Time Out gets in on the sausage action

The London listings mag has caught the sausage bug and published its own list of London's best sausages.

Time Out's Best Sausages

It's an intruiging list. Kurz & Lang is on my list of out-of-Soho places that I really want to try, but I hadn't heard of the Honest Sausage in Regent's Park. I'm hoping to review all of the places in the list at some point.

Condiment Corner: Wilkin and Sons Brown Sauce

In 2006, despite an internet campaign and even street protests, the production of HP sauce - the dark, vinegary condiment that's been an essential part of British breakfast tables since the early 1900s - moved from Birmingham to Holland, so ending a century of tradition.

Taking production out of the UK probably won't affect the taste of HP sauce, but it does diminish its homegrown appeal and you could say that the title of 'Great British Brown Sauce' is up for grabs.

Joining the brands that might lay claim to the title (e.g. Daddies, Branston), we now have a new player: Wilkin and Sons.




Wilkin and Sons are more known for their jams and marmalades (I have to admit I'm a big fan of their strawberry jam). Their brown sauce comes in a traditional looking glass bottle with the trademark, minimalist label. There is also a tag on every bottle with the name of the worker who (presumeably) screwed the top on and sent the bottle on its way. Appearance-wise, you can't fault it.



The sauce itself in very different to HP. It's lucky the bottle has a wide neck because you will have quite a job pouring the sauce and you will probably have to use a knife to encourage it out. The sauce has got a slightly gelatinous texture - almost like a very runny marmalade. EDIT: After the first use, the sauce became runnier and easier to pour.

Taste-wise it's much less vinegary, more fruity and sweeter than HP and it might remind you of a relish.

Overall I liked it. It's a good sauce that would go great with a spicier, flavoured sausage or a very peppery cumberland, or any barbecued meats. It's nothing like HP but I don't think it's trying to be. If you don't mind your sauce having a sweetness to it, give it a try.

Related: brownsauce.org

E. Biggles, Marylebone Lane

E. Biggles is a purveyor of fine sausages based in Marylebone (just north of Oxford Street). It's basically a butchers that specializes in sausages, as opposed to a sandwich shop, so don't expect any tables, chairs or the niceties of a Soho cafe. If you peek down the spiral staircase into the basement area, you will probably see the chopping board and trays of mince that go into the Biggles links.

The unusual setting combined with the gentleman who served me - a glum looking, elderly gent who trudged up the stairs to serve me - gave the whole experience an almost Dickensian feel. It was great!

As well as selling uncooked sausages for you to take home, Biggles also has a daily selection of cooked sausages that they sell in simple baguettes for you to eat right away.

The one I chose was their 'signature sausage' - the Marylebone, a delicately herbed, pork variety. It came in a plain, supermarket-bought baguette from Morrisons. A good variety of condiments were on the counter.



A great sausage - lovely flavour, moist with a barely noticable casing. It was nicely cooked too, with a little bit of charring. The baguette was good and seemed fresh, although a softer, more floury variety might have complimented this particular sausage even better.

If you want something less traditional, there is usually a spicier sausage available too (they have literally dozens of varieties in the shop).

4.5 out of 5. A real treat. Highly recommended.

Be warned that there is nowhere in the vicinity for you to eat your sausage baguette, so you may have to stand and eat it in the street as I did, which was a little awkward.

Ebiggles has an official website here, although it wasn't working when I tried.

You can find some more info on Sausagelinks.co.uk .

Coffea, Brewer Street

Brewer Street is one of the most interesting and diverse streets in Soho, and indeed in London.

Along its length you will find excellent Japanese noodle restaurants, sushi bars, a Japanese grocery store, a couple of Italian restaurants (one owned by 'celebrity chef' Aldo Zilli), a fantastic French seafood bistro called Randall and Aubin, a falafel bar, an Italian deli, pubs, bookshops, a health spa, two DIY stores, a gay lifestyle emporium, adult sex shops and a porn cinema.

And a travel agent and three hairdressers. And a little shop that sells old-fashioned, English sweets from giant jars.

And it's not even a long street!

It also contains a number of small cafes one of which is very good (Cafe Rio) and another which is... well...

My Coffea experience started well enough, with friendly, courteous staff and no need to wait as the place was empty. I ordered a sausage sandwich with brown sauce. The waitress suggested a baguette and as I like to go with staff suggestions in places like this, a baguette it was.


Perhaps I've been spoiled with all the great places I've discovered recently (see the Top 5) but this was a truly atrocious sausage sandwich. The sausage was pasty and mushy, with little semblance of meat inside its casing, which looked like it had a fake tan.

The bread was definitely stale - but how many days old I couldn't quite tell. The attempt to toast the baguette had only succeeded in making it flaky and crumbly.

The brown sauce was generic cafe brown. Normally not a crime but in this context, it added to the misery quite considerably.

A bad excuse for a sausage sandwich and a rare instance of me buying a sausage sandwich but not finishing it.

0 out of 5. Avoid, and walk a few extra steps to Cafe Rio.