Death by Martini - Martinis, food and all sorts of other debauchery

February 23, 2010

Of Sausages

I am, as you might have noticed, quite partial to meaty business. Like pork roast. Or ham. Or sausages.

This weekend I managed to get my hands and mouth on quite an Austrian delicacy. Sausages in different variants, roasted slowly inside an old stove, until all crispy and crunchy. There was liver sausage, black pudding (in sausage form) and one kind which is called Breinwurst and filled to the brim with fantastic ingredients like pork and sorghum.

Serve these sausages with bread dumplings and sauerkraut and you'll be thinking about this meal for weeks. Here's some more pictures by way of a slideshow. Enjoy:

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // austria black pudding breinwurst delicacy food liver sausage sausages

Comments [0]

February 18, 2010

DBM Abroad: London

I'm going to be visiting London in March. I've got a few places singled out I really want to visit. On top of that list is The Hawksmoo r, a steak and burger place in the heart of London:

View Larger Map

I've seen a couple of very favourable reviews online, not least the one at "Eat like a girl" (and the other one, detailing their burger). I'd post pictures if I wasn't so adament when it comes to original content on here. But do click through and be bedazzled by the photos of steaks, burgers and fries.

So, anyone got any great ideas on where to go in London? I'm open to everything, but do have a certain penchant for meat. And deep-fried stuff.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // abroad burgers hawksmoor london steaks

Comments [0]

January 21, 2010

Freakish Toblerone

I'm not much of a sweet stuff person, but once in a while I don't mind feasting on chocolate. Last week I was, by chance, the recipient of a piece of a freakishly huge bar of Toblerone.

It's a though one to eat, unless you go at it with a knife (which I won't, traumatized that one Seinfeld episode). But Toblerone, with its nut and honey filling, is still one of the best kinds of chocolate you can get. I suspect I will have finished it off sometime in July.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]

November 17, 2009

Das Lercherl von Hernals - Viennese cuisine in pseudo cabin atmosphere

When it comes to Schnitzel or any other kind of meat, served either with potatoes or dumplings and lovingly called Viennese cuisine, there are a number places people swear serve the best food.

I am always wary, since my standards tend to be, despite their simplicity, harder to meet than others. What I want is a lot of food for not too much money. I know, I still think like a student, and in a way, I still am. Despite my huge paycheck.

Anyway, the latest place I went to that served that Viennese cuisine was a place in the 17th district, called Lercherl von Hernals, where Lercherl is a diminutive of Lerche, and Lerche, you guessed it, means lark. Hernals, btw, is the proper name of the 17th district.

As expected, the interior consists of heavy wooden chairs and tables, loads of ornamental woodwork and a waiter who looks like during the winter months he usually instructs people on how to ski. A ski-instructor, if you will. He was still quite the polite chap, though.

I opted for a Zwiebelrostbraten, which is a slice of beef roast buried underneath loads of crispy onions, the whole thing, ideally swimming in a pool of gravy. Here's what it looks like:

Never mind the fact that you can't actually see the beef. It's buried under these loads of onions.

While it was in fact quite a lot and very competitively priced, the beef was a bit on the stringy side. The upside to this is, that after all, I'm much more of a gourmand than I am a gourmet, so combined with generous gulps of their beer and total disregard for what a perfect piece of beef should be like, I absolutely enjoyed my visit to the Lercherl of Hernals.

So if you want authentic Viennese cuisine that's not expensive and served in large quantities, do go there. As fair as I know, no bookings necessary.

Zum Lercherl von Hernals

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // lercherl von hernals vienna viennese cusine zwiebelrostbraten

Comments [0]

November 11, 2009

Martinigansl

International readers will most likely not be familiar with what I'm going to show you today. It's the Martinigansl, a goose traditionally eaten at Martinmas (Which is St.Martin's Day - read all about it here).

As most of the more intricate dishes lately, it was something served up by my parents.

It's basically roasted goose with a bread-stuffing, cooked red cabbage and dumplings, again made of white bread.

I'm in no way inclined to go into the details of the recipe, so just have a look at the pictures and enjoy.

For more pictures, especially close-up pictures of delicious poultry, visit the Flickr photoset.

Edit: Here's the set as a slideshow:

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // goose martin's day red cabbage

Comments [0]

October 19, 2009

Augustin in Vienna - Eat well, lounge well

While I am very much into cooking my own food, going out and enjoying what others have cooked up for my consumption is something I'm very fond of as well. Of course, it does cost the equivalent of money, so if you don't have any, home cooking might be a better solution for you.

If you do indeed have scraped together enough dough to be able to buy yourself some food and drink, here's a place you should visit: Augustin. Set in a rather shabby part in a rather shabby district of Vienna (well, it's true. It just isn't really pretty, that district), Augustin is a great surprise. Not only does its exterior work hard on betraying the splendid interiour, the food is also quite delicious and plentiful.

