Vienna – What to Eat and Where

We had a fabulous time at the Vienna Christmas Markets a couple of weeks ago.

One of the city’s other highlights though, is the food!

Coming from one frostbitten country to another just as blanketed in the white stuff, a salad was most definitely NOT on the menu.

Austrians like their stews in the form of goulash, and at our first port of call – Augustiner-Keller under the Albertina – I tucked into the above beef concoction, oozing with thick winey juices and accompanied by a huge dumpling and what at first we thought was a carrot, but turned out to be a sausage!

This cellar restaurant is an entertaining number, with music played nightly and very jolly staff.

As I began a long journey with my appropriately named “mass” of beer – I’d got my pints and litres mixed up – Ashley went for the chicken schnitzel.

Now these are just bashed in and seasoned bits of meat that are then deep fried until golden brown.

But the volume – they come huge – coupled with the fried potatoes make a tasty and satisfying meal – although I saw a lot of it being eaten and not one obese Viennese in sight, so I’m not sure exactly how regularly the dish is actually eaten.

Next morning our first stop for breakfast was Cafe Demel – no not named after me!

Vienna is sprinkled with very up market cafes where you can order a coffee and spend the day reading the paper or nibbling your lover’s freezing ear lobes with little fear of being scowled at or moved on for not ordering enough.

Thankfully we were famished and so summoned the cooked breakfast which consisted of baked eggs, ham and some thick brown rye bread.

The menu had offered “two eggs in a glass” but seeing as Arnie’s from Austria, we thought it might be some raw body builder’s morning mixture and gave it a miss.

A mistake I made, just because I’m not a huge cream kind of guy, was to order an Einspanner.

I really like macchiatos and the above caffeine tipple read in the menu like it was the same sort of thing. Turns out a “crown” meant an avalanche of cow stuff which I had to take a while sipping the coffee hit through.

Three other things to look out for are the soups which are clear broths and include a surprise dumpling of some kind – I had a liver dollop on our last evening – YUM!

Strudel is huge too, metaphorically and physically, as pretty much every menu offers it up as a snack or desert. It’s usually thick with apple and pastry, with a zesty tang of nutmeg tempered with icing sugar, and usually accompanied by some kind of (ice) cream….again.

Last, but not least, on every street corner and in every Christmas market, you’ll find someone selling a myriad of kinds of sausages. Bratwurst, hot dog, curry dog, sausage in a roll, sausage on a roll plus much, much more – all for just a few euros.

And if you’re really lucky, you’ll find a place that serves sausages ready infused with melting cheese stuffed into holes in enormous bread sticks that have been semi-filled with sweet mustard. (Ashley did hand mine back after I’d taken this slightly creepy photo!)

All in all we had quite a culinary adventure across the channel. The people were very friendly, the tourist sites all worth a scooby and, as for the food and beer, no wonder Mozart spent so much time living it up in this town!

PS: The only negative aspect was the smoking in restaurants. It appears it’s allowed in cornered off areas – bit like the old days – meaning after 10 minutes in one cafe where smokers were ushered behind a glass door, we came out reeking of smoke.

Hope they sort that out pretty smartish!