That soup tasted funny

The one thing people need to know about me is, that from time to time I am surprisingly spontaneous. So the other day I was on a bus and was passing by this one restaurant called Thai Kitchen. No, this post is not about this restaurant. Hm, you see. Very spontaneous.

The taste of this soup was rather unexpected

Anyhow. I jumped off the bus and walked back only to find out that the restaurant was closed due to vacation reasons. Damn. Now, I had to find another place to get my lunch. Luckily I was close to Naschmarkt around U4 Kettenbrückengasse. And yes, this is some sort of a China Town or better Asian Town. In this area of Vienna there are many rather authentic Asian restaurants, shops, haircutters etc. So I thought: no problem, I find something else. And so I walked towards Naschmarkt.

Eventually I ended up at Pho Saigon on Naschmarkt. Now this restaurant is connected to the restaurant called “Saigon” on Getreidemarkt und is more or less the mini version of that one. It also has a small Asian grocery store. During lunch time you get special meal offers and they are all Vietnamese food. Each lunch special consists of the daily soup, main course and dessert. In the beginning I was unsure what to take. I always think that Vietnamese dishes sound completely unspectacular. It is like “beef with basil and lemongrass”. Doesn’t sound fancy, or? But when you order it it is soo delicious! For me I chose the tofu with veggies. I had to take Vietnamese rolls in addition to the soup. I love Vietnamese rolls – no matter which one.

I love Vietnamese rolls - any whether they are cold or warm.

I love Vietnamese rolls. Any kind whether they are cold or warm – it doesn’t matter.

But first came the soup – the unexpected star of the whole meal. In the end I came to the conclusion that it was the Vietnamese variation of a sweet n’ sour soup. It had chunks of pineapples, it tasted chili spicy and sweet and unexpected. I have to admit I never tasted something like that before and I have tried a lot in my life. It had really nothing to do with anything I ever tried. It didn’t even come close. I have to say although I liked it I would not order a soup like that on purpose.

The Vietnamese rolls pretty much came with the main course. They were filled with seafood and covered in fried rice noodles. I always love the dip that comes with them. Fish sauce here we come. I really don’t mind that entree and main course sometimes come at the same time at Asian restaurants. I just eat cross-course.

The tofu with veggies was just as good as the other two courses.

And of course, I also enjoyed the main course. I think they put oyster sauce. It was really yummy. I really like that restaurant. Right at the spot where this restaurant is located you also have a number of other Asian restaurants. One is right on the opposite. It has Japanese, Chinese, Thai food. But don’t fall for that when you are at Naschmarkt. It is always much better not to choose the trans-Asian restaurants that offer all cuisines at once. They all have the same food and the taste is like an instant-food-jolly – all but not exciting.

Info: Phò Sài Gòn, Naschmarkt, Stand 191 – 194, phone: 01 585 02 24, internet: www.saigon.at, opening hours: Mo – Sa 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. in summer and winter 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., they take credit cards, I am not sure about smoking but I guess it is non-smoking, you can reach the restaurant by getting off at U4 Kettenbrückengasse and walking towards the city centre on Naschmarkt, take the aisle of stands that is the furtherst left one and there the restaurant is on the right side.

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Green Cottage Part II: This time the Chinese one

Last week was the week when I spent my time outside Vienna at an Austrian lake called Traunsee. It was wonderful – believe me. But what was missing was the variety of different cuisines. Don’t get me wrong! I love Austrian food – its my home food in the end. But I do need other food too – especially Asian one. So today I had to get some Chinese food. And there is one restaurant close to Naschmarkt which serves really good Chinese food.

Green Cottage – great Chinese restaurant close to Naschmarkt

You can find it right close to the U4 stop Kettenbrückengasse. You just need to walk away from Naschmarkt along Kettenbrücckengasse and you find it on the right side. There is an outdoor area too and since it was a wonderful day I wanted to sit outside. There was nobody though and so I had to get the waiter who was inside the restaurant.

