If you are going to go to Prost!, you should go on a Wednesday night, because of the Wednesday-night special dinner, rippchen mit sauerkraut ($9.50). It's a gorgeous piece of pork tenderloin, smoked unto pinkness and then long-cooked until it just about falls apart in a pot of sauerkraut--a salty little treat that you will want to smother with whole-grain mustard and wash down with a nice, sharp Bitburger Pils ($4.25).

This tavern is all about the beer--when the waiter reeled off the list of beers, we reeled with dizziness and dumbly repeated the last two--and the kitchen is tiny. Which means that you'll wait for dinner. And there aren't many places to sit, since what should be a long wall of communal beer hall-style tables is needlessly taken up with big tables hogged by couples nursing single beers. We ended up sitting in an icy draft, on account of the door propped open for ventilation. You can see how my first impressions of Prost! were leading me toward a certain place, until that heavenly rippchen arrived.

There was also a nice mild bratwurst ($6.50, but you should get an extra sausage for $2.50), served with a nice, soft marbled rye that is a much better complement to the meat than your basic bland bun. Both meals were served with a lovely and not remotely stingy heap of sauerkraut, with plenty of caraway and vinegary tang. We also tried potato-leek soup ($3.50 for a cup, $5.50 for a bowl), more potato than leek, and so creamy it ought to have been gluey but somehow wasn't, and longingly stared at a dried sausage called landjaeger that, eaten on the side, would have given the soup a bit of spark.

Warmed by pork and hops and marbled rye, we managed to forget the sting of cold wind blowing around our legs.