Title: 2/6/2013
Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

Rosamunde Sausage is expanding into the Temescal, where Good Bellies Café is currently located: http://sf.eater.com/rosamunde_in_temescal_switcheroo.php. Address will be: 4659 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland.

Rosamunde Sausage Grill 
911 Washington St. @9^th St., Oakland, Ca (in the Swan's Marketplace)
http://rosamundesausagegrill.com/downtown-oakland/menu/
Review date: February 2013

Officially called the Old Oakland Historic District, Old Oakland is a historic district in downtown Oakland, California. It's located between the City Center complex and the Jack London Square district, and is across Broadway from Chinatown. The city of Oakland not having proven adept or competent at managing its revitalization attempts, this area's had a hard time over the two decades we've been living in the East Bay.

The Old Oakland district was the "original" downtown Oakland in the 1860s. By the 1870s, elegant brick Victorian hotels were being built to accommodate railroad travelers arriving via Central Pacific Railroad. The ground floors of the hotels were a series of narrow shops so that pedestrians would pass by as many as possible while walking down the block. The Victorian architectural styles of the time featured tall, cast-iron columns and large plate-glass windows.

The downtown began its decline after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when the shopping district began moving to the blocks north of 14^th Street. In the 1970s and 1980s developers rehabilitated and restored a block along 9th Street between Washington Street and Broadway, known as "Victorian Row". 

Unfortunately, the 1987 global markets crash (remember Black Monday and the government bailout of the savings & loan industry?) left those lovely redeveloped buildings mostly empty. Things seemed promising again as the economy recovered, only to crash once more in the Dot-com Bust of 2000. 

But just as gentrification has helped the Jack London Square area, its 'spillover', and that of a vibrant Chinatown retail area just across Broadway, has slowly brought some progress to Old Oakland. 

In the heart of Old Oakland sits the old Swan's Market. Swans Marketplace was once a major shopping destination for all the East Bay. The existing structure, built in several stages from 1917—1940, encompasses an entire city block. The fine glazed brick and terra cotta has gained it a landmark listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

This classic building has had a pretty rough time of it over the last forty years, with the Redevelopment Agency periodically losing interest or funding (often both). The wonderful original Housewives' Market a few blocks away was torn down, downsized into insignificance, with the remains stuffed into a corner of the Swan. For many years the only tenants in the building were Taylor Sausages, a one-case butchery, and an uninteresting overpriced small grocery market, amidst a sea of empty ground-floor storefronts nobody wanted to rent. 

Alice Waters tried to get a permanent farmers' market with specialty vendors started in the Swan, but after seven years of no progress, gave up trying to work with the city of Oakland. Even neighboring Ratto's International Market & Deli, the great import food grocery that has been in this location since 1936, had to downsize a couple of recessions ago, barely managing to hang on by virtue of the helpful lunchtime trade in sandwiches.

But over time (fortunately well before the state of California snatched all the federal redevelopment funds away from cities to toss at the red-inked 2012 state budget) a few brave tenants staked out space in the Swan. A couple of small restaurants struggled to establish themselves. Endgame, Carlos' favorite hobby store, took the risk of jumping from a small store near the Grand Lake theatre into a large corner storefront at the Swan. Breads of India, a well-regarded Berkeley Indian restaurant, took forever to fit out a corner of the Swan for its third branch restaurant, but finally opened in 2007. A dress store even popped inside. 

Our favorite 'hidden gem', Seison in the Hotel Washington, is across the street on the east side. Cosecha, a small upscale Mexican restaurant that has gotten some nice reviews from foodies, opened in the Swan in mid-2011. A weekly farmers' market every Friday has been bringing in a good crowd. 

Even as the two smaller restaurants in the Swan (a Japanese sushi and a fried fish place, neither one very good) faltered and closed, across the street some foodie buzz was being generated. Levende East and "B" had opened good-sized restaurants opposite the Swan. Although both eventually closed due to the 2009 recession hitting them hard, the area has finally made an impact on diners' thinking. New tenants replaced them almost immediately – Borgo Italia (which we reviewed several times in 2012) and District Wine Bar (a branch of the one in SF's SoMa). 

So things are finally looking up here in the Old Oakland district. Two of the Swan's newest tenants, replacing the sushi and fried fish places, are Miss Ollie's, an Afro-Caribbean restaurant that is winning some raves, and the subject of this review, Rosamunde's Sausage Grill.

The new Rosamunde Oakland is the fourth outpost, following San Francisco's Lower Haight original, the Mission District sequel and a Brooklyn branch that opened in late 2012. Owner Josh Margolis opened his first shop in 1998 and has gradually expanded. Although the Haight St. location is so famed for its once-a-week (Tuesdays) Monster Burger that Mark Bittman of the NY Times* stopped in on a three-day exploration of San Francisco's best low-cost eateries, the Oakland location is sausages and beer only. You can get grilled sausage sandwiches, or buy the raw sausages by the piece to cook at home.

(* His writeup can be read at: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/monster-burgers-in-san-francisco/) 

Carlos and I like our hot dogs spicy, so we are very fond of local sausage maker DiBrova's Jalapeno Hot Link. Rosamunde's version is the Louisiana Hot Link. Their grilled sausage sandwiches come on a French roll with any two toppings; Carlos chose grilled onions, with the chili on the side.

It was disappointing that the grilled onions were not in proper well-cooked rings, but instead are semi-thick wedge cuts which are just shoved around on the grill for a few minutes. They get hot but not really soft, and never develop that great sweetness and charred edges that come from proper execution.

