mmm-yoso!!!

Tip Top Meats, again - The restaurant (Carlsbad)

Thanks for stopping to read mmm-yoso!!! during this short week before Thanksgiving.  Kirk is still vacationing and Ed (from Yuma) is enjoying the week before a holiday without having to rush and finish up things at work so Cathy is writing.

There has been a birthday breakfast post, an ordinary breakfast post, a lunch (sandwich and a steak and stein) post so now I will write about some more lunches and a dinner choice that's only available on Friday/Saturday/Sunday after 4 p.m., thereby still not covering even half of the menu available at this wonderful German Meat Market in store restaurant which has been in Carlsbad since 1977.Here's a photo of the actual entrance door into the market area, instead of the the side parking lot photos in all the other posts.  The restaurant is to the far left as you walk in.  Lentil, vegetable beef, beef barley or oxtail soups are some of the daily three usual choices.  We tend to order the soups instead of salads here, because the salads are ordinary and served with a packet of dressing you squeeze on yourself...the soups are made fresh daily. The Lamb Chop meal ($9.99) is listed on the 'other' side of the menu board (which is above and on the way toward the cash register).  Some people miss that other side of the menu board, although I've noticed the paper to go menus are stacked so that people can grab and read while waiting to order and pay. 

The lamb chops?  Excellent, beautifully grilled to a barely medium; tender, juicy and flavorful.  Sides are the soup, mashed with gravy, a dinner roll and both red and regular sauerkraut (red kraut is sweet, the white kraut is more stringent (vinegar based) and has pieces of ham or bacon in it).  There's a 'Cold Sandwich' menu board as well as a 'Hot Sandwich' menu board.   Pretty much all the sandwiches are $8.99.  So, the above pork cutlet sandwich was my choice one day; tender grilled pork cutlet on a fresh toasted roll with lettuce, tomato and grilled onion.  I chose German potato salad as my side-it sort of reminds me of a smashed up baked potato (probably because of the bacon bits along with the fact that it is a warm potato salad).Year round, an Oktoberfest Plate is available ($8.99) Three grilled sausages: Polish, Knackwurst and Bratwurst along with German potato salad, kraut and red cabbage and a roll. The sausages are made fresh in the store and have a wonderful mix of seasonings and fresh flavors.Then there is my craving-stuffed cabbage ($9.49) a giant cabbage leaf stuffed with lean meatloaf then baked.  It's topped with some sour cream and a tomato slice (excellent flavor, texture and temperature contrasts) and soup or salad, a sweet pickle slice, dinner roll and choice of cabbage...which I can never choose between, so I get both.Looking up at the menu on the wall/ceiling, both the Steak and Stein and 'Special Steak' Dinners have been 'special occasion' meals.  My brother was visiting last month and we drove up to Tip Top and had a little feast for about $15 a person. Each us did choose a soup (two vegetable soups and one oxtail soup, which is pretty much a rich gravy rather than soupy), The Mister had chosen a Steak and Stein meal- so that's his stein (it was a tangerine wheat beer).The Mister's New York Strip ($14.98, including the stein of beer).  It was topped with the grilled onions (which I received unceremoniously on my plate right after photos were taken) and His chosen sides of a baked potato and broccoli, along with a slice of sweet pickle and a roll.   Look at the menu sign again, bottom right- Special Steak Dinner.  Choose a steak, pay for it and it will be cooked for you...add $4.98 to get all the sides.  Choosing the filet mignon size and marble he wanted, my brother's choice still ended up costing around $10 (the filet is $24/lb) plus the $4.98, but he did get exactly what he wanted, and the butcher gives you a selection of seasoning to put on the filet.  (The Steak and Stein filet choice is probably smaller.)  While waiting in line  (all those people are in front of us waiting to order and pay). Notice the menu board ahead to the right above the refrigerated pastry case.  {It's the third menu board from the left; those two are the breakfast menu}.

"Prime Rib Roast  $14.98   From 4:30 - 8 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only
A massive portion of prime rib served with mash potatoes and gravy, baked potato or french fries, red cabbage, sauerkraut or broccoli, soup or salad and a dinner roll".The first time that The Mister and I came to Tip Top Meats, the line was the same, the menu board was the same (except for the prices- the Prime Rib Roast was $4.98 then) and the food was almost the same; you also were given one rib bone on the plate back then.  

