Take heed dear glutton there is even but a refuge for thee amongst the beige bulging bastions of the western suburbs!
My wife and I took the brave venture into the western suburbs this weekend to knock some glasses with my folks. Determined to find a dining experience that didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with baby toys, I decided to use this here internets to aide in my acquiring a high-fat, high-calorie, high-delicious meal that would be served with a decent selection of carbonated beverages.
I turned to the trusty BeerAdvocate BarFly directory and looked for a well reviewed beer bar in the area. After reading several mediocre reviews that all mentioned the Bavarian Lodge as a preferred alternative, I looked it up.
My christ, I have seen the face of god and it smells like Schweins Hax’n!!!
Located unassumingly on Ogden Avenue just north of Yackley in Lisle, IL the Bavarian Lodge is a tudor-style house with room for probably 150 to 200 guests. It’s split evenly in half, the west side is a sit down dining area and the east side is a bar with plenty of tables to belly up to and dine as well. The walls are appropriately decorated in murals, mounts and glass cases full of beer steins and glassware.
They serve authentic german cuisine and serve it very ceremoniously well. Cabage rolls, potato pancakes, schnitzel out the wazoo, rouladen, saurbraten, schpaetzel, thuringer and, my favorite, which I’m not sure I’ll be able to go another full week without ordering again, the Schweins Hax’n properly crisped.
From their menu:
A two-pound boiled pork shank, served skin-on… the best Eisbein this side of Munich!
What’s more is that their beer selection would hold it’s own amongst the finer beer bars in Chicago, and is, hands down the best beer selection you will find anywhere in Illinois west of the city. On the night we were there I was able to sample the following on draught: Duchess de Bourgogne, Surly Smoke (amazing!), Founders Backwoods Bastard, and Dogfish Raison D’etre. And this was only a fraction of the options of their 29 pulls. Their belgian bottled section lists near 100.
Now I’m a guy who will speak with a certain amount of hyperbole perhaps a little too often, but believe me that I am not speaking with even an ounce of hyperbole right now when I say this was the best dining experience I’ve had in possibly my entire life. How about that? And I’ve eaten at the Publican, the Bristol, Aqua in SF, Sabatino’s on Irving and everything in between pretentious haute bullshit and low rent greasy spoons in the best cities around this planet. The Bavarian Lodge was authentic, delicious, warm, unpretentious and totally fucking educated about their food and beer. The setting was inviting and home-like, the staff was attentive and friendly and the bill was surprisingly low.
I’m all itchy and bug-eyed and I’m afraid I may try and start a religion or something. I’m prepared to offer my first born just to see how the chefs might prepare it.
And, if you haven’t already been tossed into a tongue rolling revelry of culinary and zythological ecstasy than how about a set of house rules that ban children and hollering dipshits from the bar area?
I now understand how movements are started and empires are built. I now comprehend how the mind can be enslaved to a world of senses for ever and, more than certainly likely, for the betterment of all.
Amen.
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[...] The Bavarian Lodge is the best place to drink beer in Illinois west of Kedzie. Granted it’s a bit west of Kedzie, but it’s worth the trip. If you like spaetzle & flash fried swine hocks this place will make you wet yourself. If you care at all about good beer you might be looking to rent an apartment across the street after your first visit. [...]