Delifrance

Sausage Feuillete from Delifrance which my parents tapau-ed for me from the Parkway branch. Price according to the webbie is $2.65.

This was one of the stuff my parents would tapau for me from petrol stations to snack on while I was growing up, then they stopped some time along the way because the petrol stations stopped stocking it. I was quite pleasantly surprised to see them tapau this back for me because it's been a long time since I had this, and my god, was it good~

Okay, to be fair, the sausage's a chicken hotdog, not too bad but lacked flavour. Much of this item's flavour comes from the pastry which was really good, a good combination of sweet and savoury, just the right kind of snack. But compared to other hotdog buns, this at $2.65 is a tad steep.

It's one enjoyable comfort food which I'd like to have more of in the undetermined future.

Hotdog USB Thumbdrive

My parents are going to Tokyo on Monday, and this is what I told my dad to get me from Akihabara. A hotdog USB thumbdrive, 1 GB big somemore.

Other than the hotdog one, there's cheeseburgers, pizzas, and sandwiches, the junk food series. You know the Japanese, they have the sushi and bento stuff, and now they want to enter the American market. But I'm not complaining though.

Other than getting this, I've asked my dad to help me find some miniature items from Japan, like plastic food. haha~ So hopefully they have junk food too among others sushi and stuff, hopefully he can get me some more hotdog stuff. grr... Why am I not the one going to Japan? And worse, I've a deadline on the day they are flying off. Poor me...

Aston's Specialities

Chicken and Sausage Combo Set with sides of mash potato and corn on the cob, at $10.50, from Aston's Specialities.

Hearing so much about Aston's and how value for money it is, I decided one day to join the snaking queue and have an early dinner on a weekend evening. Service was prompt, food ran out quickly, I wanted wedges but there weren't any left, no garlic bread either, but the rest of our food was decent. I had this chicken and sausage combo and shared a mushroom soup. For the chicken, I had it char-grilled. It was nice, but my only gripe is the generic gravy liberally drenched over both the chicken and the mash potato. I've something against generic sauces, I think it's because I haven't came across any really tasty generic sauce.

Anyway, this is a sausage blog, and the highlight of the day is the sausages. The sausages were surprising good. I wasn't expecting much since there weren't many sausage dishes from the menu, and when the food arrived, the little sausages looked pretty sad to me. For a moment I thought they came out from a can. But biting into one really packed a punch. They were really good. I can't tell if they used pork or chicken but my hunch is that it's pork, more precisely, smoked ham and/or bacon to give that rich and smokey flavour.

I also really liked the sausages that they were nicely charred on the skin. And at that price, it was really one good eat.

Werner's Oven

Thürlingen Cheese Sausage set with sides of Mash Potato and Wedges, $18.50 + 7% GST, from Werner's Oven.

Werner's Oven is this quaint little family restaurant which serves an authentic German fare, and that includes great German sausages, at a very reasonable price with no 10% service charge even though their service is seamlessly perfect. At least I was able to change the Sauerkraut to Wedges which is now becoming a norm for me at German restaurants.

Jasmine called me up the other day arranging for a time to go pigging out on sausages. I didn't immediately recall that it was her birthday, but luckily I remembered it in time not to sia suay myself. I didn't get her anything, so the dinner was on me. We both got the same cheese sausage dish, and we both traded the veggies for more carbs. And boy were they good~

The sausage was grilled so the juice was retained within the sausage, and as you can see from the picture, the cheese was also ballooning inside the sausage. And with every slit down the sausage, oozes out the cheese. And the sausage was so long and filling. The sausage was good enough on its own that I had only minimal mustard, which was a good thing becuase the mustard provided isn't too much. Maybe it's because the sausage is too good for mustard hence they didn't want ti serve too much mustard. haha~ The mash potato was really smooth and creamy and tasted so great on its own. I think it's a German thing for mash to come without sauce and I think it's great cos sauce would cover up the delectful taste of the mash. The wedges were normal, nice and comforting.


Here's to the birthday girl and our thick fat sausages.

I can't wait to go back to Werner's Oven for other stuff in the menu. There's quite a lot of cheap stuff like their chicken dishes which range below $10, and the pastas at about $12. The German fares range about $15-20, and considering that there's not 10% service charge, it's very value for money. They serve Paulaner's too, if that's another drawing point.