This is a weekend evening only special and so very good.  Yes, you are looking at two very thick slices of prime Prime rib plus everything else I usually choose for my plate. 

I hope you have an organized, planned week ahead! 

Tip Top Meats 6118 Paseo Norte Carlsbad, CA 92011 (760)438-2620 Open seven days 6 am-8 pm Website

Tip Top Meats- German Grocery, German Restaurant (revisit)

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog.  Kirk, Ed(from Yuma) and Cathy write about food they ate and the circumstances surrounding the meal(s).  Today, Cathy is writing. 

The Mister and I had Friday birthdays this year and for our eight days of celebrating tried to choose restaurants that were (ideally) as old or older than us; it seems this is almost impossible given our age, but Connal's came close. This is another birthday week meal. (My other posts about Tip Top were also birthday meals, plus Vicky wrote a post about Tip Top in 2007).

Tip Top Meats opened in 1967, in  Glendale, as a meat store with a small restaurant inside (as many ethnic grocery stores still have within their doors). The owner, "Big John" Haedrich, a Master Craftsman Butcher and Sausage maker, finally moved to Carlsbad in 1977, keeping the same business model.  Walk in and to the left among the grocery aisles.  There's a menu above (and more menu on the other side of that ceiling closer to the cash register). You order and pay before retrieving your own beverages and finding a table.  Your food is brought out to you. We sat across from the cash register, around the corner of the seating area; there has been some remodeling and there is covered outdoor seating as well. This is a sausage sandwich($8.99).  I had a choice of Polish, bratwurst or knackwurst and, of course, chose smoked Polish sausage.  It came with a roll, but I asked for rye bread.  I was asked if lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise was OK and said 'yes' and those were placed onto the bread for me...the side of German potato salad was excellent (I could have had fries...but why). Here's a close up of the spices and flavorings in the smoked sausage.  It is excellent.  The Mister ordered a "Steak -N-Stein".  There is a choice of a 14-16 oz sirloin, 8-10 oz filet mignon or 12-14 oz New York steak, along with a choice of soup or salad (this is oxtail soup, which tasted like a wonderful gravy) and choice of frosty tap beer (He chose Tangerine Wheat).The Mister chose the sirloin, cooked medium rare.  This also comes with a choice of potato, vegetable or kraut or red cabbage (you can see he chose half kraut, half red cabbage) and a roll.  I think this was more than 16 ounces.  It was wonderful, worth the price ($12.98). (The filet mignon or New York Steak are $14.98) 
After our hearty meal, we perused the grocery and meat cases, choosing future meals, snacks and condiments.
The headcheese selection is amazing. The butcher meat case, smoked meat selection as well as frozen meat items made choices almost overwhelming. There were also beers, wines, aisles of candies and fresh pastries near the door which also tempted us.  A great day in North County.

Tip Top Meats 6118 Paseo Norte Carlsbad, CA 92011 (760)438-2620 Open seven days 6 am-8 pm Website

Roadtrip: Alpine Village Market - Torrance

**** Sadly Alpine Village Market closed in 2023

Please pardon all the roadtrip posts. I wanted to do this one, because this place just put us in the holiday mood. We decided to head up to LA to do some shopping this past weekend, mostly food stuff. On our previous roadtrip (more posts coming up), instead of visting sites and such, we just ended up hitting various markets along the way. On this roadtrip, we hit up old favorites like the Torrance Farmer's Market, which seems to get larger everytime we visit and of course, Marukai Gardena, the motherlode with regards to Marukai's. But I had my sights set on another place that I'd only recently heard about; the Alpine Village Market, located close by in Torrance.

The Market is located in a large complex, called...duh.... Alpine Village. Along with the market, a deli, and restaurant and ummm "bierhall" (of course), there's a travel agency, driving school, clock and watch repair, along with the mother of all swap meets, which made the parking lot into an insane swarm of vehicles trying to find a parking spot. We lucked out and found a tiny spot to the left of the rather kitschy looking exterior of the market.

