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Leafy, crypt-quiet Glendale may be in the heart of Queens' "Cemetery Belt," but there’s no shortage of life inside this rollicking neighborhood restaurant. Credit in part goes to the rosy-cheeked and thickly accented bartenders, who pour stein after stein of foamy pilsners and glasses of sweet liebfraumilch wine to a cheerfully expectant crowd of locals and German natives. Adjacent to the slim bar area is a Disneyesque dining room decked with Bavarian kitsch and crowned by a comically massive stuffed moose head, which presides over the festive scene with Bullwinklish aplomb. The menu is loaded with unabashedly hearty options like steak tartar, jaegerschnitzel, a lightly breaded veal cutlet that's smothered in a thick "hunter sauce" of mushrooms and spices, and a heaping plate of mouth-puckering sauerbraten, which unleashes the kind of sweet-and-sour symphony more often associated with Chinese takeout. Among the lighter options are a smoked and superlatively moist brook trout coupled with horseradish sauce, and a selection of whitefish and pickled vegetable platters, all of which can easily stand up to a tall glass of Hacker-Pschorr or Warsteiner beer. — Jon Steinberg

Smoked brook trout, $9.95; steak tartar, $19.95; sauerbraten, $17.95; jaegerschnitzel, $21.95