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Admittedly, Chow, Baby was bursting with crankiness way before it arrived at Greenwood's German Restaurant (3522 Bluebonnet Circle). But that's no excuse for the many grievous insults it suffered, starting with not being able to find a close-by parking spot and then having to wait several (four) minutes for a table, Tuesdays being Greenwood's exceedingly popular Schnitzel Night ($9.99, normally $15.10-16.95). And it's not even all-you-can-eat, as "Night" clearly implies if you're very hungry. Also waiter Micah pretended to be "busy" with all his other customers, only rarely meeting Chow, Baby's gaze so it could give him the where's-my-food-dammit fish-eye.

After an eternity - during which Chow, Baby had nothing to do but perfect its fish-eye delivery and check out Greenwood's digs (the tidiest basement rec room you've ever seen) and clientele (homogeneously stout and blond) - finally came the salad (decent) and even more finally the jaeger schnitzel (wow). Man, that schnitzel was more than good: two supple pork cutlets, gossamer-breaded and crisp-fried, with a rich, dark, fresh-whole-mushroom sauce and a pile of those addictive spaetzle noodle-dumpling thingies. Sated, Chow, Baby gave Micah a final piece of its mind - "Sorry I was cranky earlier"- and let him pick the dessert: rote grütze ($5), sort of a pudding-custard with chunks of fruit. It took an eternity to arrive, perhaps as much as 45 seconds, but like everything else at Greenwood's (except the mass of Teutons, which was starting to weird Chow, Baby out) it was both startlingly yummy and well worth the excruciating wait. What a great place to hang out all night, or for 35 minutes, as the case may be.

What's a Schnitzel among Friends?

Chow, Baby hadn't intended for this week to have a Themenstellung (German theme), but by coincidence a friend chose Edelweiss German Restaurant (3801 Southwest Blvd.) for a Saturday-night Geburtstagparty with 30 of his best pals. A birthday fete for a grown man seemed a little anomalous to Chow, Baby, who stopped publicly celebrating its own Geburtstag when it stopped being happy about turning another year older (7 is cool, but 8? Might as well be dead). But it's probably just jealous: How do you get to have 30 friends? Chow, Baby has three, if you count Micah.

Even had Chow, Baby been cranky upon entering the Bavarian chalet, the dueling accordions would have snapped it right into party mood. What a great evening: watching people do the chicken dance, attempting to hoist one-liter steins of earthy Optimator Dopplebock ($10), sharing huge platters of monochromatic food with its friend's many friends. To avoid overlapping too much with its Greenwood meal, Chow, Baby hogged not the jaeger schnitzel but the very different Vienna-style schnitzel ($16.95), in which the mushroom sauce is beneath rather than atop the cutlet, so there. Sadly Chow, Baby was at the far end of the table, where, as will happen when 30 people are being served supposedly at once, the over-heat-lamped plates are wont to land. So the meats were dried out, but the tart red cabbage and tangy sauerkraut were perfect as always, because really, how can you ruin sauerkraut? See, Chow, Baby was looking on the bright side, just like a cheerful person with friends does. Wait, is that how you get friends, by not being cranky all the time? Chow, Baby supposes it could try that someday. Maybe when it's 9.

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