Prior to arriving in Vienna, I was using the internet at my Berlin hostel and chatting to my mate Timmy K. He'd visited Vienna the year before with his folks, and recommended that I try this restaurant, "Figlmollen?.... Figl-something... well it was good. Best Wiener schnitzel I've ever had. The lamb is also A++!"

Timmy K knows his food, so once we got to Vienna, I was very keen to follow his recommendation. However, with his vague instructions, I wasn't sure if I'd even be able to find it. So imagine my delight when we stumbled across Figelmüller during a big day of shopping, just off the main shopping street. Figelmüller is extremely famous for its fab Wiener schnitzel, and since its inception in 1905, a couple more branches have opened up across town. The addresses are all at the website below.

Figelmüller Website

Figelmuller

Here is their famous (and enormous) schnitzel.


The Schnitzel is large

We ordered 2 Wiener schnitzel, a potato salad (the recommended accompaniment), and a cucumber salad. Timmy K was right, the schnitzel was awesome. It's pounded super-thin, and lovely and crisp. There are other items on the menu, but I don't see why you'd ever want to go past the schnitzel!

Clarice: Between mouthfuls...I love your friend Timmy K!
Sarah: Chomp chomp... Me too! Chomp chomp


Potato Salad


Soda Zitrone & Cucumber Salad

Cucumber salad may not be traditional, but you need something to cool you off in the intense Austrian summer. And speaking of cooling off, soda zitrone is one of the nicest and most refreshing drinks you can get in Vienna. It's just fresh lemon juice and soda water, and you can get it everywhere. I must have drunk at least 3 litres of the stuff during our 2-night stay in Vienna. Brilliant. They give you sugar which you can add yourself, but I like it plain and sour. A good, refreshing, resolutely un-sweet drink is just what you need whilst wolfing down a massive piece of fried meat, or plate after plate of sweet treat in Vienna's finest teahouses...

Prague is a beautiful, beautiful city. Amadeus, Mission Impossible and XXX were all filmed there, it is the home of Kafka, (the Kafka museum is fantastic), and the buildings are lovely. It is, however, extremely touristy. Expect to be approached by touts on the street offering you tickets to a marionette Don Giovanni, guided tours of the town and so on. My favourite tourist-touts, however, were the many dudes and dudettes in sailor suits standing around the river, saying "Are you ready for the boat ride?!" Most of these guys are neither Czech nor sailors, but we did try their boat tour. And it was pretty good - you get free ice-cream and beer.


The main square


View of Prague from Prague Castle

I must admit that I did not immediately warm to the city. Our very first taxi driver (from the station to our hostel) totally ripped us off - and not just by a little bit. He charged us 980 Crowns... and it was only later that we learnt that the going rate was 200 Crowns. TWAT!!!!! Furthermore, we found that in general, service in shops and restaurants was quite brusque - but perhaps this was a result of this being the first country in which neither of us could speak the language.

Thankfully, however, it didn't take long for the city's charm to shine through.

On our first night, we visited a restaurant right on the main square named Staroměstská Restaurace (recommended by Lonely Planet), which had fabulous food at more-reasonable-than-most prices.

Staroměstská Restaurace's Website

Now, remember what I was telling you about service in Prague? Here's an excerpt of a conversation we overheard at the next table. It was about 8:30pm, and a group of 4 people (2 middle-aged couples) had just sat down.

Waiter: What would you like?
Lady: Could we get some coffee?
Waiter: What?
Lady: Could we get some coffee?
Waiter: Are you JOKING?! No drinks! Only dinner! Only dinner!
Lady: So you don't have coffee?
Waiter: It's 8:30pm. Only dinner! Only dinner!

Scary!! Throughout the evening, our waiters barely looked at our table, and it was an absolute mission just trying to get them to come over and serve us. Furthermore, during our meal, we accidentally knocked our beer over, and instead of one of them coming over to help us and ask us if we wanted more, the waiters just stood on the side, laughing! Goodness me.


"Attentive" Service

Quite amusingly, at the end of the meal (750 Crowns - we paid with exact change) - our waiter came back to our table with a calculator, to explain that we needed to pay an extra 80 Crown tip. His reasoning was that "our wages are only €400 a month, so you have to give us a tip". I always thought that tipping was based on the quality of service, but I see that that's not always the case.

Ok, with that moaning over, here's the good part - the food! It was amazing.

A warning: at most restaurants around town, goulash is only served during lunchtime - too many hours simmering and it starts to taste crap, apparently. So if you want to have a goulash (and believe me, you will), make sure you get in early.

In the absence of goulash, I had a delicious goulash soup.


Goulash Soup


Delicious Bohemian Roast Duck with Cabbage and light, fluffy dumplings. (Eating this really made me want to try making Nigella's Bohemian Roast Goose, from Feast.)


Cucumber Salad - refreshing!


Other food from Prague:


A Bagel from American Tourist hangout/internet cafe Bohemia Bagel. It was delicious, fresh, and CHOCK-FULL of cream cheese. Drool!


