Vienna Just returned from my

Vienna

Just returned from my 8 days in Vienna. Grandma's 80th, a bit of a party and a family reunion, with family from 4 countries in 2 continents.
The short version of my stay in Vienna is the culinary gtour: What I ate and where I ate it.

The tour begins on a friday afternoon onboard the SAS run MacDonnell Douglas MD-87 from Copenhagen to Vienna. I ate some obscure, cold nudels with chicken, and drank a small can of Austrian Ottakringer beer.
Safely arrived in Vienna the real culinary journey begins, friday night at Plachutta in the Wollzeile. A restaurant known for it's cooked veal dishes and soups, and conveniently located just around the corner from my grandparents place in the Dominikanerbastei.
I had the house speciality, starting of with a clear soup with nudels, followed by 3 select cuts of veal, accompanued by potato rösti and spinach.

Saturday morning,in the Cafe Prückel, a portion of Bacon and Eggs and a cup of coffee started me off on that days excess calory intake.
Saturday lunch, in a busy cafe and "konditorei" in the Kärtner strasse with just a small bowl of frittaten soup, was followed by a small sandwich at the airport cafe while waiting for my brother Miki to arrive from Mexico.
That same evening at the Do&Co in the Haas Haus, right on the central  Stefansplatz, I started of wih 4 excellent Nigiri (Sushi), followed by an equally excellent Thai Phuket Satay. For desert I helped my self to a trio of cheeses. A great  Roquefort Papillon, a creamy  Chevre de Cabray, and a fine Reblochon

Sunday morning, back at the  Cafe Prückel, I bravely limited myself to a melange and some breadrolls with chese.
For Lunch, after visiting, for probably the last time before it's sold, my grandparents lakeside  summerhouse in Neufeld a.d. Leitha, we stopped of in Baden, to go to yet another branch of Do&Co, next to the Austria Casino Baden. Here I feasted on a wonderful pumpkin cream soup, followed a simple leaf salad with roquefort dresing.
Exhausted after a long day, on Sunday night we popped in to the Cafe Europe on Kartnerstrasse, for another fritattensuppe, followed by reasonable well made lamm chops.

Monday morning, once again found us at the local Cafe Prückel for Ham & Eggs with coffee.
At lunch, before getting ready for the big monday night party, we went back to Plachutta, the soup and cooked veal restaurant, were I opted for the speciality again, only substituting fritatten for nudles in the soup, and a low-fat shouldr cut, for the 3 selct cut of my last visit.
The night of the celebration. Monday night, at the Hotel City-Central across the Danube Canal from the ciy center, we celebrated the 80th birthday which brought us all to Vienna. Since the food consisted of, not 1 but 3 large, and rather delicate kosher buffets, I can't even begin to list all the things I had, but amongst the delicacies were gefillte fish, tahina and chocolate covered strawberries.

Tuesday morning, back at the Café Prückel for Bacon & Eggs with Coffee.
Lunch at the local inn, Pfudl started with another Frittaten Soup, followed by a veal Cordon Bleu.
Tuesday night we went for a quick snack at the local italian (Da Casa), and I chose the delectable Caprese Classico (Tomato and Mozarella salad) followed Linguine con Salmone (Paste with Salmon).

Wednesday was by far the least exorbitant of this culinary tour-de-force.
Breakfast at my grandparents house, a simple breakfast of bread and cheese and sausage with black tea.
Lunch at the Café Prückel was simply a couple of frankfurters, a breadroll, and plenty of mustard and horse-radish.
After going to see the sweet and lovely french film, "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain", I poped into a local cafe with my brother Miki, where I had chickenbreast with a mushroom cream sauce and fine nudels.

Thursday was healthy breakfast day, with a nice bowl of cereals eaten at home, followed by a Melange coffee across the road at Aida.
Lunch at the turkish inspired lunch restaurant, Kervansaray started with a great Pumpkin Cream Soup, and continued with an excellent Döner Kebab and ended with a turksih coffee and Baklava.
For dinner I met up with my friend from GeekCorps Ghana Trip, Jason at a spanish bar called El Pulpo, near the Schwedenplatz. The food wasn't up to standard, since the Paella de la casa (seafood paella) was a little on the dull side, but it was a decent wholesome meal nevertheless.

Friday brought another cheese and bread home breafast, and a return to the by now, well-known Café Prückel for lunch. A gulaschsoup was followed by the single worst dish I had during my stay in Vienna, a Bauernomelette (Farmers omelet) which was a basic omelet, topped with a pile of frozen peas, carrot pieces and potato-cubes, cooked almost to imperfection by the poor excuse for a chef.
Dinner was my last night in vienna, and to celebrate, the remains of my family went to the very nice, and comfortable Italian restaurant Grotta Azzura where I had a very, very good beef carpaccio, Ravioli with delicious mushroom sauce and fillings, and some wonderfully "light" profiteroles with chocolate sauce.

That basically ended a culinary week in in Vienna, since saturday saw a much less exciting finis to the week, with another serving of bread and cheese at my grandparents house, followed again by one of theose small yet practically inedible airplane selections. This time consisting of ice-cold rice with chicken and a satay sauce that would have been wonderful if it had been heated for jsut a few seconds in the microwave. As it was it was quite frnkly horrible, and therefore exactly met my expectations for in-flight lunch.