Ronnie Mandler is not content to be the sausage king of Union Square, so he opened a second branch of his eponymous meat haus in Hell’s Kitchen. The long menu features variations on one theme: ground meat stuffed in natural casings, grilled. Mandler’s biggest hurdle on the road to total tube steak domination is America’s familiarity with the subject. Do we really need another purveyor of fatty excess, which our national obesity rate clearly shows us as incapable of handling? Well, the sausages are really, really good. Get the onion roll and a brat, beef, chorizo or andouille, then top it with fried onions (or kraut). They’re all $5.45 and disturbingly touted as being 9-inches long, which, whatever else that might mean, indicates that one is enough. Whatever flavor profile you end up with is easily modified by virtue of the mustard bar. Try the impossibly fresh tasting horseradish variety. The menu is rounded out with a test-kitchen mishmash of crepes ($5.95), Mandlers-in-a-blanket (the blanket being a soggy puff pastry, $1.95), very good zucchini fritters ($2.75) and corn fritters ($2.75). If 8th Avenue is too far west, Ronnie will bring the sausage party to you via Home Shopping Network, catering, local delivery and, soon, franchises—adroitly minimizing time between knockwursts.
601 8th Ave. (betw. 39th & 40th), 212-244-4777