Overly garlicky goulash with dense dumplings at another restaurant.


Smoked Tongue - fabulous.

I still have 6 cities from my European vacation left to blog, but in the meantime, I thought you might like to see what I made for dinner at home tonight. It was a 2-course affair: a Thai seafood curry, followed by a sticky date pudding. This is a very Australian combination. I say, almost without exaggeration, that every single restaurant in Australia has sticky-date pudding on its menu.

I used the sticky date pudding recipe from Jamie's Dinners (that's Jamie Oliver, obviously). I also had recipes from Donna Hay, Jill Dupleix and Nigella Lawson, but thought that Jamie's looked the best. Donna's looked a bit naff, and Jill's didn't have a picture. Nigella's was one of those self-saucing puddings which I find trumendously difficult because I can never tell when they're properly cooked. Where does the cake batter end and where does the sauce begin?!

Additionally, Jamie's recipe included Ovaltine and yogurt - how interesting! (I actually used Milo and not Ovaltine, but this didn't seem to have a detrimental effect). So, it's basically an ordinary cake batter, to which you add soaked and chopped dates, a bit of Milo and yogurt.


Raw batter

I let this bake while we ate the curry. Nigella's Thai Pumpkin and Seafood Curry (Nigella Bites) is a family favourite. It's really easy and quick to make (about 30 minutes), lends itself well to last-minute variations, and most importantly, it tastes brilliant. In fact, it tastes so good that my father is consistently surprised that the recipe comes from a British food writer and not a Thai one.


Seafood and Pumpkin Curry

Today I used brocolli as the vegetable because we needed to use it up. I know it makes the curry look a bit crap-pan-Asian-food-court, but it certainly doesn't taste like it. I love the warm rounded spiciness of the curry - it's just what I want to eat after a hard day of work or school.

So, back to the pudding. While it's cooking, you make a sticky-toffee sauce by heating cream, butter and light muscovado sugar in a pan until thickened and a bit darker. At the table, you pour the sauce over each individual serving.


Sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice-cream


One serving

This is a great pudding. A crusty top, the light and soft sponge, and of course, that sweet, sweet sauce. What bliss.

In between all the beer, wurst-stalls and soccer, Clarice and I managed to try an awesome Alsatian restaurant in Berlin. It's quite well known, appears in most of the major guidebooks, and has its own website. And having eaten there myself, I can say that it most definitely deserves its reputation.

Gugelhof
Kollwitzplatz / Ecke Knaackstraße 37
10435 Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg
Tel. 030 - 442 92 29
Str. Nr. 31 /459 / 60778
Gugelhof Website

I had a "Choucroute Gugelhof" and a salad, whilst Clarice had a Spanferkel. We couldn't exactly figure out what spanferkel is, but we think it might be hare.

I made a choucroute garnie once during the How to Eat project, and really liked it. So naturally, I was very keen to try an authentic one, from the land of choucroute. It did not disappoint.


Choucroute - No, I couldn't finish all that meat.

As you can see, a choucroute gugelhof consists of sauerkraut, potatoes, small pork sausages, a blood sausage, and 2 mega pieces of delicious German pork. All the smallgoods were infinitely more delicious than anything I've ever been able to get in Australia.



This is Clarice's spanferkel, with sausages and sauce.






side salad


salad

I'd never had blood sausage before, and whilst it tasted nice, I found it a bit too rich and couldn't finish it.


blood sausage


Close up of blood sausage mit sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is da bomb!


The restaurant

The meal was very well priced, especially considering how good the food was, and how stuffed we were afterwards. Our meal, with water and a couple of cokes came up to €36.20.

We did not have room for dessert.

From Amsterdam, we moved onto Berlin, in time to soak up the atmosphere during the World Cup 2006 final. Upon reflection, I now realise that I didn't actually get any berliner donuts, but I think that the selection of food I did eat more than made up for it. Here are some photos...


Berlin Breakfast


Wurst mit Senf


Raspberry Beer


Another Wurst mit Senf


Beers + potatoes with bacon


Rhubarb Kuchen


Germ Knoedel - steamed bun stuffed with jam and topped with custard


Currywurst


Fußball

As far as I can tell, Holland isn't really famous for its national cuisine. I often hear glowing reports of Amsterdam's culture, its history, its atmosphere, it's architecture, but never its restaurants. However, many Dutch specialities are cheap and easily available in stalls, meaning that it is easy to eat well, without breaking the budget. Having now visited Amsterdam twice, I am convinced that no-one does pancakes or fries quite like a Dutchman does.


Amsterdam: Cheese Pancake - available everywhere


Felafel with everything - a large population of middle-eastern immigrants means that good felafels and kebabs are easily available.


Fries in a cone - "Vlaamese Frites"


Waffle with Chocolate Syrup


More Vlaamese frites. Best fries ever.


Mmm really... the best fries ever. Dutch mayo is the best! I like to drown my fries in it. Mmm... artery clogging. I'm not convinced about the necessity of ketchup, but I concede that for many people, ketchup is the best part.