I happen to have no company for dinner tonight (Ellen is doing postproduction on her webisode pilot), and we're staying on 43rd and 9th. So I decided to go someplace she'd never want to go - The In and Outdoor Beergarden (or maybe it's called Hallo Berlin - shouldn't be ambiguous, but it is), on 44th and 10th. I had a great beer-and-sausage experience recently, at the Red Lion in Silverlake (Los Angeles), where the waitress was knowledgeable about beer, the sausage was outstanding, and the ambiance was authentic Bavaria, but improved by attractive Los Angelenos/as, and very clement weather.
Up until college, my family summered in Munich, where my grandmother had an apartment down the street from the US Consulate, so I developed a taste for excellent sausage. And I'm lucky in that LA has some great sausage stores, where the Wurstmeisters (or whatever you call them) have actual gold medals from Germany. The two stores I know are the European Deluxe Sausage Kitchen, on Olympic and Doheny, and Alpine Village, in Torrance. Alpine Village is kind of creepy, with a run-down neo-Nazi vibe (antique stores selling Iron Crosses, for example), but I have to say, they have a great supermarket with a first-rate sausage selection.
So I entered Hallo Berlin with much anticipation. The waitress had that depressed I-hate-being-here feeling - to be honest, I respect that. I don't prefer it, but I can respect it. It's August, people are out of town, it's hot, tips are probably lousy... whatever. I don't require chirpiness. But I do require good beer advice; I just don't know enough. So I told her I wanted a light, cold, bitter beer, nothing fruity or warm. She suggested a bottle, since draught wouldn't be cold enough - a Franziskaner Weiss beer. Sure. Expensive, at $9, but I was in the mood. She brought it to me, along with a tall lager glass which had what looked like someone's lip mark on the rim, incompletely washed off. And incompletely rinsed - there was soapy water on the glass. She took it back, squinting at it skeptically. The bartender and she rolled their eyes, and she brought me another glass, which seemed to have soap scum on it. I told her to forget the glass, I'd sin against the Munich beer authority to the extent of drinking from the bottle.
The beer was cold and high quality, but fruity, a terrible recommendation given what I had asked for.
Fine. I ordered a single "wienerwurst" - the classic weiner. The name means Viennese sausage, and contains beef and pork. The menu calls it the Original Hotdog, and it was reasonably priced at $4.50. What she brought me was about two thirds the size of what I expected. Very weird, almost like a sample at a trade show, where it would be thoughtful, so you could try a few and not fill up. It did have very good sauerkraut, both white and red, and mustard already on it. I asked for extra mustard. She explained that it already had mustard on it, but okay... Then she brought me a plate with three little paper cups with different mustards in them - very nice.
The wurstl seemed to have no casing at all, and an excessively smooth texture, and very bland spicing. Just a terrible disappointment. I had walked in planning on having two sausages, but the one was more than enough.
I look forward to eventually moving back to NY, but sausage is one good reason to be happy I'm in LA.