I was totally set on being underwhelmed, but this place exceeded my expectations. The market isn't very large but they sure pack a lot into the place.

From the bakery, with stacks of wonderful smelling bread.

And all the old school type pastries. It's a good thing I don't have a sweet tooth, otherwise I'd have gone a bit crazy here. The couple in front of me at the register bought three loaves of bread and spent almost $300 bucks on groceries. Kind of tough, since the prices seem very reasonable.

There are all sorts of candies and confections, canned and jarred products.

This is a German market, so of course a third of it would be the wine and beer section.

This was all nice, but the one section that was just packed to the gills busy was the butcher shop. The line was four to five deep. Man the place was hopping.

The collection of sausages and charcuterie was impressive......

I was told that all of this was made in house. There were sausages and cuts, I'd never heard of. There was a cold case full of various "wursts", but no one was taking stuff from there....it was all happening in front of the meat counter.

One look at the selection of head cheese and we were sold; the Missus took and number and headed into the fray.

Honestly, if this were say 99 Ranch Market and a survival of the strongest type situation, we'd truly have walked away. But this crowd, though busy and intense, also had a bit of jovial, friendly nature to it. Perhaps it was the holiday season, but as nice as the crew behind the counter were (and they were very nice), the other customers were really friendly, at least to us. I guess we kind of stood out.....

Back in the line, the Missus was having a conversation with an African-American gentleman originally from Louisiana, who seemed to know everyone....he told the Missus he came here every two weeks. He had a basket full of smoked beef bones for his dogs. The Missus decided to send me off looking for these....which is how I came across this:

Grieben Schmalz, which I had heard off but never seen in a market. When you hear the term schmalz, you tend to think of the Yiddish "schmaltz" which refers to rendered fat from fowl......grieben schmalz on the other hand is rendered pork fat....think lard, that has been flavored with onion and in many cases, though not this one, with apple. How could I resist? I grabbed five beef bones and a container of schmalz and a older woman looked at what I had in my basket, smiled, and asked me, "you like schmalz?" I tols her that I'd never tried it, but seeing it, I just couldn't resist. I was told it is fantastic on toast. I mentioned that my wife is standing in line to buy head cheese. She asked me which one we chose....I told her all of them. She laughed and said we would have a fine buffet. Apparently, her daughter brings her here every two weeks to shop; "even though I live in Orange County and there are shops there, everything is twice the price and half as good as here....."

Interesting tidbit about buying deli meats.....the counter folks ask you for quantities in "slices"......though they were ok with the Missus ordering a quarter pound....of all the head cheeses.

Thus we ended up with a basket of smoked dog bones, head cheese, some candy, flavored lard, and three containers of sauekraut, purely for comparison of course......

All our stuff came out to $35, pretty cheap I think. I'm sure we'll be back again, this time for sausages, and perhaps more Grieben Schmalz.

Alpine Village Market
833 Torrance Blvd
Torrance, CA 90502
Hours:
Mon - Thurs 10am - 7pm
Fri - Sun   9am - 7pm

So we did end up having our "Kaltes Buffet" of sorts. So remember the variety of head cheese? Well here's sampling along with what seems to be cured pork belly stuffed with forcemeat....simply called "pork belly", along with a few cheeses.

My favorites are the top two; the "Norweigan" seemed to be made of shank and shoulder, with a nice pork flavor, no vinegar, with minimal aspic to hold it together. The second one down is the "Hungarian" version, which was full of various vegetables and some pickles, with a distinctive flavor that I found pleasant. The fourth item down, the "French" version had a good amount of paprika and reminded me of capacolla with a bit of pleasant sourness to it.

As for the schmalz....well, I started by tasting some of it straight from the container on a spoon, which tasted nice, but the Missus just wasn't able to eat it that way.

So what I did was toast some baguette, smear a bit of the schamlz on it and put back into the warm toaster oven to melt.

It is "betta' den butta'".....

While this won't make me forget about duck fat; it sure will taste good with eggs or used to make brussel sprouts...or heck, even if we do cook some coleslaw......