But what caught my eye was the bakery, okay, I know of the existence of their bakery, just that I just noticed a couple of really interesting stuff inside the bakery. Sausages! Their own sausages, going at 6 a pack for $21+, very value for money. And better still, I spotted Kaiser Rolls in their bakery! That's the best thing to go with yummy grilled sausages.

I need to head back to Werner's again soon.

NUS Arts Forum Bazaar Sausage Stall

Cheese sausage and black pepper sausage from the sausage stall at NUS Arts Forum. 1 for $1.50 2 for $2.50. I spied on their supplier and it says Master Butchery.

I think NUS students are being ripped off because I saw the same supplier at Clementi pasar malam two weeks ago and the sausages are $1 each. grr... But I'm still addicted to these sausages as they provide a yummy bite during boring lectures.

The black pepper sausages are very black peppery, which didn't go too well with me because it made my throat and nose feel warm and itchy. But the cheese ones are my favourites. There's a generous amount of cheese inside which oozes out with every bite. That's what makes a cheese sausage good. But the signature items from the stall are the prata wrapped sausages which I didn't try, maybe we can leave that for another time. haha~

Hotdog Cake

I saw this somewhere is the world wide web, and it's so so cool~
Want Fries With That Hotdog Cake?


The Hot Dog and Fries Cake is a completely edible, ridiculously sweet cake shaped to look like a hot dog in a bun and french fries. All you need is a loaf cake, a few Twinkies, red frosting, yellow icing, red icing and some green fruit. If you'd rather not use Twinkies, substitute with different kind of cake in the center.

Hot Dog and Fries CakeFrom Family Fun
1 baked loaf cake
2 Twinkies
1 cup hot-dog red frosting (red and brown mixed)
Yellow icing in a tube
Red icing in a tube
Green fruit slices or gumdrops, diced (optional)

1. To make the hot dog bun, cut the lengthwise sides of the loaf off (as shown), saving the extra cake for the French fries. Remove the cake center and place the two Twinkies in the "bun."
2. Frost them hot-dog red. Add a squirt of mustard (yellow icing) ketchup (red icing), or relish (diced gumdrops or fruit slices).

Guess What These Are!

Brightly coloured, yummy looking, plastic figurines of lots and lots of delicious food. And there are hotdogs too!

These were seen at Raffles City, a push cart called KAI or something like that, and they sell all these cool stuff, but sad to say, they are quite expensive. Okay, at least they are expensive to me. I won't spend $9 for the hotdog even though I love hotdogs so much, yea, even spendthrift Joan has her limits.

The moment I saw it, I had the urge to dig out my camera and take a picture, but to my left and right were the stall tenders who were looking at me like a hawk, seemingly to catch me for any dishonest acts, so I decided to make full use of my 10x power zoom. This was taken at the second level, zooming down at the stall. haha~ My camera not bad sia...

hmm... Anyone care to sponsor Joan one of these?

Garfield

Indulgence that I cannot attain.


Indulgence is my middle name, as I've said, I don't eat, I indulge, but still, there's someone out there who's level of indulgence far surpasses mine. Okay, well, technically Garfield doesn't exist as an entity, only a fictional character but, there's hotdogs!

I'd really like to see a hotdog truck shaped like a hotdog in Singapore, or anywhere, as long as I'm there to see it and be in total awe of it, and maybe also to take a picture with it. haha~

Chippy's

Cheese sausage with mash potatoes $4.20 from Chippy's, this one was from Raffles City. I bought the fried calamari and the beer battered fish and chips too, but those weren't pictured.

The most amazing thing about Chippy's is the amount of oil they use in their cooking. Everything is deep fried, the Mars bar, the fish and chips, the calamari, and even the sausage is deep fried. The whole sausage is dunked into the hot oil to sizzle and bubble and after it's cooked, drained, but not much oil is drained off. The only hope is for the oil to flow into the mash potato, because I don't eat the mash potato. No point wasting precious stomach space for pure carbohydrates.

Speaking of mash potato, Chippy's uses the Maggi one, same as the one 7-11 uses. Ya... It's also another turn off factor. I've a friend who always eats up my mash potato, and he said that the mash potato was good, better than the 7-11 ones, and I was like, erm... These are the same as the 7-11 ones. I guess food in different packaging tastes different. haha... Or maybe it's the sausage oil in the mash that makes it taste better? Anyway, it's become a running joke between us, everytime I ask him if he wants to eat mash potato it's sort of implying that I want to eat Chippy's cheese sausage.