The chili is all meat, which Carlos always approves of. But we thought it was too sweet, with insufficient heat, to rank equal with Yanni's/Penngrove superior meat chili, although it is a decent topping for a grilled sausage sandwich.

Carlos gave me a bite of his sandwich, and I did like the lighter texture of Rosamunde's sausage. He said he prefers DiBrova's Jalapeno, although DiBrova (available at some specialty markets as well as a stall at the Friday Farmers Market in this area) uses a fluffy Wonder Bread-type roll instead of Rosamunde's better-quality, soft-crusted sweet French roll. In level of heat, however, DiBrova wins easily.

I chose the sausage platter, selecting a knockwurst and a beer sausage. The sides are German baked beans, sauerkraut with caraway, feta-walnut-red pepper green salad, and two slices from a small baguette. 

The all-beef knockwurst was what we Americans think of when we say "hot dog." A fat link with a crisp but not tough skin, salted just enough to stand up to a bun and toppings, it was very good. I liked the beer sausage a little better. A smoked, spicy pork and beef sausage, it has a slightly looser, chewier texture, a very crisp skin (slightly tougher due to the smoking), and the same level of heat as the Louisiana hot link did, which is still pretty mild by our personal standards. I find that many of the sausages I like best are smoked ones.

The sides were only partially successful. The beans, which are vegan, are so heavily flavored with dark molasses and sugar that they're more cloying than a Wal-Mart fake buttercream birthday cake.  The modest green salad would have been a nice combination of ingredients, if only it had a dressing.  

On the good side, the sauerkraut was decent – rinsed but still tart, with plenty of young caraway seeds. And I do mean young; these slender baby seeds were a pale beige and sweetly aromatic, not the hard, dark brown, more harshly flavored mature caraway. The bread was fresh, a fine-grained French with the soft chewy crust that we like better than the jaw-achingly overbaked sourdough that has taken over these days.

They carry flavored Pellegrino in cans, and the iced tea is Tejava brand. There's a good selection of artisanal beers to choose from – Old Oakland is a beer lover's paradise, with Pacific Coast Brewery, The Trappist, District, and now Rosamunde. The seats are all communal tables with attached bench seating, and customers are tasked with busing their own dishes. There's a side table with a number of squeezable spreads: garlic-pepper mayo, ketchup, curry ketchup, and three different types of mustards.

One serious issue is that their mini-kitchen is cramped and their order fulfillment process is inefficient. They don't have a separate setup for buying the fresh sausages, which causes a lot of awkward maneuvering at peak lunch times. The three staffers have to dance around one another in a tight 5' galley area: one tries to work the cash register and get the drinks (which are at the opposite end furthest from the register); one person cooks sausages and assembles sandwiches; while the third either gets the toppings, extra sides, or laboriously wraps up fresh sausages for purchase. 

It's a terrible system, and more than five or six orders creates a considerable back-up. On the good side, the staff were young and cheerful, which according to Yelp is not at all the case at Rosamunde's other locations.

We can't say that Rosamunde is an unqualified success. It's nice to have a 7-day-a-week place to get some decent sausages grilled up, but overall we prefer the DiBrova brand. 

Two people, lunch: one sandwich, one platter, two beverages, $23.50.

Addendum: We bought a couple of types of their raw sausages to try at home. Once past the inefficient order fulfillment system (see above for a description of the kitchen setup), you get 2-4 sausages carefully, slowly, wrapped in foil, then in greased brown paper. 

Honestly, if they'd just throw them in a plastic bag we could all get out the door a lot faster. 

There is also the freshness factor to consider. We bought a hot link, and in less than four days it became unpleasantly vinegary-tasting when we cooked it. Since we hadn't tasted any vinegar when Carlos got the grilled hot link (we bought the bulk sausages at the same time), we weren't too pleased by this. If you're not going to eat these sausages within a day, freeze them immediately. 

We also bought the merguez. Although it is not as good as some of the Middle Eastern ethnic markets offer, Rosamunde's merguez is superior to the bland, too-overplump-and-finely-textured D'Artagnan brand that many restaurants are now using.

Be sure to check the bottom signboard above the register: it lists the daily special sausages, of which there were three additional sausages available, either cooked or for the $3/each price.

Rosamunde's gets an almost 5-star rating on Yelp. That says volumes about the low quality of the average American hot dog or Hillshire Farms/Johnson's/Jimmy Dean sausages. But this is the Bay Area, home to some fine upscale corporate brands, such as Niman Ranch, Saag, and Aidell, in addition to DiBrova. All of these are superior to Rosamunde. And in our eyes, these again pale in comparison to Yanni's/Penngrove superior grilled sausage sandwiches, with that fabulous pressed Full Circle Bakery French roll.

Rosamunde's sausages are good but not great. We'd rate them below Saag's Naturals line and anything from DiBrova. The bread and the sauerkraut are decent, but the chili and the baked beans were below par in their flavor profiles.

Will this place succeed? Well, people seemed to be trickling in to order lunch. And there aren't many places in this area where you can get a decent hot $6 sandwich…so maybe Rosamunde will find its niche and succeed.

But we'll be at Yanni's….or maybe frying up DiBrova's Jalapeno Hot Links at home.

Prices for the links vary slightly. The merguez, duck, wild boar, and knockwurst wrapped in bacon are $3 each. The others, including the two Taylor's sausages which you can also buy at Taylor's inside the Marketplace about 25' away from Rosamunde's counter, are $2.50 each at Rosamunde (we didn't do any price comparison, however).