Decked out in Biedermeier sofas, chandeliers, sturdy wooden tables and loads of candles, Augustin is as cozy as it can get. The fact that almost every night there's a chap playing the piano, only adds to the undeniable charm of the place.

Foodwise I opted for nothing less than a Bauernkotelett (farmer's cutlet), which consisted of tender grilled pork, covered in loads of roasted onions, with fried potatoes, little cubes of bacon and pole beans on the side:

The only problem with the cozy interior of Augustin is, that sitting on a sofa as soft as the one we sat on, means, that your food sits somewhere on eye level, which makes it a tad difficult to eat (having been confronted with that dire situation myself, here's a trick that actually works: simply sit on a chair for the duration of the meal!).

Here's just a small thing I'd like for the owners to do. Update your website! While I think your Bauernkotelett was worth every single cent I paid for it, advertising your food roughly three Euros cheaper than it actually is, may be frowned upon by people less lenient than me!

Anyway, I absolutely recommend going to Augustin, especially round eight, when the pianist will be playing one of his tunes, while you, stuffed with most exquisite Austrian foods, can recline on a sofa with cigarette in mouth and beer in hand.

Augustin is located in the 15th district, Märzstraße 67, a three minute walk from the U3 station Johnstraße:

View Larger Map

Augustin

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // augustin austria bauernkotelett food meat restaurant restaurants vienna

Comments [0]

September 10, 2009

Roast pork - if you don't like it, you're not human

I am what you might call a big fan of roast pork. I am such a big fan that I regularly eat and make roast pork. I'm such a big fan, that I usually eat so much of it until I'm ready to burst (or puke, actually, but since puking is hardly something to write about in your food blog, I decided to stick with "burst"). And after dinner, I usually sneak into the kitchen and eat leftovers, because as we all know, for every little peace of roast pork not eaten, God kills a little kitten. And who would want that?

Anyway, a visit to my parents' on my birthday gave me the chance again to put into practice above described actions. You see, the recipe for the roast pork I usually eat is my father's, so he still is the master of the roast pork. Well, here is my first plate (for aesthetic purposes, I made that photo before I loaded it with the actual number of pieces I usually eat on my first plate. Consider this an artsy representation of real food. You know, like nouvelle cuisine):

And since this is a food blog and I've seen people post recipes on said food blogs, I'll try myself at a recipe for above roast pork. Please note that you don't need any kind of sauce or gravy. If done right, it's going to be so juicy, it'll squirt onto your shirt while eating. Promised!

Well, here we go:

What you'll need:

Pork shoulder, with rind. This is very important, please reread that last sentence! Without rind, there won't be any crust, and without crust you might as well go outside, collect a handful of dirt, put it in the oven and serve it as roast pork. So please, don't forget the rind.

Depending on the size of said shoulder, you'll need somewhere between 8 and 12 garlic cloves. Don't ask me why 8 and not 7 or 12 and not 13. In fact, I just pulled those numbers out of, well, somewhere. But I think you'll be fine.
Loads of caraway.
Salt

And as a side-dish, I recommend

potatoes

Actually, I don't recommend but order you to make roast potatoes. If you object to the idea of roasting potatoes and pork, well, I won't listen. Potatoes or bust, I say!

Preparation:

Pork:

First, peel those garlic cloves. Then use a garlic press to press them into a little bowl. When you're done, and I promise you, your hands will be all garlicy, but you won't mind, because you'll have that fantastic roast pork in mind, generously pour salt and caraway into the bowl. Mix pressed garlic and all that other stuff until it's a more or less coherent paste. A note about the amount of caraway and salt: I don't really know how much to use. It's a feeling you develop after a while, so you may want to be rather careful with your first roast pork. If you haven't used enough salt, you can always resalt. It won't be as good, but you won't have a too salty slab of meat sitting on your plate, screaming: "Why oh why did you use too much salt on me, I'm worthless now!". Same holds true for caraway, by the way.

Take the pork, wash thoroughly (that's what I always read in recipes, so I guess that's the way to do it). Then put the slab on a board, get a sharp, a very sharp knife and cut the rind into a checkerboard pattern. Make sure not to cut through the rind, but don't cut too superficially either, otherwise the crust won't be crusty enough.

After you're done, rub the paste into the meat. Make sure to rub it in good! Get it everywhere. You don't need a whole lot of the paste on the rind, but do save some to disperse on those cute little cubes you cut out of the rind with your sharp knife.

Now, you've got the option of putting the whole thing into the fridge to let it sit there for a while. If you don't want to wait, just put it into the preheated oven, somewhere round 200° C. Don't put the roast onto a baking sheet, but rather on a tinfoil covered grill. You'll learn why in a second.

Let the heat grill the rind until it's brown and starting to get all crusty, then cover the crust with tinfoil. Lower the heat a bit, maybe down to, say 180° C. Now all you have to do is wait, approximately an hour per kilo.

