I thought Bill and I were going to be going out for French food last night.  A couple of months ago, I had done an Internet search of French restaurants and somehow the Rosenau ended up at the top of my search string.  I looked over the menu and thought it was interesting, but kind of pricey.  I eventually forgot about the place.

Then on Friday night, we went to Tommi’s Bistro and had a wonderful steak dinner.  I decided yesterday afternoon, I wanted to try another restaurant I had never been to before.  That’s when I thought of Rosenau again.  I convinced Bill we needed a real date night and he made an online reservation through their Web site.  It turned out he didn’t have to do that, but not knowing anything about the restaurant, we decided to be safe.

I was going to wear a dress, but ended up changing into pants because it was chilly!

Getting to the Restaurant Rosenau turned out to be an interesting experience.  Though we already knew how to get to Tübingen, our GPS system decided to take us a shorter way, which involved driving on narrow roads and through quaint little towns while being tailgated by impatient locals.  We ended up driving right past Pfäffingen, which is the town we lived in the first time we were in Germany.  I’m always happy to drive through that area, since that’s where I learned to enjoy living in Germany.  It’s also a delightfully pretty town.

We got to the Rosenau restaurant just in time for our 7:00 reservation.  The parking lot was somewhat full of cars.  That’s when I realized that the restaurant is also a very nice looking gasthaus, though I couldn’t tell if the gasthaus side of it was running.  It was a bit cloudy and misty last night and it was getting very dark by the time we parked, but I could see that the restaurant and hotel are in sort of a picturesque rural area that made me think of a farm.  I bet when the sun is out, it’s beautiful.  The parking lot was next to a meadow and I could see charming timbered buildings that have probably been there for centuries.

The outside of the restaurant…

A very friendly waitress who bore a slight resemblance to Celine Dion greeted us warmly as we entered the dining room.  We were invited to choose a table.  I picked one out near the fireplace, which wasn’t operating last night.  The waitress apologized for not having menus in English.  That was okay, though, since Bill and I both need to practice our German.  We can navigate German menus pretty well most of the time, anyway.

Bill looking handsome in clothes I picked out for him.  😉

Bill chose a Bordeaux from the wine list as I realized that the restaurant’s cuisine was more high class Schwabish-French food than straight French.  They had a number of nice selections, though, and even offered a degustation menu.  Our server spoke English and had a really pleasant personality, smiling more often than the average German does.  I’m kidding, of course.  Although she really did smile a lot and was very warm and engaging.  She lit a candle for us as I admired the fresh flowers on the table and left us to decide what we wanted for dinner.

We enjoyed very fresh baguettes with butter and an herbal spread that was a little sour.  There was a simple white baguette and one that had different seeds in it.  Both were delicious and I was tempted to eat a lot of it, but knew I needed to save room.

An amuse.  This was what tasted like some kind of fish croquette with carrot and herbal creme.  It was good!

I started with onion soup.  It consisted of caramelized onions with homemade Parmesan croutons, and a clear broth.  This was a nice starter, since it wasn’t too heavy.  Our server poured the soup out of a small kettle into the bowl.

Bill had a nice salad with venison.  I did taste the venison, which was very fresh.

I had duck with what could best be described as potato croquettes but were actually called Dauphine potatoes.  They were pretty sinful.  My duck was cooked to medium and served with a cream sauce and what tasted like a red wine sauce.  I managed to finish most of this, though I was saving room for dessert…   

Bill had sauerbraten.  The beef was literally tender enough that you could cut it with a spoon!  They were served with pretzel dumplings and red cabbage.

Our wine…

I was determined to have dessert, even though I find that the older I get, the less food I can eat at one sitting.  That declining ability to eat food has had no effect on my waistline.  That’s the only reason why I left a few bites on my plate.

I ordered what turned out to be sort of a panoply of desserts.  There was panna cotta, chocolate mousse, a tiny almond cookie, grapes, blueberry sorbet, and I’m not sure what the little orange slivers up by the panna cotta were.  I’d guess they were another panna cotta, but they were very mild and had sort of an orange flavor.

Bill had a similar dessert, except his included a banana cake (in the cup), chocolate ice cream, and banana ice cream with pistachios.  In the little shot glass was a type of creme which I didn’t try…

We ended with a round of espresso, which was served with tiny Ritter Sports and a small plate of cookies.  We noticed another couple choosing digestives from a cart that a server wheeled over to them.

I had to sneak a photo of the beautiful stained glass lighting in the middle of the dining room.  I wonder what they have to do when a light bulb burns out.

Outside menu…

Service at Rosenau was mostly impeccable.  Our charming server was extremely professional and practiced excellent table maintenance.  She was very poised and when she couldn’t think of the English word for the sorbet, even went to the kitchen and Googled it for me.  She did sort of disappear at the end of the meal, but her colleague brought us our check.  The total bill for this meal was 138 euros before the tip.  It was well worth what we spent.

The atmosphere at Rosenau seemed to be geared toward older people, though we did notice one group of younger folks who appeared to be celebrating a birthday.  Most people were dressed in what we’d call “business casual” attire, though there were a couple of people in jeans.

One thing to note is that all of the chairs in the dining room have arms on them.  I wouldn’t mention this, except that I used to wait tables and observed that some people have trouble sitting in chairs with arms.

I think Restaurant Rosenau would make a good date night restaurant.  It looked like they had a really nice garden area for al fresco dining.  As the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, we may have to venture back.  The surrounding area is just lovely.  An added convenience is the ample and free parking… not something you can always find in Germany!