During the week they serve lunch specials consisting of one entree, which today was either daily soup or daily salad and one main course. You choose from 7 or 8 different main courses all at different prices. These lunch specials are somehow affordable. Other than the lunch specials I would say that the restaurant serves food slightly more expensive than in regular restaurants but it is wonderful food. And so you can find stir-fried duck with green thai asparagus or some other Chinese food which is out of the ordinary. In their menue they state that they get their veggies from Naschmarkt. I guess I have to believe them as I cannot prove it.

It is more of a fancy schmancy restaurant – they give you fresh cutlery for every course

Since they had these lunch specials today I decided to take one this time. I decided to take the salad as an entree – since I don’t particularly feel like soup for lunch in summer. And as the main course I chose the trout with veggies. The weekly menue also stated that there was a three-course business lunch but for 18 Euros that was much too expensive for me – plus it didn’t say what it contained and I didn’t want to ask. The waiter who took my order had to check whether they still had the trout but fortunately they did. I once experienced that they ran out of something even though it was on the menue. But that is ok as I think that this is a good sign that food is fresh here.

The entree was the Cottage salad

So, the first course was the Cottage salad and it said that there was some sort of dressing coming with the salad. It turned out that it was pretty sour dressing as they used lots of vinegar. But it was ok since they also had celery beets cut into the salad and I have to say without the sour dressing I would have not wanted to eat the celery as I don’t like celery.

The trout filet was definitely yummy!

The main course was the highlight of the meal though. The fish was wonderful although part of it caught quite some salt and made the veggies salty too. But other than that it was perfect. The veggies were really fresh and they chopped some zucchini and pak choi also so I had two of my favorite veggies there. That was really yummy. The fish was crispy. It was great!

The size of the meal was sufficient although I have never been stuffed when I came here for food. The time before I ordered the tofu and it was not enough food. So in any case I would suggest to also order a first course or a dessert. Then you are on the safe side. The fact that I have also seen Chinese eat here is also a sign for me that this is a great place. So if you are at Naschmarkt you might consider coming here instead of the other restaurants on Naschmarkt.

Info: Green Cottage (http://www.green-cottage.at), Kettenbrückengasse 3, 1040 Vienna; phone: +43/(0)1/5866581; fax: +43/(0)1/5866581; mail: info@green-cottage.at; opening hours: Mon – Sat 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Sun closed, all major credit cards

Anything but Sacher Torte

No, us Viennese don’t go to Demel and probably not that much to the Café Sacher either. And there is the traditional café where you get all these traditional cakes for which Vienna is somehow famous and there is an alternative – much nicer, much more for people that like to have a nice piece of cake at a cosy place.

Close to Schwedenplatz there is a nice little cake shop – the Fett und Zucker

Yesterday I wanted to visit this one restaurant at Rotenturmstrasse which I hadn’t visited for some time and which I loved a lot. It is a Chinese restaurant which served not this transfusion Asian food but the owner tried to offer really great food like vegetarian chicken and so on. Turned out that this place changed considerably. The nice owner was no longer here instead there were two faceless waitresses. You probably know that when you go to a restaurant and the waitresses don’t relate to the restaurant at all. They are just there to make their job. Some even go that far that they don’t care much whether you are here or not as long as they get their pay check. And so after having some rather disappointing lunch I had to get something to cheer me up again.

Since I was at Schwedenplatz already I thought I just walk over the Salztor bridge to the 2nd district and go to Hollandstrasse. There is a little shop close to the Karmelitermarkt which opened a bit over a year ago and which is just the idea of a few people that love to bake cake and sell it.

And so from the beginning this place was a hotspot for the young people – mostly students. In summer they just sit outside in front of the shop but the interior is quite lovely and individualistic as well. When I last visited the shop it was not quite finished, there were tons of people and hardly any space.