Potatoes:

When the roast's in the oven, get those potatoes and peel them. You can then either pre-cook them, which of course dramatically shortens the time they would need in the oven. If you feel you don't want to use yet another pot, then simply dump the potatoes, ideally cut into same size pieces, on a baking tray underneath the roast, about an hour before you think your roast will be done.

And here's why I wanted you to put that roast on a grilling tray: Once you've got those potatoes in the oven, there'll have accumulated lots of juice from the roast. Simply poke holes into the tinfoil surrounding the roast, and it will all pour down onto your potatoes, giving them a nice, porky and garlicy flavour. How's that for frugal use of herbs and spices? The potatoes are done when they are crispy outside, hot and soft inside. Tada.

To check whether your roast is done, cut it in the middle and look at the juice. If it's red, it's not done. If it's clear, it's done and you can serve that mean, old bugger. No gravy needed.

Anyway, this recipe has become far too long and rambling and probably utterly useless for anyone who'd ever thought of actually making that roast. If you've still managed to make any sense of it and are planning on using it, do send me a message on how it went.

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // meat pork potatoes recipe roast

Comments [0]

August 25, 2009

DBMA: Feeding Tourists - Part III

And because I somewhat promised the last part, here's a picture of the best food we had during our stay on the island of Texel:

It's from a restaurant in De Koog, which name I didn't jot down, and even the mighty Google seems to have the restaurant positioned somewhere else than I remember it to be. Let's just say, it's the only Thai restaurant in De Koog and it's not in the grizzly Dorpsstraat. You'll find it.

We were a bit worried because there were barely any people there, and wondered whether it's the fate of the restaurants that serve the most distinguished food on the island to perish due to their exotic nature. When we walked past the next day, an hour earlier than we'd been there the day before, we were happy to see that our fears were unfounded. The restaurant was packed.

And with this rather happy ending I will conclude my Death By Martini Abroad specials. I hope you had a blast, I know I did. Dank u wel!

Absolutely related:

DBMA: Feeding Tourists - Part I

DBMA: Feeding Tourists - Part II

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // chicken chili dbma de koog food netherlands texel thai

Comments [1]

August 21, 2009

DBMA: Feeding Tourists - Part II

It took a mere ten days, but here I am with yet another glorious update, namely Pt.II of my already epic feature on how to feed tourists. Where tourists are actually my girlfriend and I.

As you may remember from last time, there's not a whole lot that speaks for the cuisine of the Netherlands. Which, by the way, is not meant to be mean in any way. It's just the way it is.

But they do make some mean fries.

And they've got these fantastic contraptions that hold your fries. Which makes for a great fries-eating-experience.

Hell, who needs a refined cuisine, when you've got stuff like that?

Apart from fries, Dutch cuisine also offers pancakes. I don't really care for pancakes, so I let my girlfriend sample an apple-pancake in the restaurant next to the lighthouse in the north of the isle of Texel (called "De Toren", which I think means "The Lighthouse", but it could mean all other kinds of things as well; I'm simply too lazy to find out). Anyway, I was told that the pancake was ok, but nothing to write home about. Which, when on vacation, is a bad thing, because it takes away yet another thing to write on all those postcards. (Disclaimer: I didn't send any postcards. So it wasn't just you who didn't get one, it was everyone!)

Anyway, I think the picture of the pancake turned out quite nice though:

Come back soon to witness yet another entry on what we had while on vacation, or maybe I'll skip the last part in favour of telling you what I had last week. I'm just a dare-devil like that, you know?

De Toren

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // dbma feeding food netherlands texel tourists

Comments [0]

August 11, 2009

DBMA: Feeding Tourists - Part I

When on vacation, people do two things: nothing and eating.

I had actually planned on writing a lengthy essay on the merits and the downsides of being at a place that specializes in feeding these hungry hoards, but after a few paragraphs I came to the conclusion that it would be far too rambling.

So instead, here's a rundown of a few places we ate during our stay in the Netherlands:

First of all there was Wagamama in Amsterdam. It's actually a Japanese chain, but I'd never been to one, so we sat and ate:

This is Yaki Udon, which contained all sorts of vegetables, chicken and prawns. I'd never before realized that Udon noodles taste a bit like potatoes.

We also had a starter, which the good people at Wagama like to call a side dish:

Grilled asparagus. I must say, it sounded better on the menu. I guess I'm just not much of an asparagus man.

On Texel, where tourist feeding places are abundant, we had our first dinner at a tex-mex-pizzaplace-asian mixture of a restaurant, aptly named Maxima Classic Grill Restaurant Argentina. The logical conclusion was for me to have an entrecôte:

It wasn't the best steak I'd ever had, but hey, it was my vacation and it was meat, so I was happy.

That's it for today. Come back tomorrow for more detailed stories on what to eat where and why on the isle of Texel.

Wagamama Restaurant Maxima Classic Grill Restaurant Argentina

Loading mentions Retweet

Filed under // amsterdam dbma food netherlands restaurants texel udon wagamama

Comments [1]

Tags