As the weather gets better, the prospect of setting out in search of adventure and a good meal assumes the stature of compulsion. Like Chaucer's pilgrims, who hit the road to Canterbury as soon as April's showers end, May brings out wanderlust in me. And so I put rubber to the road, and hied myself to Canandaigua in search of a bottle of bock and a plate of meat and spaetzle. Gary Klemens' Rheinblick German Restaurant on Main Street is there waiting for me, well prepared to feed and water and then send me on my way, full (and maybe just a little tipsy) into a glorious spring evening.

At just under a year old, Rheinblick already has the feel of an institution in town. On any given evening or afternoon, most of the restaurant's small number of tables are full of families, and the beer is flowing freely. Fortunately, Rheinblick doesn't try to bludgeon diners with faux-Bavarian charm: there's no polka music, not much in the way of tourist pictures of schloss on the walls, and a bare minimum of cute knick-knacks. The place is spare, putting the focus squarely on beer and food, as it should be.

If you've ever promised that you'd have only one beer, Rheinblick is the place to do that. Draft beer comes in two sizes: 12 oz. glasses and 32 oz. steins that are comically large. If they don't cause giddy laughter when they arrive at the table, they surely will by the time you get to the bottom of them. All save one of the bocks that were on offer on my visits were in bottles, unfortunately. Aventinus bock, Einbecker Mai-bock, and Celebrator doppelbock are all excellent examples of the breed, and I had hoped to find one of them on draft.

Bock is the beer of springtime. Originally brewed by German monks as a cure for the late-winter blues, and often described as liquid bread, bocks tend to be dark and malty. They start popping up several weeks after Easter in late April and early May, about a month before the first early summer fruits and vegetables are available - a reminder of an earlier time when spring used to mean a couple months of lean rations before the first harvest. If I didn't have the luxury of supermarket produce to carry me through ‘til summer, I might brew myself a good, stiff drink in February, too. And, it's no surprise that bocks go remarkably well with those cupboard-is-bare early spring dishes that are something of a German specialty.

Take Rouladen, for instance. Bacon, pickles, and mustard - the stuffing for this long-cooked roll of thinly pounded beef - are all winter staples, as is the pickled red cabbage (a second cousin to sauerkraut) served on the side of the dish. While the spicy brown sauce that covered the meat at Rheinblick overwhelmed the other flavors a bit, the sauce played well with the salty and slightly pickled tang of the cabbage, balancing out the fat, leaving my mouth feeling clean rather than greasy.

Similarly, Geschnetzletes, a big-flavored pork stew simmered in a thick and creamy paprika gravy, takes full advantage of late-winter hold-overs: onions, spices, and milk, in addition to lots and lots of very tender slow-cooked pork. Rich without being overly heavy, the paprika here comes through in more than just a vivid red hue. Complex with elements of smoke, a slight sourness, and a peppery aftertaste, the sauce was both smooth and savory with just the right amount of cream to give it body.

As tasty as both of these dishes were, the spaetzle on each plate were brilliant supporting players. Instead of a cumbersome spaetzle press, Chef Frederick Hennerley uses a pan with holes that are almost a quarter inch in diameter to produce irregular, misshapen spaetzles that are a delight to eat. These spaetzle have a bit more substance to them than the average pasta, and absorb sauce in a way that smoother noodles don't. Parcooked and then sauteed in butter before being slid onto a plate, they offer a welcome change from other work-a-day starches. Served as a side they are wonderful, but they also make a swell appetizer in their own right. Covered in grated cheese and caramelized onions, and then passed under the broiler, the combination has the same satisfying resonance as poutine, and makes a really superb accompaniment to that first (or second) bottle of dobbelbock.

In addition to those delicious spaetzle, Rheinblick also offers some of the best potato pancakes (Kartoffelpuffer) in the area. Crunchy at the edges, crispy overall, with a smooth and creamy consistency within, these were remarkably flavorful and so disarmingly good that you won't miss the lack of either apple sauce or sour cream (traditional accompaniments for such a snack) on your plate.

Not everything at Rheinblick is wonderful, however. My dining companion and I both thought that the Sauerbraten was entirely too sour, lacking the balancing sweetness that that dish normally has. The meat had a raw vinegar bite that masked any other potential flavors, and may well have worked to toughen up slices of meat that should have been fork-tender. In the same vein, the Jager Schnitzel featured a sauce that overwhelmed everything else on the plate. Jager sauce, according to every reference I've consulted, is a brown sauce with spices and mushrooms. It is also relatively light. Here, a white cream sauce that resembled country gravy smothered everything underneath it.

In addition to spaetzle and pork stew, though, the dish that is perhaps most worth coming back for is Chef Hennerley's Baden-style Schneckensouppe, which was a favorite of all of my dining companions, including my 4-year old, who systematically fished out and ate the lion's share of the snails with which the soup was filled. A rich, thick chowder featuring potatoes, celery, carrot, cream, and snails, this was a surprising and savory soup: light enough that the delicate flavor of the tiny mollusks came through admirably, but hearty enough to put a hungry traveler's need for sustenance to rout.

Rheinblick German Restaurant

224 S Main St, Canandaigua

905-0950

Monday-Saturday 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. & 4:30 p.m.-close