 

 

 

Sausage & More European Delicatessen (Lakeside)

This is mmm-yoso!!!, the food blog.  Kirk and ed (from Yuma)?  Still busy.  Cathy? Blogging today.

A few weeks ago, The Mister and I were craving foods we grew up with. Not wanting to spend time and fuel driving to Tip Top Meats in Carlsbad, we decided to try the European Delicatessen in Lakeside that we had seen for the past few months. 

In researching, we found out that the owners of Sausage & More had worked at Sausage King, which had been a chain of small markets around the County, the last one on Washington Street, which closed when the owner died in 2011.  

Walking in the front door, you are greeted with a small grocery area. Under that archway in the back is one of three comfortable booth and table eating areas.

There is a good variety of European (mostly German) sweets and condiments as well as some bread selections from Los Angeles area bakeries.

The meat case offers a good variety of lunchmeats and sausages. Almost everything is $5.98/lb.

 

There is also one refrigerator case with desserts and one with cheeses.

Several 'specials' were on posters lining the walls and we decided to try the "Oktoberfest Bratwurst", a smoked bratwurst, heated and on a soft white bun, served with mustard and an excellent German potato salad. ($4.75). 

A corse ground, smoked sausage inside an excellent skin, with a great 'snap' upon biting into it.  

 

I tried a simple smoked ham sandwich ($4.25) which was accidentally made on white instead of rye bread. The thin sliced smoked ham was plentiful, however  I did order the sandwich with 'everything' and the lettuce, tomato and onion kind of took away from the basic good simplicity that the sandwich flavors should have.  

On another visit, we just grabbed food to take home.  The Ring bologna, skin on the weiners, Neopolitan cake slice ($3.75 on Friday and Saturday), cookies and licorice were all excellent selections to satisfy more cravings.  

They don't make the sausages or smoke the meat here, but are friendly, helpful and do have a really good selection in nearby East County.

Sausage & More Delicatessen 12241Woodside Avenue Lakeside, CA 92040 (619) 390-1514 Website Closed Sunday and Monday. Other days open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 

<<<(A closeup of the lamp hanging in the archway, in the second photo. It's very old- the plug only has two prongs; no ground. Very cool.)

Tip Top Meats- a breakfast revisit

Welcome back to mmm-yoso!!! the blog with percolating posts.  Today, Kirk and ed(from Yuma) are busy and Cathy is posting about a North County restaurant inside a grocery store.

Well, another year has passed and The Mister and I celebrated our eight days of birthday with many meals. (Our birthdays are seven days apart, and celebrating on the day of and on the day of makes it eight days when we deliberately do something a bit out of the ordinary.) For one breakfast, we drove to Carlsbad and Tip Top Meats, a German grocery store, which has a nice restaurant inside.  \

Yes, I've written only one post on Tip Top,  coincidentally a birthday breakfast, even though we have enjoyed many lunches and dinners here. Vicky also wrote a post, which included some other menu items.

There is a small list of some meal items, located at the entrance.  

Once inside, the grocery store is overflowing with various German and European sundries, condiments and side dishes. The vast meat counters are filled with a wide array of fresh meat choices-

-as well as smoked meats. We passed this area quickly, as there was no line at the cash register for the restaurant, ordered, paid and chose a place to sit.  

The condiments on each table include mustard choices along with the usual catsup, Tapatio and A-1.

Soon, our meals were brought to us. The Mister ordered the Big John Breakfast ($7.98) Three eggs (over easy), potatoes and all you want meat.  This first meat selection was the breakfast sausage and bacon.

Later, Polish sausage and Bratwurst were choices.  (Ham, the other meat choice, wasn't ordered this day) 

I decided to go all out and ordered the steak and eggs ($8.98) Two eggs, poached, and a Delmonico cut of steak, cooked rare-medium. Of course, we each asked for rye toast.  

Very nicely poached eggs...the yolk was fresh, velvety,wonderful.

You can see the rare cooked,very tender cut of dry grilled steak in this photo. A perfect breakfast!

On the way out, we stopped at my favorite aisle, all licorice...my weakness...so many choices, all good.

