First Meal in Vienna!

The first meal in another country is usually a special affair for me. It is the anticipation of knowing I have arrived and am about to embark on an adventurous time. Last night was the case for me. My hostess who is temporarily living in Vienna for five months for work... she searched online for the best of Vienna. She found this place not too far from her dormitory. On the way there, we engaged into perfectly harmless snowball fights because the snow here was too dry to make real balls.

A guy in the group is from Australia and he was commenting how it was quite an affair to take off the layers to sit down to dine. We celebrated the beginning of the weekend with the house red wine... oh wow! It was smooth! Because I did not eat all day... last meal was the breakfast on the flight, I was famished yet I did not want to stuff myself. I decided to go with the tagesuppe (soup of the day). It was some kind of fish soup... I experienced flavors that I have never had before. It was some type of dark, meaty fish in a broth-based soup with some vegetables, including one white vegetable I have not eaten before. It was a nice warm-up to the Austrian cuisine.

The menu, written in German, was difficult to decipher. Last fall when I was visiting Germany, I had a handy book called "The Hungry Traveler: Menu Translator and Food Guide" for Germany. It was a handy tool. I thought that this would come in handy for Austria. Not quite so! I learned that Austria had their own dialect so some words are written differently. Oy. That adds to the adventure though.

My simple entree was eiernockerl (egg dumplings) and a green salad. I cannot begin to describe the entree. It was simple, comforting. It reminded me of matzo brei but just different. We ended the meal with a crepe with chocolate sauce. Yum. The meal was sensational... with the right combination of food and company. Ironically, our waiter who could not speak English was wearing a t-shirt "The Dream Team: Los Angeles". Ahh... where I had just come from, southern California.

Here's to more culinary adventures in Austria. :-)