From Bangkok to Berlin via Delhi, on a sausage roll.

For the longest time, sausages meant masala sausages from Green Chic Chop, subsequently Pig Po and eventually Steakhouse. Basically, masala that doused whatever those desi sausages were about, I didn’t want to know.

Those breakfast buffets, and they could be anywhere, the sausages had more or less the same canned indifference; was always glad to can them, except the solitary sausage to remind myself why I’m all for one and no more.

Then one afternoon in June, in 2011, it all changed at Bei Otto in Bangkok. Previously, we’d been catching a cappuccino and a freshly made ham sandwich at their café. This was their German restaurant. 

No stairway to sausage heaven, just a step or two

Sitting in a German restaurant that seemed more German than anything I’d experienced, the decision was made: Let’s dive into the sausage platter.

Mein Gott. Wunderbar. Schwein! Let me put whatever German I know here, happy to embarrass myself for a delightful memory. It was a Dylanesque song on a plate, Tangled up in…sausage. But still, it was sausage, and their sight was one thing, I didn’t expect much from these bland creatures. Wrong. 

Their magic didn't end with the variations in colour, shape and size  – the taste took it right up to the turrets of Neuschwanstein. With each bite I was walking down the Rhine, glad that I had been audacious enough to order something I thought would backfire.

When I returned to Bei Otto seven years later, it was for a snack and a beer or a coffee; not quite mealtime. Sat either outdoors or in the café, had their great ham sandwich. Then again, maybe I wasn’t ready to mess with a memory that grand.

My next memorable sausage encounter was at Basil & Thyme in Delhi. Funny bit, I didn’t order it, Keith did. Though looking at them, I knew, there was a bit of Bei Otto in them. Forked right in, and yeah, they were more schwein than pig. And so the price that accompanied them; more Delhi than Bangkok or Berlin.

If you strain your ears, you'll hear David Bowie's Outside

Finding myself in Berlin, I wasn’t exactly on a sausage trail; wasn’t even on a food trail. I was walking on, making sure I didn’t eat at one of those tourist traps that camouflage themselves as pizzerias. You could see the world’s tourists there when there was such a thing as tourism.

So here I was in this bustling flea market starting a conversation with a designer. He directed me to Clärchens Ballhaus – “see if the ballroom with the giant mirror is open, it’s upstairs, ask them”

Ballhaus was barely a few minutes away by foot, the Jewish synagogue overlooked it – little did I know, between google maps and me, we’d be pussyfooting round the place for the next half hour when it was bang under our nose. Had I tried moonwalking, would’ve reached faster.

Both Google Maps and me make a great team,
we are directionally challenged

Once there, it was one helluva exclamation that welcomed me. It was a beer garden. The entrance to the ballroom upstairs was shut but the sky was open, conversations were flowing, as was beer, food and creepers on the high walls.

It was quite magical. Finding a table that overlooked it all as if this was my personal fiefdom made me go trigger happy with my phone. This was as German as it gets, the menu no different. I had been warned by the flea market designer that the portions could be humungous, and only his friend with a huge appetite could do justice to the mains.

Notice: The guy behind is looking at her look at the camera/me

What should I do in a place like this, a beer and some sausages please. And could you kindly take a few photos of me drinking my beer.

The sausages arrived, crisscrossing each other like giant scissors. Radish, gherkins, potatoes mustard, German staples it appears. I got down to work.  Schnell! Schnell!

Picture Edward Scissorhands eating them sausages 

Meanwhile, my mind is still preoccupied with those masala sausages that I dumped a while ago. And that hotdog stand that only pimped to my camera. Why? Too touristy for me?

German English, rather frankfurter.