Last night I went out to eat with my friends from the MacMini Forum. Yeah okay, now you know that I’m a totally mac-addict.. you would have found out sooner or later anyhow. :-s To get back on topic: all couple of weeks we meet to talk about macs and the world and for that reason we choose a location we’ve never eaten before. This time it was to me to suggest where to eat and I decided on the Town Hall Square where at this time of year heaps of food stalls are around because of the Jazz Festival and the now ongoing Film Festival, which can be attended free of charge. (Last year Melody Gardot performed there, it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, I highly recommend her music!) Yesterday a recording of the opera “Hansel and Gretel” was shown. We didn’t watch it, but the music gave the whole place an atmosphere that I have only experienced at this particular locality.
To get a first impression of what there is about, we had a look at all the food stalls first before deciding on what to eat. You can get food from all over the world there.
"Buchteln" at one of the Austrian stalls
Potato Crisps at one of the cocktail stalls
In the end my friends decided to give Greek and Indian Cuisine a try.
Greek Food and Peach Punch
Indian Food and Peach Punch
I haven’t tried their dishes but was assured that both were very delicious and the punch as well. I went with Australian “Surf and Turf”, or how I like to call it: “Surfing Kangaroo”.
Surfing Kangaroo and.. Water
I hadn’t had skippy in quite some time, but I’m a great adorer of its tender meat. It came with grilled Thuna on potato crisps and with yoghurt sauce. Oh boy, that was delicious!
You know, the funny thing is, that I never had Kangaroo or any other typical Australian animal the time I actually lived in Australia. Over there the most exotic meat I ate was lamb (which I hadn’t tried before but quite liked it). Only when I moved to Vienna I got the opportunity to taste Kangaroo, Crocodile, Emu and Grasshopper. I had had Ostrich before, so the Emu doesn’t count as a really new experience. I don’t recommend Crocodile, you got to be lucky not to get a piece as tough as leather, and also it doesn’t taste too special, just like chicken with a hint of fish. Grasshoppers usually are very crispy but the chitin carapace gets stuck between the teeth very uncomfortably and it doesn’t taste like anything at all. At least, that is what my impression was.
I highly recommend Ostrich/Emu and Kangaroo though. Ostrich tastes like nothing I can compare it to, beef is probably the most appropriate comparison, but it is much lighter and more tender. Kangaroo has a completly different structure than beef but a similar taste, with a hint of liver (some of my friends, that dislike Kangaroo exclaimed: “Eeeeew, that tastes like liver!” :D). I suppose, one has to like liver to like Kangaroo..
As it was extremely hot last night we all agreed on having some Ice Cream a couple of minutes of walking away from Town Hall Square. So we left for Hoher Markt (maybe you’ve heard of that place before, it is one of the oldes Squares in Vienna and quite rich in history. As a tourist you can hardly miss it, nor as a local.) where our iPhones had predicted to be a Bortolotti, one of the most popular Gelaterias in Vienna. Bortolotti-Ice-Cream is only made with natural ingredients without artificial flavour enhancer and colouring. There appeared to be a Gelateria with an identical menu (and a note about the not used artificial ingredients), but it was simply called “Eissalon” (ice cream parlour), so we’re not completly sure if this ice cream parlour was a Bortolotti or not. Nevertheless was the Ice Cream delicious. Extremely sweet, but delicious.
The guys each had Spaghetti Ice Cream while I had scoops of Yoghurt-, Curd-, Coconut- and Pistachio-Ice-Cream, topped with whipped cream.
Ice Cream. And everybody taking pictures of their's :P
Spaghetti Ice Cream by icatus
The picture of the Spaghetti Ice Cream was taken by my friend icatus. He took more pictures last night, don’t miss out on them! =)
After that, the guys were thinking about having another cocktail and I about having those delicious Croatian dessert that my tummy virtually didn’t have space left for.
So we went back to Town Hall Square that had been totally crowded by then.
I don’t recall the original name of that dessert, but it was translated into “Gebackene Mäuse” which again translates into “Fried Mice”. Fried Mice are mad of doughnut dough and served with Vanilla- and Strawberrysauce. Delicious! Okay, it might not have been the best idea to end the evening with a serving of those, but I simply couldn’t leave without having some of those luscious balls. It was too dark to get the camera out for that one, and also I had, thanks to the wind, icing sugar all over myself, sticky hands and so on. But in good anticipation I had taken a picture when we first arrived at the place:
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce: Fried Mice!
I admit: After having those I was stuffed. Stuffed but happy. To balance this feast I put myself on a much healthier diet today, really.
