The Flying Deutschman

Food Truck
Media, PA
(610) 333-7908
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2SP is a new-ish DelCo brewery complete with a canning line and they have gotten quite a bit of publicity recently. They focus on beer, and typically have a different food truck serving hungry drinkers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I have been wanted to try the Flying Deutschman for quite a while, after seeing it zipping by on the highway many a time, and it JUST HAPPENED to be at a brewery, so I decided to take one for the team and go drink some beer and eat. Selfless, as usual.

The truck is painted like a ship, and is quite cool. They offer a variety of specials mixed with standard menu items, of a German variety. There is a tablet for paying, so you don't need cash. Always a big plus in the old PP book.

You can get a couple types of schnitzel and wurst, and all can be served sandwich style. This means put on a roll for those with comprehension issues.

The truck has a nice clean work space. You can see the ordering tablet in the below shot.

I tried the currywurst sandwich, the jaeger schnitzel with mushroom sauce, and a side of cucumber salad.

I loved the currywurst. The curry sauce was packed with flavor, the wurst was juicy and had a great snap to the casing. I like the toast marks on the roll. My complaint is on the price. The sandwich was $8 I believe, but the side of cucumber salad was a whooping $5. It was a small portion for the money. I DO believe that this is some extremely fresh, homemade German-style food, on par or better than most any German restaurant in the area. So it does even out. But be warned, this isn't a cheap food truck meal.

I could have easily eaten two of these delectable sandwiches.

The jaeger schnitzel was another winner, with a thin, well fried and seasoned cutlet smothered in mushroom gravy. You can see the black pepper flakes speckled throughout the creamy sauce below. It was served with a roll, which coincidentally made quite the sauce mop for anything left behind.

The thin cutlet was was easily sliced with a plastic knife, and the seasoned crispy breading soaked up the indulgent creamy sauce. It was a great schnitzel, even though white sauces tend to be not very photogenic.

And the beer at 2SP was not bad at all either. I will be back and even if it's not the Flying Deutschman, I'll be happy to give another contender a try.

Brauhaus Schmitz

718 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
(267) 909-8814
Website

Just in time for the end of our Oktoberfest contest with CityEats comes a review of Brauhaus Schmitz.

Brauhaus is an anchor of the South Street community, a welcome reprieve for thirsty (and hungry) folks venturing down to the touristy, yet somewhat gritty section of the city. At least one of those sections. So if you aren't looking to buy a pipe, get your hair cut or braided, buy diamond jewelry that is Looney Toons character-studded, this may be just the place for you.

The interior is fantastic, with a strong German beer hall influence (obviously).

The draft list is extensive, heavy in the lagers, hefeweizens, and pilsners.

You can get various sizes, from 12oz., to half liter, full liter, to das boot!

The menu is reasonably priced, and has a wide variety of German fare. I love the ability to sample a number of items for $3 a piece. One of these offerings is the rollmops & sour cream on rye. Rollmops are technically pickled herring filets that are rolled around some sort of filling like pickled vegetables and/or green olives, but in this case, their interpretation is more like a whitefish salad.

There's definitely a briny undertone here, a tasty one. A combination of creamy texture and chopped pickled fish makes for a surprisingly good snack - and a "must try" at this price point.

The landjager, or in this case, pickled smoked sausages, were certainly another surprise. A recommendation from the fabulous bartender, they were (dare I say it) another steal at $3 for four. They had a deliciously addictive, briny flavor, with a touch of smoke, and a nice (un)healthy balance of fat to meat. Delicious.

The gravy fries were more than plentiful. Smothered in brown mushroom and beef gravy, with a blanket of Emmenthaler, this was a maximum value at $7. The portion was seriously ridiculous. The fries were extra crispy, and the gravy was so deeply condensed, had it been taken any further I am sure it would have been burned. This is one hell of an order of gravy fries, and a delicious German nod to poutine.

Every platter is served with a side or two, and as I went with a double wurst, I had to try the sauerkraut in addition to my two other (included) sides. The tart, tangy cabbage was no slouch, though the encased meats were so delicious they really didn't need any help.

