Hip Diner USA

This is a new joint from the people of Billy Bombers. With their revamped menu, I decided to try it out, especially the new sausages that they were touting.


Snail Chicken and Cheese, $12.90 from Hip Diner USA Bugis Junction branch. It comes with a snail sausage, a cheese sausage served on a hotplate with mash potatoes and corn on a cob.

There's the top view picture and the side view picture. Honestly, if you see them separately, which would you choose to order? haha... The nice manipulations of camera angles.


The sausages were nice yummy American styled sausaged despite them using the term 'wurst' in their menu. The cheese sausage was fat, juicy and cheesy but a tad short. The snail sausage was unfortunately rather spicy which I didn't realise until I cut to see the insides. There you can see the specks of chilli, or spices, or whatever you call them.

For the price, it was pretty good and filling. And were were given vouchers to use for our next visit. But I don't think I'll be having sausages again the next time round. haha

Stewhaus

Cheese Sausage with a side dish of mash potatoes and garden salad with a mustard decoration from Stewhaus at $9.50 + 10%.

Tucked at a little lane in Siglap, this eating establishment is quite a nice little cosy and homely restaurant. They do no charge GST but do charge the usual service charge, so it might be a little pull factor to some people. As the name suggests, the specialities are stews, and more central european type of food. I went for the German styled cheese sausage for the sake of this blog.

Sadly to say, my sausage wasn't as wonderful as I hoped for, but I don't know if that's my fault or not. I think I might have spent too much time taking these food pictures, and because I was sitting under the air conditioner, and also more so because I ate the mash first, when I ate the sausage, it ended up cold and the cheese was clumpy and not oozy.


Forest Mushroom Soup $4, Cheese Sausage $9.50, Hungarian Beef Goulash $16.40 (I think), and root beer which I can't remember the price.

The mushroom soup was really good, though it had a thick layer of olive oil (I think) on top of it, but it added a lot of flavour to the soup. The mushrooms were finely chopped and velvety but also had some slices for a decent bite. The second best mushroom soup I've had in recent months, second only to the Ritz-Carlton one which had truffle oil instead of olive oil, haha. And do try out the Goulash, all the stews came on a hotpot with a flame burning under, the flame is something large than your normal tea lights, so it's really hot.

Although the place was not packed, it must disclaim that we were there on a weekday night. Also, while we were there, quite a few people came by with take away orders, so I guess that place must be really popular among those living around the area. *cross fingers* that I get a bike real soon, then I'll be checking out more eateries around my backyard.

Waraku

Surprised to see a Japanese restaurant here? Haha... They incidentally do feature a sausage in their menu, the German Suasage, grilled and served on on a hotplate with two potato wedges.


Waraku's German Sausage.

It was actually supposed to be an ordinary meal, I thought, without any sausages, because it was a Japanese restaurant. But the moment I saw sausages on the menu, I sausage radar went *ding ding ding*, and I knew I just had to order this if not for the sake of this blog. The picture of the sausage did look appetising and didn't have the look of cheap sausages that I can get off NTUC or Cold Storage.

It came in a sizzling hotplate and looked very much like the one in the picture, which was wonderful. You can't see that properly, but the sausage is one long sausage curved around the perimeter of the hotplate, so it's really long. Although I usually dislike ketchup on sausages and I abhor already topped condiments (other than mustard), after eating this German Sausage, I knew why the Japanese never questioned their chefs, this wasn't just ketchup, but a house mixed sauce, and it was good. The sweet tangy taste and the charred porky taste went very well together with the little bit of savoury gravy at the bottom of the hotplate. Nice~


Our full meal, a pork katsu with rice and soba, miso ramen, chicken karaage, miso seafood udon, seafood udon, german sausage, cheese salmon, five little ice creams, macha ice cream.

Not surprisingly, the sides were much more interesting than the mains.

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.

Food For Thought

Big Breakfast ($10.90, no extra charges for taxes) from the All Day Breakfast menu from Food For Thought. Big Breakfast includes toast and butter, eggs, snail sausage and salad. My friends had the bratwurst and spicy sausage sandwich.

Food for Thought is this quaint little cafe somewhere near the National Library. I really like its ambience and the decor, and I thought that that mission is really cool. Do check out their website!

Foodwise, I like the concept of their sandwich sets, and the variety of sandwiches, and quality of it is really great. The sad thing is that other than sandwiches there's really nothing much left to choose. The soups they claimed are supposed to be very healthy, with no cream added to the mushroom soup, but somehow, maybe it's just me, I would prefer something unhealthy, something with cream. haha~ But I enjoyed the salad quite a good deal depsite me not being a salad person. The dressing was tasty and the vegetables were fresh.

