The Neu Hausli (pronounced 'Noy Hoosley') Restaurant in Waedenswil offers a 'Metzger Menu' (butcher's menu) which consists entirely of pork dishes. And I do feel a bit guilty, having written at length about fat Americans, to now be writing in praise of an eating event that encourages excess.
There are 14 dishes to choose from - which, if nothing else - proves that you can eat every bit of a pig, except its squeak.
The six course 'menu' seemed to be a good idea and course one was a bean soup with leaks, followed by blood sausage, flavoured with cinnamon. Sounds odd, tastes great. Course three was a sausage (another one) containing mashed (pig) liver. It was a strange grey colour and looked like something you might 'rod' out of a blocked drain. However it tasted much better than it looked - flavoured with herbs and accompanied by sauerkraut.
A quick swig of ice-cold vodka followed - apparently as a 'digestif' - to you and me this means it is designed to cut through the fat you'd just jammed down your gullet.
Onwards and upwards - a plate of very thinly-sliced liver arrived - I think it was fried in butter, but I am told it was cooked in oil.
Then into the smoked pig - first 'speck', which is a thick slice of back bacon served with re-hydrated green string beans, followed by 'rippli' which is ham, served warm, with two slices of apple that seemed to have been sitting in some sort of liqueur.
And finally 'gnaggi' which apparently is the lower end of the pig's foreleg. Quite fatty, but the meat near the bone was so succulent it melted in your mouth.
By this point I was full. Strange, I know. So full that I refused the deep-fried, battered apple slices with vanilla sauce. And the numerate will have noticed that the six-course menu ended up being eight courses, even though I refused the last fence for fear of exploding.
All of this should be accompanied by beer, but we decided to polish-off a few bottles of Rioja - seemed to work as well as beer for me...
Then pfluemli - a plum-based liqueur served in hot water with sugar. Dangerous thing a 'pfluemli' because it doesn't really taste like it contains alcohol. And finally coffee.
Thanks to Markus and Eva Baumann, my fantastic neighbours, for inviting me - it was a great evening.
1 comment:
You should get organized. Join VBL: Der Verein zur Förderung des Ansehens der Blut- und Leberwürste (Union for the pomotion of the status of black sausage and leberwurst) http://www.vbl.org/ And yes, they do have an international chapter!
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