The food's OK. The service is terrible. The place is a must-do.

It comes as no surprise that this one-of-a-kind restaurant was opened by a Hollywood set decorator: There's such an overload of Teutonic furniture, fixtures and tchotchkes that the windowless wonderland feels like a prop warehouse. Opened in the 1960s, it doesn't appear to have been remodeled (or its upper reaches dusted) since. The cringe-tastic effect of the decor doesn't wear off even after a two-hour meal. And since service is slow, it will be a two-hour meal. After settling into a red pleather booth in either the bar-adjacent dining room or the larger one further back, diners are greeted by a cranky old German woman serving imported Spaten beer, too-sweet Burgundy or not-bad Cabarnet. The menu, which looks so randomly assembled and over-photocopied it could be a flyer for a punk-rock show, features traditional German items like bratwurst, which comes with sauerkraut, sweet cabbage and sauteed potatoes that are suprisingly good. (The same can't be said for the peas and carrots that also come with every entree.) Why anyone would order salmon here is beyond us, but two fellow diners did just that on a recent trip; one pronounced his overcooked and the other judged his just right. For dessert, a cappuccino cake was acceptable but clearly was not made on the premises.