Tag Archives for wok

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

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Sichuan: Yes, you have to walk inside on the zig-zag path

It is probably one of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in a district of Vienna where you might least expect it – the Sichuan Restaurant in the 22nd district far outside the city centre at the Alte Donau (Old Danube). Not only does it serve typical Chinese cuisine but in fact it serves one of the four most influential cuisines of China – the Szechuan cuisine.

At the Sichuan Restaurant you can enjoy your food at a wonderful terrace with a view

And because the restaurant mainly serves Szechuan cuisine the food does not lack chili and other exciting spices. So don’t expect something too mild here. But that is exactly when things start to get exciting, right. That is why I love coming here.

To reach this place you need to get off at U1 Alte Donau take the exit and walk towards the swimming baths and there on the left side you cannot miss it. It truly does look like a Chinese house somewhere far from Vienna. And yes, it does follow the tradition that you do not walk inside a house by walking zig-zag. Because it is the Chinese that believe that the evil spirits cannot walk zig-zag and so you need to build entrance areas accordingly.

As soon as you reach the entrance door you find out that this place is decorated with lots of awards and that the people that come here are very often employees of the United Nations which is just one subway stop away. And so you might sit among a chitchat of lots of different languages and people.

The special lunch meal offers you three courses. This times’ starter: spicy-sour noodle salad

As for the food the restaurant offers a special meal every day on work days for little bit over 9 Euros as well as the typical lunch meals except here you find food like kung pao chicken and mapo dofu instead of the regular crispy chicken something. The special lunch meal gives you entree, main course and dessert where you can leave out the dessert to pay less. This time I took this offer and started off with a spicy noodle salad followed by stir fried duck with veggies and rice.

The main course of the special lunch meal was stir fried duck with veggies and rice

The duck really tasted nice but was completely different from the typical crispy duck. But I really liked the taste – again not missing the chillies. At the end came the dessert. I thought this time I had to have one as they served baked ice cream. You probably all know that one: where they put alcohol on top of the dough and burn it. There there was no alcohol and no burning but some outer shell around the ice cream and something I liked a lot which was pretty much like a cake.

The dessert was especially yummy: baked ice cream

And so the dessert was the perfect conclusion of a perfect lunch. The sizes of the meals are not enormous instead the restaurant is very considerate when it comes to quality and when it comes to satisfying the wishes of the guests. Here it is normal that the waiter helps the customer choose the right dish and recommends him something. Just like in China where the customer tells the waiter what kind of food he wants to eat and the waiter tailors the meal selection to his wishes. I truly like this here.

The bill comes in style at the Sichuan Restaurant

Still, it is not a cheap restaurant but it is also a restaurant where you can meet with a group of people and ask for a separate room – very convenient. But the best thing about the restaurant remains the building and the wonderful terrace with the view at the little pond.

Info: China Restaurant Sichuan (
http://www.sichuan.at
), Arbeiterstrandbadstrasse 122, 1220  Vienna; Tel: +43/(0)1/263 37 13; Fax: +43/(0)1/263 37 14; email: info@sichuan.at; opening hours: daily 11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. & 5:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.; credit cards accepted (AmEX, Diners, Eurocard, Mastercard, Visa, JCB, Maesto)

Noodle Box Deluxe

First there was the sausage. No, wrong beginning. Now it is the noodle. Asian noodles have become popular in Vienna. There is a stand that sells Asian Fast Food Noodles almost everywhere. Still, these noodles are pretty much junk food nothing more. They don’t reserve the right of being of high quality food-wise. But there is an alternative: XO Noodles.

XO Noodles is located at the shopping mall Ringstrassen Galerien

It first opened on Hoher Markt but had to close down since the building it was at became a construction site. So now they moved to the Ringstrassen Galerien on Karlsplatz – Oper and re-opened a few weeks ago. And since I first tried these noodles when they closed I had to try them again now they re-opened. Now the Ringstrassen Galerien are a Shopping Mall Deluxe so the atmosphere is different than in a regular restaurant. The new XO Noodles are in the atrium part of the mall so people can look down on the place from above. It is not like a regular Asian Noodle fast food place. You just don’t go there order your fried noodles with crispy duck and leave. It is a bit more complex than that. They use a module system.

They use a module system where you can choose the ingredients of your dish according to your preferences

First you choose what you want to eat: either their wok or their noodle soup. Then you decide with what you like to have it, e.g. veggies, tofu, beef or seafood. Then you choose what kind of noodles and what kind of sauce. From the beginning I knew I’d like to have the wok with udon noodles, as they are my favorite noodles (supposedly the noodles are homemade and fresh every day). With the sauce I was kind of undecided. I didn’t feel like spicy but then there is only sweet-sour and peanut-lime creamy sauce left. Well, I decided for the peanut one cause I don’t like sweet n’ sour. Somehow it is unfortunate because I had hoped for more options from the non-spicy side but then there are only five sauces to choose from anyway.

The counter where you order your food first can be recognized by the menu on the screens above.

Still ordering is not that easy. Because I was heading straight towards the counter which is most prominent and that was were you got your food from. So I was send from there to the correct one. For newcomers it might be challenge. So I explain. First, you need to go to the booth were you order the food and there you also get your drinks, then you get a coupon, you sit down and wait until you see the number on the coupon on the screen above the counter where you get the food from. Simple, no? Yes, in the end it is not that complicated. Maybe they expect lots of people and have the fear of traffic jams if they use just one counter. So decided to introduce this system of having two counters.

I ordered the wok with tofu, udon noodles and peanut-lime sauce

Anyhow. I ordered my food at the correct counter and I sat down. And: I didn’t have to wait for too long. Niiice! But ok, there were only a few people. It was five in the late afternoon. So I guess I should not expect to wait for too long. The size of the meal is decent, the prices are: well, it is not an Asian fast food place somewhere at a U-Bahn station so it is more expensive. The taste is great! Yes, the ingredients are of higher quality than at the fast food places. But it is more like a snack than a full meal.

Info: XO Noodles at Ringstrassen Galerien; Kärntner Ring 11 – 13, A-1010 Vienna; internet
http://www.xo-noodles.com
; mail restaurant@xo-noodles.com; phone +43 1 533 83 90; fax +43 1 533 83 90 – 16; opening hours Mon to Sat 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.; you can pre-order your noodles on their website to eat it there or pick them up for take-away