Tip Top Meats 6118 Paseo del Norte Carlsbad 92011 (760)438-2620  Website

Tip Top Meats and a birthday breakfast

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog. Just a way for you to peek at what a few people eat.  Kirk and ed (from Yuma) are not blogging today.  Cathy is.

Hi.  Another year has passed and it has been time for the week of feasting for The Mister and me.  Yes.  He was born exactly a week before I was. This year, our birthdays fell on a Sunday.  Our 'tradition' is that he gets to choose where he wants to eat the first three days (Sun-Mon-Tues), we have to agree where and what to eat the middle two days, and I get to choose where I want to eat the last three days. I have photos of all the meals, but will start with my birthday meal first.  Because there are no rules.

 I chose Tip Top Meats, in Carlsbad, just off the Interstate 5 at Palomar Airport Road. Vicky did a post with us about Tip Top and a delightful dinner more than three years ago and also explained a few things, like it is an Old Fashioned meat store.
 
Which also makes their own sausages. 
  
Smokes their meats in house. 

  Has one whole aisle shelf of just licorice for sale.
Another aisle of beers for sale.
Right across from the two aisles of wine.  There is a lot more interesting inventory stuff, even though the store seems not too large.  I find all sorts of interesting, familiar and new European and Mediterranean products here in addition to all the meats.  But really, just walk to the left(West) of the store from the entrance/exit doors.
Look up.  There is a menu.
Follow the people waiting in line, just past the refrigerated glass case with fresh pastries and pre-made side salads is the cash register, where you order, pay, get a number and get a coffee cup, which you will fill when you walk into the open seating dining area, which I did not take a photo of because it was crazy crowded at 8:36 on a Sunday morning (The store and dining area open at 6 a.m. daily) when our number was 114.
Since it was my birthday, I did eat my breakfast pastry first.  A fresh, flaky traditional(made with raisins) slice of apple strudel ($2.49) with a cup of coffee ($1.79). {On our very first date, The Mister and I went to a German restaurant in Ann Arbor and shared a piece of apple strudel for dessert.} 
The Mister ordered the Steak and Eggs ($8.98)- two poached eggs, rye toast, wonderful, crispy, nicely seasoned home fried potatoes and a 6 ounce, perfectly medium-rare cooked Delmonico Steak.  Yes Delmonico, which is essentially a boneless rib eye, but how that cut was referred to decades ago.  (I did say it was an Old Fashioned meat store there at the start of this post...)
I got exactly what I craved- the European Continental breakfast ($7.49). I almost always order this, because the first time I did, decades ago, the meat I got was in-house made Head Cheese, which was perfect.  I know some of you may not know what Head Cheese is, but I bet a lot of you would like it, especially the Tip Top version. (Head Cheese is not cheese, it is an aspic filled with sliced head meat and maybe heart and feet  from a cow, calf, pig or sheep and seasoned with onion, allspice, salt and pepper).  This time, as a perfect meal for my birthday, the plate came with three slices of a nutty swiss cheese, five slices of a really great Black Forest Ham and about ten slices of hard salami...all my favorites!  (I always buy ham and hard salami whenever I get deli meats) Two crusty French rolls accompanied the plate. It was the start of a nice day.

Tip Top Meats 6118 Paseo Del Norte Carlsbad 92011 (760)438-2620 Open 6 a.m.-8 p.m., seven days  Website

 

Das Bratwurst Haus - German Cuisine in Yuma

Luckily Kirk and Cathy and Vicky have been sharing their meals with you yosoers since ed (from Yuma) has been busy working (and eating). So today it is time for something completely different, something echt deutsch.

March 2011 update: Although this place closed for the summer, it is still going strong. It now has a liquor license and offers an excellent selection of unusual and satisfying German beers -- but that means that diners cannot bring their own (weird AZ law).

I should make it clear from the start that I rarely seek out German restaurants, even though my ancestry is 50% German and my maternal grandparents emigrated to the US in 1923 and always spoke with an accent.  Nonetheless, too many German restaurants in the United States are long on fake gemutlichkeit and oompah music, their food being heavy, fatty, and salty.  All the better, I guess, to sell beer.