The interior of the Fett und Zucker – where probably no chair is like the other

The one serving me I guess she was one of the owners. She was really nice when I got the cake and did not insist that I pay immediately but told me I should make myself comfortable, eat my cake first and pay whenever I am ready. Of course, as always I did not know what to take at first. Fortunately they have a menue and it turned out that they not only offer cake like when they first opened the shop but also other things like breakfast and salad as well. Still, I had to get a piece of cake. Remember: depressions because of my bad lunch experience. So I decided for a poppy seed cake with plum jam and something that tasted like a vanilla cream. It was a glutenfree cake.

The cakes are really simple somehow but just so yummy. Here the poppy seed cake.

Like with all cakes you get here they tell you whether it is a vegan cake or lactose-free or whatever dietary information you need. That is really cool. I know of hardly any place in Vienna where you get vegetarian cake on purpose. And so I think this place is really a tip for all of you who like to get some nice vegetarian or vegan cake. They also have a changing selection of cakes also depending on seasonal fruits or whatever they like to bake.

I think this place to be really nice. Far from the over-fancy cafés where you get a piece of cake which turns out to be a chunk of sugar cause it is so sweet.

Info: Fett und Zucker (http://www.fettundzucker.at), Hollandstrasse 16, 1020 Vienna; phone +43/699/116 60 092; mail office@fettundzucker.at, I don’t provide you with the opening hours here since they are different in summer and winter, I guess it is best if you visit their homepage to the find out about them, no credit cards

Beetroot Sorbet? WTF?!

Actually no. My first reaction was not that mean. It was rather that of pure curiosity. Veggies as ice cream – something you hardly get in Vienna. I know of goat cheese ice cream at Eis Greissler. But here at Lepantos they pretty much have just the alternative flavors. Here tangerine-lime is already very conservative. And so this place calls its ice cream exceptional.

It is truly a place to enjoy extraordinary ice cream. The Lepantos at Ballgasse in the 1st district

It is a rather new ice cream parlor at the centre of Vienna close to Kärntner Straße. It is situated in a narrow side street close to the Steffl department store. And so as soon as I found out about it I had to go there. In the end: Vienna is currently a ice hot spot. You have to have everything that is somehow connected to ice: Frozen yogurt, bubble ice tea and now veggie ice sorbet.

So when I arrived at the place there was this one guy. It turned out that he was pretty friendly. First he thought I was a tourist with my camera and started talking in English to me. As soon as I answered in Viennese German it was clear that I was not a tourist. First he asked me if I’d like to have some ice cream. I answered with yes and said it was pretty hard to decide with all these atypical ice cream flavors. There were two flavors with alcohol (one was with cherry and vodka and I can’t remember the other one) and then there was the caramel with sea salt (the sea salt scared me off though – I have to admit) and of course the beetroot one. So I asked him whether I could try the beetroot ice cream. Hm, it was yummy.

The beetroot ice cream is certainly something completely different but don’t be scared it tastes just fine.

With this success at hand I decided to take the medium size which means you can choose three flavors. The cup you get is not very large but ok. I decided for the ginger honey one first and of course the beetroot. As a third one I took the tangerine lime sorbet as it was really hot and I needed something to cool me off. To eat the ice cream I chose one of the comfortable chairs outside. Fortunately there was shade so it was not too hot.

I took the ginger-honey, the tangerine-lime and the beetroot sorbets.

But it seems that it was still hot enough. Because the sorbet was melting pretty fast and since the cup was rather small the ice cream decided not to stay inside the cup for too long but made its way down to the table. So my mission was to eat fast which was not that difficult as the sorbet tasted really nicely. A bit sweet but not to sweet. The beetroot is really something yummy although I would not want to eat it every day. I still like the good old chocolate ice cream once in a while. The ice cream is not too cheap either as the medium size cost me 3,80 Euro. Compared to that: in regular ice cream parlor it is around 2,50 Euro for three scoops. But in this case I would rather compare it to the frozen yogurt places which are somehow in the same price range. In the end: you are not eating any ice cream but exceptional one. And for once in a while it is something really cool to get especially since they are regularly changing their flavors and I have heard of cucumber-wasabi ice cream already. Hm. Maybe the next time.