More importantly is the sausage. I had the snail sausage with my breakfast set and my god was it good. There was the smokey taste of a smoked sausage, but it was nicely grilled that the insides were juicy. When the sausage was unravelled from its snail shape, it was really long. The breakfast set is very value for money as it is extremely filling. But the fillings might be due to the four pieces of toast which I thought was way way too much. Maybe two pieces would have been more than enough.

According to my friends, the sausage sandwich was just as good and get the set to share, it'll be much cheaper. I'd like to go back there and try the sandwiches the next time.

Swenson's

In celebration of my sister's birthday, we went to Swenson's for dinner.

Because of this blog, I decided upon the chicken frank and giving a pass in trying the new stuff Swenson's had in their new menu.

From top left to bottom right,
Appetisers: Fried Mushrooms, Fried Cheese Sticks
Mains: Sister's Salmon and Mushroom Spaghetti, Daddie's BBQ Chicken, Joan's Chicken Frank, Mother's Fish and Chips, Someone's Chicken and Mushroom Spaghetti
Ice Cream: two Topless Fives, flavours include Lime Sorbet, Mint, Sticky Chewy Chocolate, Mango, Cookies and Cream, Chocolate, Coffee

Because this is essentially a Sausage Blog, I shall not talk about the other food except for my huge Chicken Frank.

Chicken Frank, $12.50 + 10% service charge + 7% GST, served with criss cut fries and coleslaw.

Chicken Franks are the most normal foodstuff about in American eateries, so what makes one chicken frank more outstanding than the other? Other than in terms of individual taste, you can't really go wrong about it, Swenson's made use of toppings of the chicken frank to differentiate their chicken franks. This chicken frank came topped with parmesan cheese, honey mustard, shaved ham and tomato bits. The toasted buns were also buttered. It also came with onions, but I requested for mine to come sans onions.

In all, this differentiation in the chicken frank really impressed me. And for its price, it's still quite value for money.

Paulaner Brauhaus

A couple of us arranged for a Sunday German Brunch at Paulaner Brauhaus, and it so happened that the date we decided upon fell on the Oktoberfest celebrations. It was a pity I'm still nursing the wound and had to not take up the free flow beer option. It's the Oktoberfest Bier! grr... But we still had a great time anyway, eating, pigging, and camwhoring.


For the first round I had sashimi, sausage salad, cold cut platter as appetisers.
Second round was the meats round with pork schnitzel with asparagus, pan fried dory with shrimps, crispy pork knuckle, and the sausage platter.
Third round was a round up of stuff with extra helpings of sashimi and schnitzel, cheese, tomatoes, chicken and duck.
Fourth round was desserts and I only had a slice of chocolate cake and chocolate mousse.
Buffet priced at $35+10%+7% but my friend had Amex card (HSBC also included in the promotion) so there was 15% off. For free flow beer it's $10 more.


Just look at the glorious sausages with a huge glop of mustard. There were like three types of grilled sausages in that platter.

Because it was Oktoberfest, there were these decorations all over.


A more detailed write up of my round up of this outing on the whole is here at my main blog. There's heaps more pictures there.
But if you still find the pictures there are not enough, there's my subsidary flickr account.

Really want to go back to Paulaner for brunch again when I'm better to have the beer, and to try out the other stuff which I haven't got to try out. And also to have more pork knuckles and sausages. And also...

n.y.d.c.

When Pigs Fly, spaghetti with bratwurst, and Bratwurst Jamboree, pizza with bratwurst, from n.y.d.c., the Wheelock branch. I forgot the price. erm... Ya, I didn't know how could I but...

It's still a pork diet for me, and I remembered the bratwurst pizza from n.y.d.c was good, we headed there for dinner, and to complete the bratwurst dinner, my friend had the spaghetti and we shared our food. Yay, more food~

But this meal wasn't as spectacular as I hoped it to be. The spaghetti was forgettable, the noddles were soft and too thin, not like al dente spaghetti, I don't even know if it's spaghetti, it looks more like soggy fattened up angelhair pasta. The bratwurst was also too thinly sliced up which didn't pack in a bite. The pizza was better than the spaghetti, but the bratwurst too was too thinly sliced, nothing like what I had at Suntec City before. In all, it was quite a disappointment, but I still like this pizza. It was very cheesy and very garlicky creamy.

After desserts, I was actually quite full but my friend was still unsatisfied which was quite weird because I'm usually the bigger eater, and I ate lesser that night because I was eating slowly. Weird...

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.

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!