After reading the recent
Time Out Top Sausage list, I decided to try out one of the places recommended, Honest Sausage right in the middle of Regents Park.
This is a great locations for any cafe, let alone one specializing in sausages. It is surrounded by the vast Regents Park and is a stone's throw from the park's picturesque, landscaped areas, London Zoo and other attractions.
The only possible downside is that it is somewhat out of the way of central London, so unless you were planning a trip to the park, you have to make something of an effort to get there.
So what is so honest about The Honest Sausage? Well, the meat used in the sausages is strictly free-range and the bread they use is all organic, so you can be assured that your banger-in-a-bun is free of nitrates, MSG and any other bad stuff.
On the day I went, they were serving a their 'house special' pork sausage and also a pork and leek 'guest sausage'. Sausages are served in a white bun with optional freshly-made onion relish.
Ketchup, brown sauce and two mustards (mild and strong) are your condiment choices. You can also have your bangers with mash and gravy, if you're in the mood for that kind of thing.
As I'd come so far out of my usual Soho stomping ground, I really had to try both sausages. I had the house pork with ketchup and mild, grain mustard and the pork and leek with brown sauce, with onion relish in both.
On a cold autumnal day, I would have liked the sausages to be hotter but that is really the only flaw I could find. They were moist and unadulterated. No real herbs to speak of, so the flavour was purely in the meat and light seasoning. Very nice and natural tasting.
The mild, grain mustard was probably the wrong choice. I think the stronger English mustard would have been perfect with this classic pork banger. As for the brown sauce, if it wasn't HP, it was certainly a good approximation of it.
The bread was soft and airy and the perfect accompaniment to both sausages. Light enough to make eating two quite easy.
The sausages are on a par with
E. Biggles, and the bread is better so I can't think of any reason not to give Honest Sausage full marks.
5 out of 5. Well worth seeking out.