Info: Lepantos (http://lepantos.at), 1, Ballgasse 4; phone: +43/(0)650/340 75 96; email: office@lepantos.at; opening hours: Mo 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., Tue – Sat. noon – 8:00 p.m. , Sun 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.; you can reach the place by getting off at Stephansplatz and walking toward the Steffl department store then going inside and walking right to the other end to exit the store at the opposite site and there is already the Ballgasse with the Lepantos in front of you

Muesli: The Raisin Question

Yes, there are some people out there that do not appreciate raisins in their muesli. And for those that feel that way there is a solution in Vienna – the Corns n’ Pops store at Gumpendorfer Strasse close to Naschmarkt.

Corns n’Pops is the place to go if you are a muesli fan

Well, this is truly a place for really yummy muesli. And so the other day, I just felt like getting some. So I made my way to Gumpendorfer Strasse although it was raining … well, it was raining a lot. But I was on a mission – getting this cup and filling it with yummy stuff to eat it either as breakfast or as dinner.

The concept is simple. You either choose a pre-prepared muesli mixture or you just mix your own. There are sizes from which you can choose from – the smallest starting at 4 Euros, and then there is the plastic bag for 8 and the bottle for 10 Euros. I have to admit that for me muesli for 10 Euros is just too expensive – ok, there is more inside the bottle but still. For me it is a treat and therefore I take the small cup.

Corns n’Pops: First you choose the size and then whether you like the pre-prepared version or want to mix it yourself

And then starts the decision making. I always have a hard time to decide what to take when there are soo many options. So I just make the best out of it. Very important: always try to fit as much as possible into the cup since you are paying for the volume and not the weight. So shaking the cup from time to time and combining small stuff with larger ones will help to fit as much as possible.

As for the ingredients you can choose from different cereals to lots of different fruits like dried mangos, craneberries, apples, apricots you name it to chocolate drops, M&Ms and some more exotic ingredients like glacéed ginger and aloe vera which I like a lot too.

In the end my cup was filled with yummy muesli to take home

For those that can’t just wait to eat it, the shop owners offer you milk and you can eat it at the shop. As a matter of fact this place is not just for muesli. In the end, you can also get a nice lunch special. They offer one meal everyday and you can also sit in to enjoy something to drink. There they offer some really exciting stuff like a chai frappé or milk shakes with cherry blossom and almonds.

For those that not only want to get some muesli there is also some exciting stuff to drink

I do like this place a lot and I also like the dynamic and young owners here. They really opened a store here which is unique. For me when I want to get some special muesli I come here and get a cup. Of course, I have to admit after I get home it does not survive for long. It really tastes great – much better than the one you get in the supermarket. Plus you can choose the ingredients you like and leave the ones that you don’t like – like raisins for example.

Info: Corns n’Pops (http://www.cornsnpops.com), Gumpendorfer Strasse 37, 1060 Vienna; phone: +43/664/131 20 05; email: office@cornsnpops.com; opening hours: Mon to Fri 7:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sat 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.; you reach the place either by bus (57A stop at Stiegengasse) or by U4 getting off at Kettenbrückengasse and when you are facing towards the city centre you walk left up Stiegengasse and then at the next street which is Gumpendorfer Strasse you turn to your right.

Bubbletea: How Tealicious!

Tea with milk – not exactly what we drink in Vienna. Taro Milk Tea – yes good! Bubbletea has conquered Vienna and it all started last year. This year you can find a bubbletea shop at every corner. But there is one bubbletea shop which I particularly like. It is tealicious bubbletea in Margaretenstrasse close to Karlsplatz and Naschmarkt. I think it was the first shop in Vienna and I believe it is the best.

tealicious is a small bubbletea shop in Margaretenstrasse

I love their stuff so much that I once went there in the pouring rain with no umbrella but the courage: yes, now that I have got my lunch at Naschmarkt, I must have my bubbletea for dessert.

In summer bubbletea is especially great and at tealicious they have a constantly changing menue. They have their traditional bubbleteas with matcha latte, chai latte und taro latte and they have the teas with fruit flavors where they sometimes have litchi, mango or even guava – I love the guava one because there is hardly any place in Vienna where you can get guava juice.

