Healdsburg's Wurst is the best

The sausages are delicious, and we'll get to them in a minute, but The Wurst (Wurst is the German word for sausage — hence liverwurst, bratwurst, etc.) has one of the best burgers in Wine Country.

It's called the SMASHburger ($8.75, 3½ stars). The cook starts by tossing a handful of spice blend (salt, pepper, spices) onto a griddle, then laying a slice of raw onion on top of it. He puts a half pound of ground, grass-fed beef, grown locally in Healdsburg, on the onion, and smashes the ground beef into a round patty with his fist so the onion is held by the meat.

This stays on the hot griddle until the onion is caramelized and the patty is done on that side, then it's flipped and a slice of sharp cheddar laid on top to melt while the meat finishes cooking. The burger is done medium, so there's still pink showing in the middle. Next, fry sauce is spread on the bun.

What's fry sauce, you ask? It's a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise and sometimes a little pinch of cayenne to spice things up. If you've spent any time in Salt Lake City, you'll have encountered fry sauce. What it's doing in a German beer garden in Healdsburg run by someone from Detroit is anyone's guess, but it's perfect on this burger. Now the top of the bun is put on.

It's a big sloppy burger, so lean over your plate or you'll get it all over yourself. There are plenty of burgers served around Healdsburg, but The Wurst's are the best.

Among fried things for dipping, there's a hit and a miss. The hit is Fresh Cut French Fries ($4, 2 stars), decent fries, although not up to some of the perfect fries that have been showing up in some of the new casual restaurants in this region. These are a trifle soggy, but good. They're served with your choice of dipping sauces. Choose among Buttermilk Maytag Blue, Truffle Aioli, Roasted Garlic Parmesan Aioli, Spicy Harissa Aioli, Liar's Dice Barbecue, and Lemon Pepper Tarragon Ranch. The Harissa Aioli was particularly snappy. The miss is Onion Rings ($5, 1 star), which are commercial rings purchased from a purveyor. These are almost always a disappointment.

The sausage sandwiches are served on toasted hot dog buns. The links are grilled and you get your choice of two toppings from among sweet onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, and sauerkraut. Adding a third topping will cost you an additional 50 cents. The sandwiches are $6.75 each. They all earned a solid three stars, except for the amazing Detroit Polish, which was as good a Polish kielbasa as I've encountered. It earned three and a half stars.

Two of the sausages are imported. The bratwurst is made in Sheboygan, Wis. It's not boiled in Pabst and onions before grilling, like they do in Milwaukee, but it's plenty good nevertheless — and it's a favorite among Giants fans at AT&T Park. The Detroit Polish is made in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit a few miles southwest down Route 94, and it is true to its Polish heritage, with pork and beef ground and mixed with beer, onions, spices and garlic. Of course, there are dozens of kinds of Polish sausage, but this is what you think of when you think kielbasa — red in color, spicy and succulent. If you want to be really authentic, horseradish and mustard would supplant those other toppings.

The Wurst offers six other kinds of sausage made under contract by a shop in Sebastopol. They include The Wurst (pork, sage, fennel seed, parsley and smoked paprika), Harissa Hottie (pork, beef, apricot, harissa, habañero peppers and coriander), Smoked Beer Sausage (pork, beer and hot spices), Sweet Italian (classic pork, fennel and spices), Tricky Chicken (chicken, smoked paprika, preserved lemon, pine nuts), and Chicken Apple (chicken, apples, sherry, thyme and sage). All the sandwiches come with good, tangy-sweet Memphis style cole slaw.

You can take a bag of these sandwiches outside and sit under the umbrellas on the long patio tables, or go farther afield on a picnic. Or if you want to cook them yourself, there's a cold case with the sausages on display, ready to go home with you.

Eight beers and ales, including Dale's Pale Ale, Bear Republic's Racer 5 IPA, Tiburon Blond, Scrimshaw Pils, Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Sudwerk Hefeweisen, Boont Amber and Arrogant Bastard Ale, will help the brats go down.

Dessert was a chocolate malted milkshake ($6.75, 3 stars). Man alive, that was good!

To sum up: Sausage and burgers and beer, oh my!

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.