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.

Movies and Hotdogs at Cathay

Jumbo Hotdog Combo with coke from the Cathay cineplexes, $7. A Jumbo Hotdog alone costs $4.80.

Other than hotdogs, I love to watch movies. And one of the best part about going to watch a film, is to eat hotdogs. So much so that I plan my movie trips when I have cravings and where the hotdogs are good. I prefer the hotdogs from Cathay as compared to the other cinemas. Cathay's hotdogs have a smaller piece of bread, or a larger piece of hotdog whichever way you want to look at things. I don't like bread that much and I love my hotdogs, so this is the hotdog for me.

But what I like most is the melted cheese on top of the hotdog. Doesn't it look just so inviting? I was eating it and almost gagging as I watched the comedy Wo ist Fred.

I'll see when I trot down to other cinemas and do a corresponding review on the hotdogs there, but it won't be that soon. Exams are coming, and Joan is stuck at home studying and eating potato chips for breakfast lunch and dinner, so apologies ahead in the coming weeks when posts become rather scarce. Jiayou to all having exams!

Taiwan Shihlin Street Snacks

Sausage Cheese Egg Crepe, $3.20 from the outlet at The Cathay.

I was feeling a bit mouth itchy, and I had time to waste while waiting for my friends to arrive. Sitting at the basement where all the food are, and remembering that I had this blog to maintain, I decided to grab a little bite at Shihlin. This little bite didn't come in cheap. The portion was a little small, but I needn't that much, just that the price tag was a bit unjustified.

My previous visits to Shihlin all ended up in disappointments because the food just too spicy. I even tried to had them go easy on the spice, but it was still too spicy. It's quite a pity because I thought that the food was good despite not being able to tahan the spice. Well, this crepe being a non-spicy item was something I pretty much enjoyed. Yes, it was good~

There were enough sausages and cheese, and the crepe was fragrant with the scent of fried eggs. The sauce added a bit flavour to the entire package. Just that there was some weird vegetables which I don't know what it is inside the crepe. The flavour was not overpowering but it did added crunch to the crepe. The only gripe, the corriander. I hate corrianders. Even by removing it from the crepe, that piece of crepe which housed the corriander still reeked of corriander taste.

In all, it's not bad. But I'll only get it again when I'm feeling a bit rich. haha~

Hotbake Again

Remember the Hotbake Machine? I promised to review it again, when there's the Hotdog Melt featured. Presenting, Outback BBQ Hotdog Melt...


Outback BBQ Hotdog Melt, a sandwich consisting of hotdogs, cheese, BBQ sauce and pineapple bits, $2 only. The one at the right bottom is a Pepperoni Melt which also included a bit of hotdog slices, $2.50 if you buy it separately but $4 for both sandwiches.

There's a ton more hotdog slices in this sandwich as compared to the one I featured earlier, but I think there has been a slide in quality of sandwiches since last semester. The sandwiches now have lesser filling, and the fillings are concentrated too much in the centre. The sides are just plain bread, which gets a bit frustrating because I want to eat the sandwiches for the fillings and not for the bread.

On the whole, discounting the fact that there's too much bread, this is one yummy filling for a sandwich. The sauce is tangy enough and the meat is good, I mean, you can't go wrong with sausages, right? There's quite a lot of fillings in the centre of the sandwich, so with each bite, there's a meaty punch in there.

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.

Ikoi

Surprised to see the name of the famous Japanese buffet restaurant on a sausage blog like mine? Introducing the sausages of Ikoi...


Grilled Cocktail Bacon Rolls, included in the buffet spread. Total cost of buffet $35, but well, you get unlimited amounts of sashimi, grilled stuff, tempura, sushi, and lots more other Japanese food.

This cocktail rolls are one of the best I've had, it was grilled to perfection. The sausage oozed out nice yummy bacon fats juices but was also crisp and crunchy, mixed together sausage and bacon was heavenly. Even my friends loved it so much that we ordered many seconds of this. The only thing that I ordered more was the salmon sashimi. haha~

There's also the seafood roll, which is a crabstick wrapped with bacon. It's not as nice as the cocktail roll. I was popping the whole thing into my mouth to absord the most out of the bacon and the sausage. Other must try items from Ikoi would be the sashimi and the other grilled stuff, especially the grilled salmon.

For the $35 price tag, we ate till we were so stuff, and it was sure worth the price. Extremely value for money.

McDonald's Pseudo-Sausage

McDonald's Sausage, seen here alone and in a Sausage Egg McMuffin.

Ever since I set up this blog, my sister has been bugging me to feature McDonald's sausage, but I never thought their sausage is considered sausage even though they named it as sausage. So even though I eat it regularly, this is my first time featuring it.