Chippy's is one of the better cheese sausages I've had mainly because it's deep fried, also because it retains the cheese within the sausage. The only pity that I have is that the sausage is too short. Longer ones would be more indulgent.

Cold Storage Deli Counter

Bacon stick and Bratwurst sausage (sic) each $1.50 from Cold Storage Deli Counter, I was at the Parkway Branch, newly renovated.

Bratwurst means roasted sausage with brat-roast and wurst-sausage, so the name bratwurst sausage is repetitive, but that was how Cold Storage named it. I chose that because I was thinking of having something porky, if not I'd have gone for the Jumbo chicken sausage which I usually have. Without mustard, the porky and herbie taste was a tad too strong to the extent of a bit over, but I prefer the sausage skin of the bratwurst one to that of the chicken one, the skin of the chicken one is a bit too chewy.

Bacon sticks are one of my favourite kind of sausage to be eaten without mustard because I love bacon. Bacon is God's gift to his people. Look at the layers of roasted fat wrapped around the juicy sausage adding to the yummy factor. ooh... I took a bit in the picture to show the innards of the sausage, it's plain, no herbs, just the meat, but usually I'd just pop the whole little segment of sausage into my mouth.

Cheap and affordable great tasting sausages, comes with a microwavable bag for easy re-heating if you buy and bring back home to eat later.

Botak Jones

Smoked Turkey Hotdog set at $10 and a Jumbo Chicken Hotdog with Cheese set at $7.50 from Botak Jones the Ang Mo Kio Branch.

The crux of going to Botak Jones is always to visit at 4pm, and that's what I've always been doing, and that's the best time to enjoy the food because there's no one around to squeeze with you and the orders won't take forever to arrive, and wait staff are generally a lot friendlier.

I had the Jumbo Chicken Hotdog before, but haven't had it with cheese. Trying it out with cheese, I think perhaps plain one might be better. The cheese is too cheddary which doesn't taste that good with mustard, so a bit of a conflict there, but without the mustard, it's somewhat better though the over pungent cheddary taste is still there. I decided on the Smoked Turkey Hotdog because it's new, and I never had that before, and the whole point about this blog is to share new stuff. I think this might also be the first time I had turkey sausage in Singapore. The turkey one was a bit too smoked, I thought it tasted a bit sweet, but my friend who shared the dish with me (did you think I ate two hotdog sets myself???) thought it tasted too salty.

The redeeming point is that the hotdogs are huge, like long~ The turkey one was 9 inches long, the chicken one was a bit shorter but it was much fatter, so it evens up a bit. In all, unless you like really smoked stuff, or turkey, I think I'll be back for the chicken one, and something else I haven't tried before yet.

Beehoon for Breakfast

Beehoon with three chicken franks and an egg, the parents tapao-ed it back for me for breakfast, so price is unknown. Heck, I don't even know where they bought it from, but I'm sure you can get this at every hawker centre.

Some people eat to live, I live to eat, and I eat to indulge. This is the most classic example of me indulging in food I like. It doesn't have to be something eapensive, neither do I need to eat a great variety of food, I just like to eat a lot of the little circle of stuff I like. I was talking to a friend, and we concluded that this is the most classic example of me living in comforts, a very cosmopolitan way of life. Indulge in obsessions. haha~

The beehoon was stringy and not bad, the dry kind which I prefer, I don't like wet kinds of beehoon. The sausages were the normal chicken franks you get by the bulk for very cheap prices, but they were enough to feed my indulgences. Three was quite okay, though I think next time I'll ask for four instead, and just forget about the egg. haha~

I remember I used to buy those chicken franks from the Chinese snack stalls back in JC and the first few years of Uni. I'd get like two to four of them twice every day and eat during class. People are always amazed by the amount of sausages I can consume. erm... Not very glam, but I'm happy with my food can already~ It's cheap also, so I can eat loads more without damaging the purse.

Brotzeit

Currywurst $15.50, Weisswurst $14.50, Nürnberger $14.50 and Würstelplatte $29.90 all from Brotzeit at Vivocity. Prices not inclusive of taxes.

