Western Food 85

Grilled Bratwurst $5.50, Dutch Smoked Sausage $6.00, and other western food such as pork chops and pork knuckles at hawker centre prices, found at Blk 85 Fengshan Market, around Bedok North there, famously known as the Bak Chor Mee place. This stall Western Food 85 is at #01-257, it is also well known for its curry rice, on top of the western food.

My dad got this recommendation from his friend, who gave him the address and told him that the German pork knuckles sold there is cheap and good, and authentic. Hence we trotted down to see what more than Bak Chor Mee can Blk 85 offer us. And my god, was the pork knuckles really good considering it's price. But this is my sausage blog, so I'll be talking about the sausages instead.

The grilled bratwurst is not home made, so the standard is about average. What wow-ed me was the chargrill-ness it was, nicely done, not overburnt but having that charredness there. The fries and coleslaw are but normal. Overall, a normal dish at very low prices. Think for the price itself, it's well worth the trip down. The Dutch Smoked Sausage isn't quite Dutch, but is has a hammie smoked flavour which reminded me kind of like the ham in luncheon meat, not that it's a bad thing, really. What was missing was the mustard sauce, I need to have my own supply with me the next time I pop by there.

Still, I think the most should-order dish is the pork knuckles, it's really cheap there compared to other German restaurants. And it's nicely carved up for easy eating. And it's really well done.

Merry Christmas

My dear sister emailed this to me this morning, or maybe last night.
Merry Sausage Christmas and a Happy New Sausage Year.



I'm aware that I'm not blogging as often as I should be, but this the holiday season, and I'm eating mostly turkey and ham, not much sausages. And I've been sick (again). And the holiday mood is getting into me and I'm feeling lazy. Okay, the last reason should be the key reason, but well, Merry Christmas!

1901

Cheese Hotdog from 1901, set comes with mash potatoes (which sucks) and a drink, costs $4something, I can't remember. I bought this at the Suntec branch.

I've tried them once before, and thought it was quite a decent bite, more like a quick snack. It's normal, plain, quick, decent, no complains there. But it's also because there's nothing exceptional about it, or special, or different, there's also nothing to shout about.

I had the cheese hotdog this time round and it's a tad bit better than the plain chicken sausage. The cheese is oozy and abundant as you can see in the lower right corner. One thing interesting about this stall is that it has common condiments for you to squeeze yourself, but the condiments aren't in bottles. There's this udder like structure with tubes (udders) for you to squeeze out the condiment you want, and your preferred amount of it. It's like squeezing udder, or phallus, or erm, erm... ya...

Auntie Anne's

Pretzel Dog at $3.10 from Auntie Anne's Parkway Parade branch. A long string of pretzel, rather than rolled up into a pretzel shape is rolled and wrapped around a chicken hotdog.

I've only eaten Auntie Anne's pretzels a couple of times when I was in secondary school, had the pretzel dog another time, and this is the second time I'm eating the pretzel dog. It's just as how I remembered it. Salty pretzel, with juicy sausage within. It's denser than a normal hotdog bun, but the hotdog taste is stronger due to the high density, lower volume of the dough part.

I'm not a fan of pretzels, or American-styled pretzels. I'm more used to the German style Bretzel, which are fluffier, bigger, and more like bread. In fact, to me a Bretzel is something very Germanic. It's like all German bakeries use the Bretzel shape to indicate that they are a bakery. Werner's Oven and the Swiss Backerei both have the Bretzel as their logo. But even with the standard German bread, and the Germans being most famous for their sausages, couldn't come up with a pretzel dog.

Coffee Club

Bangers and Mash from Siglap's Coffee Club at $11.50 +10% service charge +7% GST. Includes three cuts of sausages, a chicken one, a cheese one, and a coarse cut banger, comes with a side of mash potatoes and half a grilled tomato.

This marked the first day of my vacation. I woke up late, took a sunny stroll down to lazy Siglap for a relaxed lunch, my absolute dream vacation. But of course, I'm still busy, I had to go down to school today to do some stuff, then I still have driving, then I still have other appointments. But well, that's not the topic for today.

I was a bit skeptical when I saw the menu, Bangers and Mash didn't sound that much delicious, and at a steal at $11.50, my expectations were low. But when the food came, oh wow~ The sausages were decent in size, looked nicely grilled, and the portion was just right. There were three sausages, a chicken one, which was more like a normal American hotdog, or a Wiener; a cheese one, which was really yummy and the cheese nice and oozey; and a coarse meat banger which was nice and meaty, but I ate that last and was feeling rather filled so I thought it was rather dry and too meaty because it was one fat sausage.

For the sides, the tomato was nicely grilled yet juicy. And the mash potato had chunks of potato inside, so there was a good bite of potatoey flavour. The mash sauce was also really good and went well with the mash and the sausages. For the price, it's value for money. But of course, these sausages mustn't be compared to the German restaurants of Brotzeit, Werner's, and Paulaner because these aren't self made sausages.

It's still great for a lazy late afternoon lunch though.

Breaded Hotdog

Breaded Hotdog from Cathay Cineplex AMK Hub, $4.90 (I think).

This is one of the nicest food to go with a movie because it's so yummy, so easy, so convenient. I first had it when I went to AMK Hub to watch a movie, then I tried to find it in other Cathay Cineplexes, but I hadn't seen it anywhere. I even tried to replicate it at home, to not quite satisfactory results. It was edible, just that the breadcrumbs part was a bit over so it was tough to chew. So it was to my delight that the next visit to AMK's Cathay I found this little bite again.

I'm not so sure if this item is exclusive to AMK, but with my exams finally over, I'm sure to check out more movies and eat more cinema snacks and find out if this is sold in other Cathays. Yup, now that I'm done with the exams, I'm back eating out. Soon I'll be able to clock in more sausagey entries.

An Eating Disorder and an SMS

This is just a short note to say that I'm still alive, I've one more paper to go, so continue to wish me the best for my exams. Thank you very much. This afternoon, my sister sent me a hotdog related SMS from Taiwan. On a food-related but not hotdog-related note, I'm suffering from a Bizarre Eating Habit (click on the link to learn more).

My sister's currently in Taiwan on a 3-week immersion programme. Out of the blue she sent me this SMS this afternoon:
"At shihlin, there's black sausages, sausages with a huge bone as stick, and sausages as big as my arm. and no, i'm not taking pic :)"
wahahaha~
How can she not take pictures?!!

Then while I was surfing the net just now, I came across this website about bizarre eating habits and saw one which I thought sounded a bit like me.
3. Autosarcophagy
This is the disorder of self-cannibalism. It is categorized as pica (disorders relating to consumption of things that should not be consumed). Some people will engage in self-cannibalism as an extreme form of body modification, for example eating their own skin. Others will drink their own blood, a practice called autovampirism.

Erm, no, I'm not that extreme, but I do take great pleasure in eating the peeled skin of my lips. I'd peel them out in pieces and eat them up. Sometimes I'd eat the skin I peeled out from my finger, but I prefer the skin of my lips. Another thing I used to enjoy but not too much recently is to suck my nails. When my nails crack, I'd lick and suck them to wet and soften it, then peel them out and put them in my mouth to suck. I won't swallow them la, just suck until it's really soft then spit it out. I once sucked a piece of nail from my thumb for a couple of days, I'd put it by my pillow before I sleep and continue sucking it when I woke up. But now I don't do that anymore la. Now I only eat the skin of my lips.

Okay, it sounds a bit gross, well, there are more gross stuff but we'll leave those for another day. It's back to Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco for now.