Nein, danke!

Walked by Schmidt's last night, that new place on Folsom & 20th. I think it's a spin off of Walzwerk’s & is billing itself as a deli (the sit down kind). The crowd inside looked like they were having a pretty good time & the plates of German food looked quite tasty BUT I was on my way to Spork & Schmidt's would have to wait. Well wait it did, that is until the next day for lunch. I popped in around 2pm (open till 3pm for lunch), place was pretty well cleared out except for the few remaining patrons inside (about 50% looked like good Germanic stock). Anyway, order a very fresh Franziskaner Hefe, excellent condition & redolent of those bubblegum aromas some hefeweizen's embody. Unbeknownst to me that was the last thing I would enjoy for lunch as the rest of the meal was a giant zero. Now I know 2pm is not the best time for lunch but if the place is serving till 3pm that shouldn't make a difference but here it did. I ordered the veal schnitzel sandwich & a side of spaetzle (recommended by the very sweet waitress when I inquired if I should try the spaetzel or potato salad). In short order, possibly too short, my food arrived. The spaetzel looked dead on arrival like it had been made hours earlier & had just been warmed over. The taste was pretty much what is looked like, lifeless. The tooth was wrong, it was over overcooked & had sat too long... it was bland, bland, bland. I dread to think what the potato salad tasted like if the spaetzel was recommended over it. Next: The veal schnitzel sandwich looked no better, it had suffered under the same hands that the spaetzel endured. It had obviously been breaded & fried much earlier & was now escaping from the kitchen on a couple of slices of slightly dry dark bread, a big smear of dill source & some onions. It looked like a plank of day old fish & chips. Thank gawd it didn’t taste like a day old fish but it just tasted of nothing. Again, zero, nada, zilch. There is usually nothing more deflating to me than to be excited about a meal & then to be served uninspired plates of reheated crap. I was depressed. So w/ that I looked around the room & failed to see any charm or promise that I saw when I walked by the first night. I should have just kept right on walking. Grade: Auf Wiedersehen