Feierabend isn't the kind of place where they care how you pronounce "Feierabend." When asked, the chef—who's just closed the kitchen and is sitting at the bar with his laptop, checking baseball scores and reading about wiretapping—says, approximately, "Fire-uh-bund. But people say it different ways." This is clearly fine by him. The bartender slides him a shot of Jägermeister. He drinks it, grimaces, and says, "I don't even like it. Tastes like medicine."
A little earlier, this man made me a truly intimidating portion of wiener schnitzel. The plate barely fit on the bar. The meat (pale and tender, with herb-flecked, crisp-browned breading) lay pornographically across a mountainous bed of fries (skinny, golden, properly salted, possessed of the goodness indicative of having been lovingly double fried). A pile of purple pickled cabbage slowly stained whatever touched it; a decanter of curry-flavored ketchup was provided. Altogether, it was entirely excessive, it cost $12, and it made me predisposed to like the chef a great deal.
Feierabend encourages a calm, joyous immoderation. The fat pickles that are cut into big stubs and deep-fried ("Oh my god," said one recipient) are imported from Germany in cans as big as pony kegs. Eighteen German beers are on tap, each served in its correct glassware, which is marshaled in sparkling rows on the bar's shelves; you can get an enormous, dimpled one-liter glass mug of any one of them. This mug, depending on your stature, may actually be difficult to lift; the seal imprinted on it depicts, ominously, a shovelhead, symbolic of digging your own grave, maybe. Feierabend's ceiling is high, the furnishings dark and sturdy, and, thankfully, you don't feel like you're ensconced at retail level of a new condominium development called, terribly, The Cairns, in what's being called, terribly, the emerging Cascade neighborhood (though you are).
The chef and the bartender discuss the presence of some actual German ladies that evening. These visitors, it emerges, always deliver criticisms in guttural accents—the cucumber in the gurken salat should be sliced thinner, the name of the soup has been misspelled—but clean their plates nonetheless.
Curiosity is amply rewarded at Feierabend. Inquire about a couple beers, and soon you've got an embarrassment of samples before you. Ask about the Bärenjäger, and first you're admiring the label (which shows a greedy bear reaching for a beehive and stepping in a trap fashioned out of a log by a hunter who lurks behind a bush), then you're hearing about its pedigree and properties (made by the Jäger people, honeyed but not too sweet, makes an excellent shot with a layer of Jäger on top, which is called a killer bee), and then—why not?—you're trying a miniature version of said shot ("A wasp!" says the bartender). Never has Jäger tasted so good. Makes the medicine go down.
"Feierabend" means, fittingly, quitting time.
Feierabend, 422 Yale Ave N, 340-2528.
