BACKGROUND: My new year's resolution is to write a restaurant review for every restaurant I visit. Today was the first, and the lucky restaurant to receive my visit was Block House on the Kirchenallee street, right next to Hauptbahnhof Sud in Hamburg. I had been down to the Hauptbahnhof to renew my U-bahn ticket, and afterwards I got hungry and wanted to find a restaurant nearby. When I saw Block House I decided to go there. This wasn't the first time I visited a Block House restarurant in Hamburg, but I hadn't been to this particular one. Still, from my previous visits I knew that Block House served quality food, so this wasn't much of a risk. Block House is a chain of restaurants in Germany. I think there are 34 restaurants in total, and many of them are located in Hamburg. But they also have restaurants in Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.
FIRST IMPRESSION: The entrance to the Block House restaurant is easy to find. Just go to Kirchenallee and look for the big Block House sign (doh!). Upon entering I noticed that the place was quite busy already, even though it was only 17:30 in the afternoon. Several waiters were running around taking orders and serving food. One waiter rushed by me and told me in Germany to just take any table I liked. At least I think that's what he said... So I moved further into the restaurant and found a table pretty much in the middle of everything. The restaurant itself is quite large. One of the first things I noticed when moving a bit into the restaurant was the theatre kitchen where I could watch the chefs prepare the steaks and everything. That's one of the things I really like about Block House! It's quite entertaining to watch the chefs do their work, especially if you're just by yourself like I sometimes am. The style of the interior is plain and simple. White brick walls, and dark wooden paneling some places. Several wine racks were spread around the building. Nothing too fancy about the interiour really. I got the impression that this is a place where the food is in focus, and they haven't put too much effort into making the interior look spectacular. Nothing wrong with putting the focus on the food though! I give 7/10 points for the first impression.
WAITING TIME: Top score on this! I entered the restaurant at 17:20 and sat down at the cozy little table in the middle of the restaurant, quite close to the coat stand actually. Around a minute later I got the menu. I decided on what to order quite fast, and another waitress came by and took my order at 17:30. At 17:33 I got my salad appetizer. I finished it by 17:40. The first waiter then came with the main course at 17:42. Yeah..., I actually had my watch out and took a note of all of these times. Later, after I was finished eating, I got a coffee just a minute after I ordered it, and I also received the check just a couple of minutes after I asked for it. 10/10 points here!
STAFF: I've got no real complaints about the staff. Everytime I needed something I got the staff's attention pretty quickly. It could be because my table was right in the middle of the restaurant, and the waiters/waitresses walked past me all the time, so I didn't have to do more than look at them to get their attention. While I was eating I was left alone, except one time when one of the waiters gave me the mandatory question if everything was alright. I said "sehr gut!",
smiled, and continued eating. I did get the feeling though, that the waiters/waitresses only did precisely what they were supposed to do, and nothing more. To deserve a higher score they would've had to make me feel more special. 7.5/10
APPETIZER: The typical appetizer at Block House is their crispy salad with your choice of dressing. So that's what I took. I've previously had the American dressing with it, but this time I decided to go for the French dressing. Other alternatives are Italian and Greek dressing, and maybe even other types. The salad itself is very basic. Lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions etc. It's a salad that works fine as an appetizer, but doesn't blow you away. I felt like I could easily have made this myself at home in a few minutes. Except the dressing maybe, which is quite good! Anyway, the salad appetizer didn't impress me too much, so no top score for this one. I give it 5.5/10 points.
MAIN COURSE: The first thing that caught my eye when I opened the menu was the "New Year's Cut: Rib-Eye Steak 230g, mit Garlic Mashed Potatoes und
Knoblauchbrot". A red wine from 2006 (didn't get to read where it was from, the waiter took my menu before I got the chance) was also recommended, so I ordered
that as well. And let there be no doubt about Block House abilities to serve steaks, cause this was top notch! The medium cooked steak itself was just as it should be, tender, juicy and very tasty. And the mashed potatoes and garlic butter was a great supplement to the steak, and the tastes complemented each other in a great way. Not to mention the "Knoblauchbrot" which lifted the total experience even higher. The only thing was the "knoblauchbrot" could have been a bit crispier. The red wine was also good. I'm not a wine expert, but this was a very fruity wine with a gentle, but quite short aftertaste. All in all I have almost only positiv things to say about the main course! The only reason I won't give it 10 points is because of the "Knoblauchbrot" wasn't quite crisp enough for me. So 9/10 points on this one.
TOTAL VERDICT: I had a great meal at the Block House. My expectations were quite high, because I've been there before and have liked the food there, and I wasn't disappointed this time either. I would definitely recommend a meal at one of the Block House restaurants to anyone visiting Hamburg. The restaurant itself is quite large and on the night it was very crowded, so the waiters/waitresses were quite busy running around attending all the customers. I got their attention every time I needed it though. The only thing was I got the feeling they were in a rush all the time, and didn't feel like was being treated special in any way. Some places I've been to I do get this feeling, but that's mostly smaller places. Maybe it's the price you pay for being a big restaurant that you can't spend too much time with each customer? Anyway, it wasn't a big deal, and as I wrote in the beginning, I really did have a great meal. 8/10 points.
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