PrintRaising the Bar: Ignoring the Church Bells at Zum Schneider
In her column "Raising the Bar," author of Bionic Bites Tia Kim will be checking out the grub at a different bar each week.
Everyone loves breakfast for dinner, and so do I. Specifically, the Bavarian kind of breakfast: Weisswurst with a cool wheat beer to wash it down. Weisswurst is a white unsmoked veal sausage, cooked in hot water or wine, that Bavarians traditionally eat only in the morning, due to the lack of easy refrigeration back in the day. It is said weisswurst should never hear the church bells chime at noon. Fortunately in New York, the shrieking of police sirens are heard more often than the tolling of church bells.
For a proper improper post-noon Bavarian breakfast, I usually head over to Zum Schneider, a small beer garden in Alphabet City with sidewalk seating and mostly ex-pat German waitstaff. Here the Weisswurst ($8) come two to a pot, covered with a plate holding a warm "Brez'n," a soft pretzel with a chewy salt-encrusted exterior, and a side of sweet mustard.
The sausage, once removed from the rubbery pork casing (which isn't eaten), is silky and smooth with a soft, gentle flavor, unlike the more aggressive bratwurst. The mustard isn't overly strong, either, simply adding a bit of sweet zing to each bite.
To drink, my wheat beer-of-choice is a tall glass of Schneider Weisse ($7, .5L), a fruity amber-colored beer with a thick frothy head. Give me an ice cold Schneider Weisse over a milkshake any hot summer night. It's rich, but light enough to pair well with the weisswurst.
Zum Schneider opens at 5pm Monday through Thursday, and at 4pm on Friday. Even more reason not to worry about church bells—the weisswurst at Zum Schneider sleep-in well past noon.
Zum Schneider
107 Avenue C (at 7th St), New York NY 10009 (map)
212-598-1098
zumschneider.com
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
5 Comments:
Oh hell yeah!
But: what's with not eating the casing? That's the best part!
SmokedMeat at 3:40PM on 08/20/09
@SmokedMeat - Usually I like the casings on sausages, but the weisswurst casing is really thick and rubbery. You'd be chewing for a long long time. I hear some people cut each end and then suck the innards out. A little too graphic for me. I cut and roll out the sausage.
Tia Kim at 3:50PM on 08/20/09
Why no weekend hours? That's usually when I eat the weisswurst there! I think they open just around noon...when the waitstaff are back from church.
yetidesign at 8:40AM on 09/03/09
@yetidesign - Yup, they open at 1pm on Sat & Sun. So if you want, plenty of time to go to church beforehand. ;)
Tia Kim at 9:06AM on 09/03/09
Helles Yeah!
SkinnyFatty at 2:34PM on 09/08/09