The sausage is featured in the Big Breakfast, Hotcakes with Sausage, Sausage McMuffin, and the Sausage McMuffin with Egg. I usually have the Big Breakfast when I have McDonald's breakfast, but occasionally when I'm cravvy for cheese, I'll go for the Sausage Egg McMuffin. Once in a while when I have cravings for pancakes, then it'd be the Hotcakes with Sausage. In a way, yes, I love McDonald's sausages even though I don't think it can really be called a sausage.

Anyway, I like to eat can already. haha~

Botak Jones Revisited

This the second time heading down to Botak Jones for sausages for this blog. You can see the other review here.


Swanky Franky set from Botak Jones Clementi at $10.

Let's just say that this didn't go well into my stomach. I felt queasy and a bit of heartburn after the meal. Someone, who had a Botak Burger, came down with food poisoning the next day. I guess this spells the end of my Botak Jones escapades.

The meal itself when eating wasn't too bad. Swanky Franky was a chicken frank wrapped with two slices of bacon and two slices of cheddar melted over it. Of course, there was to be onions but I didn't want it as usual. haha~ It came with the usual fries and coleslaw. It wasn't anything special. I didn't know what I was expecting when I decided to have that, but it turned out to be nothing more than the usual chicken frank just with the aditional toppings. The bacon was badly done somemore. It was grilled but not thoroughly grill, not charred nor crispy, but very fatty.

And with the sickly feeling in the stomach after that, well, guess that's it for Botak Jones. Granted, my usual trips to the Ang Mo Kio branch hadn't made me sick before, so don't know if this is just a one time off thingie.

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.

Hotbake Machine

All Day Breakfast Sandwich, a sandwich which included an omelette with hotdogs, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, from a Hotbake Machine at NUS Central Library. It's $2.50, but if you take the combo of two different sandwiches, it's $4 for both.

Ever since these sandwich vending machines sprouting out, touting to have freshly toasted sandwiches all day, I've been a fan. Well, at least for the few varieties which I like. Sadly, this All Day Breakfast Sandwich is quite a disappointment. The sandwich itself isn't too bad, it's just that the picture show above and the actual sandwich turned out to be way lot different.

The real one looked like this...


I was disappointed with the hotdogs. The picture showed full long hotdogs on top of the omelette, but in reality, the hotdog was in bits and was in the omelette itself. Nonetheless, I still recommend Hotbake for their vending sandwiches, but another variety instead. One of my favourite's Hotdog Melt, I'll put it up if it's being offered.

Hotdog Earrings

I found a pair of hotdog earring in my bathroom!

I think me and my sister bought them collectively some time ago at some fair thingie, we also bought a pair of some other food stuff, but I don't know where they are now.

Anyway, I took them out to photograph them and wanted to share them in my blog, and possibly also to model the earrings and see how a hotdog would look like on my ear. And then, after I got them out of the little plastic bag thingie holding them, they fell apart. The studs came unglued from the hotdog bit, and now I have two studs with nothing on them, and two little figurines of hotdogs. Thank you very much...

And I can't wear them anymore... Unless I somehow manage to find some strong glue to glue them back. Any suggestions?

Eating Sausages Is Good For You

Being fat is good for you

Health experts continue to bang on about obesity being bad for you, but clearly they haven't spoken to the German man who survived falling from a balcony by landing on his belly.

Gerhard Steiner, 27, was heartily munching on a sausage on his hotel balcolmny in Bayreuth when he lost his balance and toppled over the edge.

Mr Steiner fell more than twenty feet before crashing on to the ground, his fall broken by his ample girth.

Rather than dying like an ordinary mortal, Mr Steiner emerged with just a bruised rib and doctors said his fat has saved him.

So just remember that when you are considering whether to have another deep-fried Mars bar.

***

On the same tone, ever since I've started this blog, I see myself eating more and more sausages and geting fatter and fatter. Granted, I'm not obese, thank god, but I've still been gaining weight and rims around my tummy. That's why, I've been on detox and haven't been posting new blog entries lately. I've been trying to cut down on my food intake. But reading this article now, I'm starting to think otherwise. haha~ Maybe being fat isn't a bad thing after all.

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...

Do you have a dirty mind?

Saw this Do you have a dirty mind? from I.Z. Reloaded


Little Miss Ketchup giving Little Mr Hotdog a licking good blowjob!
wahahaha~

Sort of reminds me of the phallic description I gave to Chippy's cheese sausage in mash potato the other time. Actually, there are still many more dirty jokes about the hotdog, and it's not even the phallic ones, but I'll leave that for another day, if and when I have a great picture to share. erm...

Okay, think this sort of answers the title question.
Bah!