Of course I didn't eat all of them, I only had the Nürnberger, and I had it with wedges and mashed potatoes. I like it when restaurants make it a point to allow you to swap stuff you don't eat with stuff of similiar value that you prefer. Yup, I had the Sauerkraut swapped to wedges. For all my love for Germany, I can never come to like Sauerkraut, to me, it's just the German version of kiam chye, and if I don't like kiam chye I shouldn't be liking it by any other name.


The Nürnberger is made of coarse pork, so there's the strong pork taste to go with the herbs within. It's not bad on its own, but I thought it tasted nicer dipped with mustard. I tried the other sauces provided, the white one was a bit garlicky when isn't my taste at all, and the brown one tasted something close to German curry. Mustard is still the best.

I was at Brozeit with a couple of my German classmates, as you can read from the second half of this entry, and funnily as we all hadn't consciously realised, we all had sausage dishes. While the girls went for individual sausages, the guys when for the platters for two. I was quite tempted to go along with the guys and have the platter, but finally decided against it because I weighed myself earlier in the day and the scales reminded me that I shouldn't. bah~

I applaud the flexibily and the kind understanding of Brotzeit. Not only I managed to change my Sauerkraut to wedges, my Muslim friend had his whole sausage platter changed to a no-pork one. And when served, the wait staff remembered that the Sauerkraut had lard in it and immediately before any reaction from my friend had the Sauerkraut changed to wedges. That they were so willing to compromise to religious dietary habits of the customers won me over. I think I might be going back Brotzeit another one fine day and get the sausage platter too, but exercise that flexibility. haha~

I had an Apfelschorle to go with my meal and my god, I haven't had Apfelschorle since I left the land of bratwurst, beer and football. I must return to Brotzeit in the very near future!

NUS Bizad Canteen Western Stall

Pork sausage and cheese sausage from the Western stall at Bizad canteen in NUS, the pork sausage costs $1.50 and the cheese $1.90.

This is the second time reviewing this place in my blog, you can see the other entry here, but I returned there to have something else, the pork sausage.

The pork sausage is not as nice as the cheese sausage, being rather blame and tasteless. I think it's because there isn't mustard sauce. I think mustard sauce really brings out the sausagey taste of a sausage which other sauces are inadequate is this respect. Chilli and ketchup are big no nos in the sausage market, especially the German sausages, and there's no way I'm going to let the stall owner laddle his signature generic black pepper sauce over everything I eat. But the pork sausage redeems itself for being so long and juicy. Very indulgent.

The cheese sausage was, as usual, very good, though I find that the skin is a tad bit chewy but I'm not going to be picky on that. It makes me feel hungry just looking at these pictures tonight.

What can I do to make a hot dog taste better?

What can I do to make a hot dog taste better?
I saw this on Yahoo! main page and was instantly attracted to it, but looking at all the answers, I was very disappointed. This is mainly an American asking other Americans, or North Americans, what they think, and well, let's just say that Americans aren't the best connoisseurs in the world.

For one, I prefer the German type of sausages where the best ones are made using pork, so to the hell with those who say that the best are the all-beef types. *deh deh deh* The pork should be minced enough not to be coarse, but yet solid enough to have the munchy taste. Herbs should be added in liberally and consistently. The sausage skin should be thick enough to provide taste but not too thick that it becomes to chewy. The best kind of sausages should be caterpillar cut and well grilled, not too burnt, but need to have a bit of the burnt marks. Traditional German toppings are onions and mustard. Go with the mustard, it combines well with the pork and herbs, and no, no ketchup and no chilli sauce. Currywurst and its curry sauce is not like the curry sauce we are familiar with, it's not spicy at all. Sauerkraut is not a topping but a side dish, so no sauerkraut on top, and since I don't eat onions, I go plain with mustard. Cheese is also not a topping but a filling. Cheese sausages should have cheese inside the sausage and not on top of it.

Most Americans call for a soft hot dog bread to go with a hot dog, but in Germany, and how I'd like my bread to go with the sausage, is to have it with a kaiser roll. It's a crusty roll, with soft dough inside not unlike a french loaf but it's small and round like a rugby ball shape but it fits snugly in the palm. It's a pity we can't get that in Singapore, or at least no real nice ones. Either that or just have the sausage on its own!

Of course, one would need to think that he is enjoying the meal to actually enjoy it.