Breaded & Fried Mushrooms

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
December 10, 2006

THOMAS BEISL
25 Lafayette Ave
(Ashland Pl & St Felix St)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-222-5800

Thomas Beisl is blessed with the perfect location — directly across BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, and two blocks away from BAM Harvey Theater. It’s always packed with diners/audiences before and after performances, even though the food is not fantastic. I love Austrian fare, but Thomas Beisl’s dishes are almost unanimously bland. I don’t dream about how tasty the schnitzel will be when entering the restaurant, but rather think that it’s a good place for a quick fix, which is probably why I’ve never written about it. The atmosphere is very pleasant and you always bump into someone interesting, whether it be a critic, a friend, or a performer from the show you just saw.

On this gorgeous Sunday, after seeing Pina Bausch’s Nefes, my sister and I hopped over to Thomas Beisl for an early dinner. We started with an overdressed mixed green salad and the breaded and fried mushrooms special. Though the mushrooms are a special, they’ve been on the board the past three times I visited. I’m not complaining as they are actually the best thing on the menu. Whereas the schnitzels can be dry and tasteless inside, the breaded then fried mushrooms are juicy. The tartar sauce that accompanies adds flavor and makes them fun to eat. We then shared the dinner special, paprika chicken with spaetzle, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. The pieces of chicken were swimming in a watery paprika sauce that was weak and this is an example of why I often steer clear of chicken on a menu — instead of bringing out the flavor in the meat, the chicken is reduced to a nondescript piece of food. The spaetzle were swimming in the pool of sauce too and was equally boring in taste. In need of more vegetables, we added a fennel salad, but in the end the only thing that stood out was the mushrooms.

I mentioned the schnitzel twice but I do want to qualify that while I find the wiener schnitzel and cod schnitzel here disappointing (can you imagine?! When I think cod schnitzel I want to jump for joy, but after tasting it I fall flat on my feet), I do like the celery root schnitzel. I’m beginning to see a common thread and that maybe Thomas Beisl’s forte is in the deep-fried vegetable category. Plus tartar sauce is so yummy! The cucumber and potato salad that come with the schnitzels are also rather lackluster, especially compared to the same salads at Wallsé.

So, after some experimentation, I think the best solution is to go to Thomas Beisl before a performance for a snack — the fried mushrooms of course and a glass of wine or beer. Then after the performance, go for a more satisfying meal elsewhere. The tastiest part of this evening was sitting two tables away from one of the male dancers from the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. That was hot!

Also in Austrian, Fort Greene, Vegetables