Essen restaurant & beer café - Utlimo, NSW

Firstly, before we get into it, we'd like to apologise to all our readers. We know it's been some time since our last post and we're sorry, we've a little sick and as all of you who are in a dedicated relationship understand, when one member gets sick, the other will inadvertently contract the same illness as well. Neither party will be able to fully recover for an extended amount of time because as one gets better, the other gets worse. So unfortunately, the Mrs and I have been incapacitating each other by passing the sickness back and forth between the two of us leading to us not being energetic enough to blog much.

I've finally managed to muster enough motivation post-illness to come and tell you all about what we've been up to the last week and a bit. We'll start from the previous weekend where the Mrs and I decided to go out with my friends and have a nice night out. We'd originally planned on having Papparich at Broadway but one member of the party was being held up by public transport and the restaurant had a policy where they'd only give us a table if our party was complete. So we headed down the road to Essen where they were kind enough to give us a table despite not having a booking.

We ordered drinks while we were waiting for our friend to arrive and I took this opportunity to order my favourite beer based beverage, mango weizen. I love german beer, even more so when it's got a fruity, tropical tang to it. Yes, I realise I was sick and therefore shouldn't have had beer...but in my defence, it made my night. 

After waiting a little while, our group also decided it was best to order our food in preparation of our final member arriving. So the Mrs and I ordered and shortly after, the food came just as our friend arrived at the door. I was going on and on the whole night about how much I liked sausages and whilst the Mrs would have liked to order the meat platter for two, she let me order the sausage platter while she ordered a veal schnitzel and an order of cod and potato croquettes to share. Unfortunately for me, they'd run out of a specific kind of sausage and so offered to double up on the cheese cransky. I mean, I did enjoy my meal but I think two cheese cranskys made the overall dish a bit too heavy. Maybe two of the weisswurst would have been a better substitute. The rosti was really nice though.

The Mrs' veal schnitzel came out looking a whole lot better than my dish in terms of proportions. She didn't comment all too much on it though (the Mrs is a bit of a schnitzel snob) so I can take it that it wasn't up to be high standards but from the little I got to eat, I could tell it was a decent schnitzel. The veal was tender and juice which complimented the crispy exterior quite well. The dish was also accompanied by a tartly flavoured cabbage salad which helped cut through the richness of it all.

The additional order of cod & potato croquettes were nice but we could have done without it. Mainly because the dishes we ordered were so heavy that we didn't need it but also because it wasn't nearly as delicious as we'd hoped it to be. I really enjoyed the flavour of the smoked cod fish but due to the potatoes being so dense, it didn't make for a very enjoyable eating experience. I personally think it would have been better if the potatoes were creamier or if it was accompanied by slightly more mayonnaise to help lighten it up.

Overall though, the food was really enjoyable and when you pair that with great company, what food you eat really doesn't matter all too much. I think it was a great choice to pick Essen as the restaurant we visited.