one dead on the road to the airport). The stew was a dark, winey stew that included mushrooms and a dark red berry called a johannesberry, whose tangy fruit flavor was fairly weak compared to the others. The boar and the stew really overpowered everything else, though we could tell the mushrooms tasted fresh.

The pork medallions, too, tasted mostly of the herbed cream sauce, which was a little salty but rich and tasty. Both the sauce and the stew were delicious with the spatzle, too.

We had room for a couple desserts, so we split the rotiger ritter (or "poor knight"): french bread dipped in milk, browned, and rolled in sugar and cinnamon; and a bowl of four small scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with hot raspberry compote. The rotiger ritter tasted like cinnamon French toast, but with a sweeter bread. The hot raspberry sauce melted the vanilla ice cream quickly, leaving a creamy vanilla-raspberry soup, which we found nothing to complain about.

It's easy to see why this place is kind of a "special event" restaurant for the nearby villages. It renewed our faith in German cooking, and would have been the best meal we had in Germany, save for the next day's visit to Heidelberg.