The main event.

On the outside is the Bauernwurst, pork & beef, hickory smoked, with garlic, pepper, and mustard seed. This was by far my favorite of the sausages that day. The rich smokey flavor really permeated throughout, and the addictive snap of the casing was exactly how it should be. On the inside was the Käsewurst, pork-based with emmenthaler cheese, hickory smoked, and some garlic thrown into the mix. Surprisingly, the cheese didn't add much that wasn't already there. Don't get me wrong, this was a delicious tube steak as well, but I would highly recommend the Bauernwurst as top dog.

Now opposite sides, you can see a pocket of cheese on the left.

A side of pickled cucumber and red onion salad was another highlight, with the fresh crispy cukes contrasting with the inordinate amount of meat products I was consuming.

In addition, the spätzle, buttery rich, crispy fried egg noodles, were a big hit.

There were two types of mustard brought to the table, and both were delicious, but the stone ground really won my heart (which was struggling to beat at this point).

While there may be another German beer hall in Philadelphia with a slightly nicer atmosphere, this one takes the food category and runs away with it. I absolutely loved this place, and I can't wait for the winner of our contest to get a chance to eat, drink, and be merry. One word of advice, I learned the hard way, DO NOT play in a hockey game after consuming this much sausage and beer. It was seriously the wurst.

Rieker's Prime Meats

7979 Oxford Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19111
Note: The front door is on Oxford Avenue, but the parking lot is around the corner on Rhawn Street.
Website


Oh Rieker's. How I wish you were closer, yet how glad I am that you are like a diamond in the rough, up in the great Northeast.


When you first walk into Rieker's, you will not believe the amount of awesome things there are to look at and to buy. My eyes were immediately drawn towards the incredible amount of fresh bratwurst, knackwurst and various other encased meats.


I had to buy some of the bacon knackwurst, obviously, and I also got some Oktoberfest bratwurst, and the traditional knackwurst. Although I was more than happy to give these house-made meats a go-round, I was really interested in the unusual stuffed & wrapped larger offerings, as seen below.



I mean who doesn't love anything wrapped in bacon. At Rieker's they seem to wrap EVERYTHING in bacon. Amazing. Look for a review of one or all of these delicacies to come through here in the near future.



So after much deliberation, I tore myself away with just the encased meats, some homemade sauerkraut and a pack of potato and cheddar pierogies for dinner. If I didn't already have six fresh rolls, it would likely have ended differently. Everything in there is amazing: from the abundant variety of frozen German foods, to the candies, the babka, and even the cukoo clocks that are for sale on the wall. And then there were treasures like these.



But I digress. The sausages (I will here on out refer to the various brats and knacks collectively as sausages) were all pre-cooked so they just needed to be grilled to crisp them up. Which makes things A LOT easier (I took the old German woman's advice on which to pick, but the bacon knackwurst were a must).


So I started the charcoal, and threw these bad boys on.


They cooked quickly over a hot bed of coals, and blistered quite nicely.


Here are the pierogies, cooked with some onions. They were delicious, as almost all pierogies are, and the potato filling was light and fluffy.


The knackwurst is a blend of veal, pork, and beef, with garlic seasoning. The bacon knackwurst adds imported roasted onion and house smoked bacon to that mix. The Oktoberfest is a white bratwurst that contains imported spices from an authentic Oktoberfest recipe, which includes caraway and marjoram. These sausages mixed with their sauerkraut and some authentic mustard were SO GOOD. They were easily some of the best brats and knacks I have ever eaten. They were so juicy and rich, with the satisfying snap of a natural casing. I asked my fellow diners which were their favorites, and we could come to no consensus. Everyone like something different about all of them. The sauerkraut they sell is imported, they cook it again with potato, caraway seed, bacon and seasonings. How do you think it tastes? Amazing! The mix of fresh sausage with homemade kraut is a match made in heaven. I cannot wait to go back to Rieker's, and it will most likely be sooner rather than later. Those roasts are calling my name.