You can choose from a variety of bubbleteas - confusing in the beginning but just try one by one they are all tealicious

I myself started of with the bubble fruit teas and made my way to taro latte which I now chose to be my favorite flavor. After you have chosen what bubbletea you like you decide on the topping. For me, I recommend having a fruitty topping in fruit teas and toppings like tapioca in bubble latte teas. Although nata de coco in mango tea is delicious too. You can also choose between two sizes and whether you like your tea warm or cold. I always go for the large size cold. For those who are vegans you can also choose soy milk and have your milk tea version vegan.

For me it is always the Taro Latte large, cold with tapioca

So for me always taro latte with matcha latte for a change once in a while. The matcha latte is for the absolute experts though. It tastes like gras you mix with milk and so I needed some time to get used to. But it is less sweet than the taro latte. Yes, bubbletea is great. Now that summer comes I will again drink it more often. And eventhough there are lots of bubbletea shops and many of them are cheaper than tealicious I will prefer going to this shop.

Info: tealicious – bubbletea boutique, Margaretenstrasse 22, A-1040 Vienna; internet http://www.tea-licious.at; opening hours Mon to Sat 12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., Sun closed; no credit cards; you can reach the shop by getting off at Karlsplatz with U1, U2, U4 or any tram or bus that goes there and then make your way on Operngase from the centre and there you will find the shop on the right side but be careful: it is small so that you don’t miss it.

Tofu & Chili

Guess what? Yes, the restaurant Tofu & Chili is called Tofu & Chili because they put tofu and chili in their food.

It was already late in the afternoon when I was there the last time. The music was a Chinese cleaning lady constantly shouting something in Chinese to the waitress who didn’t seem to listen but was busy with reading the paper. When I entered this small, very small, restaurant which is more like a diner, there was only one other customer left. So plenty of space for me to choose from which is completely unusual because this place is very popular among students from the Technical University which is close by and other young people. It is located on Naschmarkt on the left side of the street when you are walking towards the centre of Vienna. And normally it is packed with people and it does not matter if you sit with a complete stranger at the table. You sit down wherever you find space.

Tofu & Chili: A small Asian diner on Naschmarkt

As soon as you sit down the waitress brings a bowl of miso soup with tofu and some veggies inside. In the end, you get a soup to every dish on the menue. There are a some categories on the menue from which you can choose from: one for Thai style food, another one for more Chinese style food. In the past they were more strict: they only served tofu with chili and e.g. chicken or seafood. Today you also get red curries or you could even get crispy duck.

Everybody gets a soup as soon as they sit down and before you order

But I always stick to the tradition and always get the same thing. As a matter of fact I always go there when I feel like eating the one thing and that is the Tofu with Seafood Thai style. Of course, you can always get it hotter but for me the amount of chili they put inside is just right. I love the sauce that comes with it. There is mostly squids and on top one nice big shrimp. In the end, I love seafood so I take it whenever I get the chance.

I always eat the Tofu with Seafood Thai style

The sizes of the meals are sufficient. Everything comes with lots of veggies so you don’t feel too stuffed. Another advantage here is that they don’t use MSG and that is what I like.Pretty much every item on the menue is a meal with soup and some fruits as dessert and there is also some cabbage salad on the side. The prizes are really cheap and I can certainly recommend this place when you spend your day shopping at the Naschmarkt. I paid for that meal 6 Euros which I think is not expensive.

Info: Tofu & Chilli, Linke Wienzeile 18, A-1060 Vienna; Phone +43/1/585 69 70; Opening Hours Mon. to Sat. 11:30 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.; no credit cards; non-smoking restaurant; everything for take-away also; you can reach the place by either taking the U-Bahn to Karlsplatz and taking the exit “Secession” and then walking on the right side of the street from the centre or you take the U4 to Kettenbrückengasse and walk towards the centre on the left side.

Irene's Vienna

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