Wurstkuche - Exotic Sausages

I found Wurstkuche through a few other blogs that mentioned the eatery and held it in high esteem.  The resturant is downtown in the heart of the arts district and is known for its exotic sausages. Wurstkuche only adds more personality to this already trendy neighborhood.  They serve sausages, Belgian fries with homemade dipping sausages, and have an array of of imported beers and gourmet soda.  The sausages are in 3 categories: classic, gourmet, and exotic. The classic sausages have the typical bratwurst, Italian, and vegetarian smoked apple sage.  The gourmet sausages get more interesting including Austin blues (hot and spicy tri-pepper and hardwood smoked pork), apricot and ginger )chicken and turkey, lamb casing), and Filipino marharlika (sweet pork, natural seasonings).  Lastly, and where it gets the most interesting is the exotic category.  Such sausages include Duck and Bacon with Jalapeno peppers, alligator and pork, smoked andouille sausage, Rabbit, veal, and pork seasoned with white wine. They have 21 sausages in total and range from $5.75 to $7.50. 

Grete and I shared the Duck and Bacon while Liz got the Rattlesnake and the Rabbit.  We also all split some fries.  The sausages were good all around. We couldn't really taste the duck but the bacon came through.  Liz enjoyed her sausages, both had a lot of flavor and non of the exotic meat had an off-taste. The most exciting thing about the meal was by far the bleu cheese walnut and bacon dipping sauce we had with the fries.  It was incredibly flavorful, after all what's not good when it has bacon in it?

The restaurant resembles a German beer hall.  You walk up to the counter to order and take your number back to the eating area.  If you didn't order a drink at the counter with your sausage there is a bar conveniently in the back.  You can also sit outside where there is great people watching.  All in all, this is a great place to have a meal or be adventurous and try some new meat!

Downtown LA Art Walk

Art walks are always a blast!  Wine, fun people, interesting food, music, creative things to look at :)  LA is an insane creative mecca.  Outside of the whole entertainment industry there is a thriving art scene.  So many museums and galleries all around town.  So I was super excited to go to THE Downtown LA Art Walk.  It's held every 2nd Thursday of the month in the historic downtown area.  The Art Walk website is extremely helpful but unfortunately I didn't take advantage of it before I went.  We showed up at 4:30.  I read somewhere that its held from noon-9 so I thought 4:30 would be prime time for the walk.  The first place we went was the Art Walk Lounge because they were giving out free hand woven bags to the first guests (I'm not sure how many but I wanted one).  But, they were still setting up when we got there.  Apparently the festivities don't really get started until 6pm and we soon learned even that is early.  The noon-9 applies to the galleries so we went in search of them. 

The interesting thing about the downtown gallery area aka gallery row is it's spread throughout a 6 or 7 block area.  Navigating it is a bit confusing and it's not the best area in the city to walk around looking confused.  So in the hour and a half we had before the art lounge opened we managed to find 2 galleries.  The first was the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.  The exhibit was fun but slightly confusing.  I have a hard time interpreting art that isn't straight forward and this definitely was not straight forward.  After spending some time in the LACDA we went to Bert Green Fine Art Gallery.  The exhibit here was more subtle and understandable.  I could appreciate a lot of the work and it was refreshing.  After the Bert Green Gallery it was approaching 6 so we made our way to the Art Lounge.  This gallery featured a lot of different artists, all young and creative.  I didn't understand most of the depictions.  We stood in line for the tote bad made out of recycled billboard material and it was indeed being sown at the table.  After looking around the lounge we went to the outside exhibits and craft fair in the courtyard where there were trinkets, posters, novelties and what not.

The last stop we made before leaving was the food truck parking lot.  This was the first time I'd seen a big food truck gathering.  There were a lot of interesting and delicious looking offerings.  Most notably the Grilled Cheese Food Truck that had a line 5X another other trucks.  Since we were exhausted I did not stand in line for anything but look for a post soon on food trucks!

All in all, the downtown art walk has a lot to offer.  If you have time this Thursday make the trip into the city for it. My only advice to go around 6:30 so there is a decent crowd to enjoy the shows with.