Ashley arrived on Saturday night and, shamefully, had me beat with knowledge of Vienna I didn't have despite having never been here before. She had read about "Restaurant Week", a promotional week where most of the nicer restaurants in the city were offering €25 three course dinners and €12,50 two course lunches. Unfortunately the week was ending the following day, but she already had reservations for dinner Saturday night and both lunch and dinner Sunday and asked if I wanted to come along. Conveniently enough I had not had dinner when she arrived on Saturday and I thought it sounded like a great idea. Her reservations that night were at Hill, a restaurant very close to Grinzing in the 19th district. We enjoyed a delicious variation on a caprese salad, followed with savory grilled trout over an apricot risotto (the Viennese, or perhaps the Austrians, LOVE their apricots), all with a glass of local red wine. They followed this up with raspberry sorbet in a glass which they poured champagne over after bringing it to the table. Finally dessert which consisted of a couple of still warm semi-sweet dumplings, homemade vanilla eis (ice cream), and ripe cherries, accompanied by a glass of dessert wine. Definitely a restaurant I would recommend, even without it being "Restaurant Week".
Same idea for lunch, this time at Anna Sacher. Five star hotel (Hotel Sacher) = amazing restaurant. I think I would have enjoyed the meal no matter its quality anyway just because the interior design was so elegant in a rich green with black furniture that had gold accents. However, as one might imagine, the food matched its setting so we were able to enjoy both. This, of course, followed by a slice of Sachertorte, one of Vienna's most famous culinary specialties, since we were at Hotel Sacher, home of the original Sachertorte.
Picture from last summer, though of course dined on at the Sacher Cafe
We decided to forgo her dinner reservations for that night, but I would certainly say those were a successful two meals. Ate lunch with Steffie at the Naschmarkt on Monday; it was nice catching up with her and hearing about her updates in her preparation for Bangkok where she was invited to go teach chamber music for a year.
I also learned how to make Wiener Schnitzel yesterday. Günter came by in the morning and took me to a great meat market not far from the house to get the veal. I was pleased to note that they had venison, though Günter called it "fawn" and he's completely fluent in English so I doubt that he mis-used the word. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few more ingredients, then back to the house to undertake my true initiation as a Viennese resident. If you have any idea what Wiener Schnitzel is, you probably won't find it hard to imagine that the preparation is very similar to a good ol' southern chicken fry. I think the whole process from market to post-meal chatting lasted two hours. I was also amused because after we breaded the schnitzel Günter dumped the breading ingredients together and mixed them to make a "veggie schnitzel pattie" to fry. I was a bit skeptical of it as it lacked meat, though I did try a bite.
Oh, other notable food-related note: I discovered a store in Vienna that sells an assortment of Lebkuchen... I think I'm going to have to start running more.
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