East End Eats: Shippy's Pumpernickels

Shippy's Pumpernickels East

Windmill Lane

Southampton

283-0007

Open for lunch and dinner every day.

There comes a time, and an icy March night with face-lashing rain may be it, when frisee salad just doesn't cut it. When fiddlehead ferns and plates decorated with swirls of persimmon coulis seem like a cruel joke.

Looking guiltily over your shoulder to see if the food police are listening, you decide that what you want is a plate of steaming sauerbraten and potato dumplings. Muffler-wrapped and furtive, you set out, as we did last week, for Shippy's Pumpernickels East in Southampton, home of the good old-fashioned chowfest.

Lambert, our delicate-palated dinner companion, was not invited. His face darkens if the parmesan on his Caesar salad is not freshly shaved, and the sight of Shippy's iceberg lettuce snowed under with blue-cheese dressing would have given him the vapors.

Not For Sticks

As would the size and heartiness of the entrees. This is not a joint for the stick-thin health nut, this is for big, healthy appetites and those who don't mind waking up five pounds heavier the next morning.

Of course, I'm exaggerating, because Shippy's always has a daily menu of local seafood, but on the whole people do go there for the meat dishes and the German specialties.

The atmosphere and decor go along with the food - friendly and unpretentious, with green-leather booths, Tiffany-style lamps, and a long, polished bar counter.

When you go in, there's no sign telling you to wait around like lemons until someone notices you, you just go in and sit where you fancy.

Daily Specials

All the entrees come with a choice of soup or salad, and Shippy's pea soup is really exceptionally good. For those who want something a little more adventurous, there are chopped liver, smoked oysters, a tongue and onion salad, baked clams, marinated herring, shrimp cocktail, and more, at prices ranging from $5.50 to $9.25.

There is always an inexpensive daily special between $13 and $15. On this occasion it was roast lamb; on another visit, it was beef goulash.

The roast lamb was those thin round slices from an unrecognizable part of the lamb's anatomy and not slices cut from a fresh-cooked joint, but it was okay, with good gravy and delicious mashed potatoes.

The huge portion of goulash was also workmanlike and robust, the word goulash being the nearest it got to anything fancy.

Brobdingnagian Perfection

But now we move on to the more serious stuff, starting with a Brob-dingnagian portion of breaded pork chops.

Shippy's cooks them to perfection - the dark and crunchy outside damming up the juices of the tender interior meat - but I defy anyone to eat both at one sitting. So take one home with you - I can attest that it makes a divine meal, and cure, for 4 a.m. insomnia.

The sauerbraten, served with a creamy potato dumpling and zesty red cabbage, was meltingly tender. As was the dauntingly large helping of calf's liver with fried onions and bacon.

You can choose among three traditional German sausages - bratwurst, knockwurst, or weisswurst (pork, beef, or veal) - which are served with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. We tried the knockwurst. It was very knockwursty.

Hunger Helps

All the dishes are old-fashioned, grassroots, good, heavy food and it certainly helps to be hungry. The wiener schnitzel - tender, tasty, with no stinting on the frying oil - lapped over the edges of its plate like a Black Forest comforter; the chopped sirloin a la Pumpernickel turned out to be a megahamburger about the size and shape of Ayers Rock.

Diners may then move on to a selection of old favorites such as apple strudel, chocolate fudge cake, cheesecake, carrot cake, etc. But we were kaput.

You leave Shippy's in a friendly, sated glow, with this refrain humming in your head: "There goes the diet up the creek - it's frisee salad for a week."