So it was not my idea for the lunch bunch to try this new German restaurant located in the same space at the corner of Second and Madison that once housed Mustard's:
It was hard to tell what to expect from the menu as it contained most of the usual suspects -- sausage plates, schnitzel, rouladen, saurbraten, and sandwiches.  We were all pleased to see that the entrées were available in a lunch portion that came with two sides for only $7.50.

I ordered the pork schnitzel "Weiner Art" (in the style of Vienna) with a gurkensalat (cucumber salad) and a kartoffelsalat (potato salad):
I was impressed -- no make that blown away.  The pork cutlet was absolutely perfect, seriously crunchy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside.  The mild pork flavor was perfectly accented by a squeeze of lemon.

The sides were good as well.  The potato salad, truth be told, was unlike any that I had had in my family or in Germany, but it was still very good with a mild vinegary flavor and just a hint of mustard.  The thinly sliced cucumbers were spiced with dill weed and swam in a tangy sour cream sauce.  It was a perfect salad, both creamy and crunchy.

At this point I need to thank my friends who are used to my peculiarities and automatically allow me a chance to photograph their meals and even let me taste them sometimes.  For some reason, they still dine with me.

Here is a lunch sized serving of rouladen:

The little rolled beef roast was tasty and I was very impressed by the perfectly cooked blaukraut (red cabbage), though the cabbage was not accented by cloves or allspice the way my grandmother did it.

My family prepared sauerbraten peasant style -- strongly marinated and then cooked like pot roast.  At Das Bratwurst Haus, the dish is made with a better cut of beef and receives a more sophisticated treatment:

The marinade flavor, and hence the sourness, was mild, and the meat was perfectly balanced between the beefiness of the flesh and the slight sour tang of the marinade. The accompanying sauerkraut had been perfectly prepared so that it reached a degree of sweetness. I can't do it any better. This lunch made me want to return soon for dinner.

So soon Tina and I sat down in a corner table to sample some German dinners. We were pleased to see the friendly and competent server we'd enjoyed at Mustard's (he joked that he came with the property). Service at dinner was especially good that evening.

Tina ordered jaegerschnitzel, the pork schnitzel topped with mushroom gravy, red cabbage (oddly enough, called blaukraut, blue cabbage, in German), and spaetzle (sorry about the nighttime lighting in the photos):
 
Again the schnitzel and red cabbage were very good.  Although shaped more like mini dumplings than noodles, the spaetzle were tender and flavorful, the lightly flavored mushroom gravy allowing the taste of the pasta to shine through.

That evening I opted for the rouladen:
Notice that the dinner sized portion contained two of these little rolled roasts. Each roast is like a large slice of beef round rolled around bacon, onion, and in the center, a thin slice of dill pickle. A classic German dish prepared well here.

In addition to more of the addictive cucumber salad, I chose semmelknoedel (bread dumplings) as my other side dish, getting two slices from a larger dumpling as my portion:
Although Tina thought they weren't heated through quite fully enough, we both certainly enjoyed their flavor, which is much like a savory turkey dressing.

Speaking of turkeys, we were both stuffed by this time, but we had admired the pastries coming into the restaurant and just had to have some desert (only because I wanted to do a complete post -- really, that's the only reason).

So we sampled the apple strudel, which was good, but not breathtaking:


The Black Forest cake, on the other hand, was breathtaking:
The combination of dense, dark chocolate cake, sweet and fruity whole Bing cherries, and plenty of homemade Schlagsahne (whipped cream) was just about perfect.  The range of sweet flavors and the overall richness were outstanding.  This desert was a perfect ending to a good meal.

As we finished dining, we learned that the older gentleman at the next table (who had been listening to us critiquing the meal) was the owner/chef's husband, and he explained that his wife was from Bamberg in the far north of Bavaria (Franconia), which has its own cuisine, and that this restaurant grew out of a popular catering business she had. This explains why the food seemed so authentic, but not exactly like what I grew up eating.

The local paper recently announced that Das Bratwurst Haus has received its BYOB license, so diners may now bring a bottle of wine or up to 24 ounces of beer per customer for a five dollar set up charge.  Can't beat that either. Prost!

Das Bratwurst Haus, 204 S. Madison Ave, 928-329-4777. Open 11 - 8 daily.