Deitsch Eck

October 25, 2012

4:30 PM

Enticing smells waft onto the sidewalk and through the parking lot outside the old brick hotel that houses the Deitsch Eck (pronounced “dye-check”), or Dutch Corner. On a weekday night, the three homey dining rooms are full of contented customers, including many regulars, who know that tonight’s special dish is chicken pot pie—and that second helpings are free.

Owner-chef Steve Stetzler, who’s approaching his 20th year in business, knows he needs no signage whatsoever to promote his cooking schedule (he makes certain dishes in different weekly rotations). Stetzler and his family consistently dedicate themselves to a menu that features not only the solid, traditional fare that satisfies, from pork chops to roast turkey and filling, but also the secret embellishments reflected in pies and fritters and sides that can only come from years and years, generations and generations, of daily devotion to the art of good cooking in the family kitchen. For this feast, no CIA credentials apply.

Fritters to Start

Starting with a Fritter Sampler and some fresh lemonade or local birch beer, three or four people can enjoy potato, corn and apple fritters made with a batter that is light and satisfying. The potato fritter has that classic, subtle onion-y zip to it, and is good for dipping in tangy sour cream. The corn fritter has a hot, lusty center which can be dipped in syrup (though it needs none); the apple fritters, which are prettily dusted with powdered sugar, are cinnamon-spiced and as tasty as the inside of an apple pie.

Soups vary daily. A cup of the chicken orzo proved simple, 100 percent authentic, not overly salty or spicy– not overly anything, in fact—exactly what you’d crave as medicine for either the coldest of days or the worst of colds.

But don’t ignore the simplest of Pennsylvania Dutch items on the menu: iceberg lettuce salad with hot bacon dressing. Stetzler’s version is inexplicably delicious. As you sit at the table, with hand-painted symbols and sayings in German on every wall, credited to famed hex sign painter Johnny Ott, that crazy salad takes on a whole new level of flavor. There is a secret ingredient here, for sure. Even if you do not care for this dish because you had it elsewhere and were never really impressed, do yourself a favor and step past that to create a stunning new food memory at Deitsch Eck.

The Comfort Bowl

Stetzler’s famed chicken pot pie arrives in a large, plain, shallow bowl. It is visually striking with its differently-sized ingredients, much like how an old-fashioned classroom in a one-room schoolhouse has tall kids mixed in with husky kids and still others that are slight-built or skinny. The homemade dumpling slices are healthily fat and more or less rectangular, each one to be savored in between spoonfuls of quarter-sized chicken chunks mellowing in a straightforward broth that’s dotted with fresh, green parsley. Tiny pieces of diced celery yield tartness, while slightly larger carrot cubes sweeten the soup, and still larger potato pieces round out that wholesome flavor that is uniquely “pot pie” and so very, very Berks County. In a minute, you feel part of the abundant farms and gardens that grace the countryside just beyond the old hotel’s windows. This is not a dish that can be thrown together, and the chef’s care is reflected in the perfectly melded near-stew. It’s filling, each mouthful true comfort food.

Speaking of filling…every family has its own style. And the Stetzler potato filling is super creamy, served with gravy or—for a twist—bacon dressing. Yum. The candied sweet potatoes are not to be ignored, baked in a dark, syrupy juice.

The menu sports a wide range: smoked sausage, homemade crab cakes, even hamburgers, which are award-winningly juicy, every bite worthy of the blue ribbon they won at Hamburg’s Taste of Hamburger Festival.

Throughout the meal, the dessert menu, drawn on a board, changes: It loses items—fast. All of the desserts are homemade, and they are spectacular. So, before the waitress (who may just be Amy Stetzler Wisser, the chef’s sister) starts erasing the cheesecake or the coconut pecan pie or the cherry crumb, better ask her to hold back a piece for you.

Best Apple Pie

One of the best apple pies ever made by human hands is the Caramel Apple Crumb, from Grandma Dotterer’s recipe, on Amy and Steve’s mom’s side of the family. This is a magical construction: reminiscent of an apple crisp, each elegant slice of pie holds unbelievably physics-defying layers upon layers of apples—apparently, there are three and a half pounds in just one pie—with luscious caramel dripping through the dough, in and through the apples themselves, cascading in a celebration of appley flavor—all this, plus a thin, soft-toasty, buttery-amber crust.

As distelfinks and tulips look on from the walls, it’s not hard to also imagine kindly angels smiling down at this dining scene in the quaint town of Lenhartsville.