I’m continuously on a quest in search of restaurants that offer special and unique fare, something different and special. To my great surprise and delight, I think I’ve found numero uno.
Years ago, I was posted to an office in Munich, Germany, to help open a hi-tech company there. Some of my best memories of that short stay are eating the most delicious bratwurst sausage with a flavorful German beer, surrounded by beautiful trees and birds in an outside garden. The place did not look that appetizing from the outside, but once I bit into that flavorful sausage, I was hooked. Well, I just had a similarly overwhelming and unique experience in Venice, on the Santa Monica border.
Wurstkuche is not very appealing from the outside, at 625 Lincoln Blvd. in the middle of a lot of automotive repair shops. However, there is the newly opened Baby Blue BBQ across the street. When you enter, you find yourself in a small room with a sausage counter on the left, filled with a large variety of sausages, and a counter to take orders. People come and go, buying sausages to take home. When you order, you are given a number to put on the table for the server to identify you.
It took me quite a while to make a decision regarding my order because there are 18 different sausages on the menu, divided into "Classics," which included the most popular, the Bratwurst, "Gourmet," which is the section I ordered from, and "Exotics." Some of the exotics were very tempting, such as the Duck and Bacon, and the Lamb with Mediterranean spices. I decided to save those for next time.
Not only do you have to think through 18 sausage varieties, but you also have to decide which toppings and side dishes will best pair with it, or whether to just focus on the sausage alone and pass on the sides. Then you have to select your drink. Beer, of course, in my case anyway. There are about 50 different selections, but I stayed with one of the 13 German draft beers listed, making a mental note to try one of the Belgian beers on draft for my next visit. I don’t see any reason to select a bottled beer from the 18 available when draft beer is available.
Of course, they don’t spell it "beer" on the menu; it’s "Bier."
Only after you’ve ordered and paid are you given access through a dark passageway to the dining area.
And what a surprise that is! The main dining room is large and airy, with seating for about 50 people plus a couple of small rooms for more privacy. There is a large bar (not always attended) and an open area leading to a lovely outside patio. I felt like I was right back in Germany on a lovely spring day.
Of course, I elected to go into the outside patio and made friends with a friendly couple from the neighborhood and their cute dog. Very quickly, the server arrived with my Hungarian spicy sausage and my large glass of German beer. The beer glass was decorated with a logo stating that it was from the world’s oldest brewery.
On the table, there were four plastic jars of different kinds of mustard, and I decided to select the German style, but only after tasting the one marked "hot." It would have added a nice additional flavor to the already spicy Hungarian sausage, but I must confess, the sausage was incredibly delicious and cooked to perfection on its own.
I took my time savoring my juicy sausage while washing it down with the refreshing German beer. It took a while to savor it and bring down the level of the beer. Soon thereafter, I realized I was still hungry, so I went back to the order desk and ordered a Mango Jalapeño sausage to pair with the rest of my beer.
Sitting there in the outside patio, with my German beer and my sausage sandwich, I might as well have been back in Munich. I thought to myself how wonderful it was to be able to travel only a few minutes from my home to find something this special and authentic, even though I was minutes from my home in the Palisades. What a wonderful experience. I’ll be back there soon with friends. I must admit as well that another attractive feature of Wurstkuche is that it’s one of the quietest restaurants I’ve been to in a long time.
Merv Hecht’s latest book “The Instant Wine Connoisseur” is available on Amazon.
