More Good Food

Given the fact that the Hapsburg empire once spread across much of eastern Europe, it should not be suprising that the cuisines of their former realms are to be found in abundance in Vienna.  

Thursday evening I tried out a little restaurant just a block away from my hotel.  The area around the train station is filled with recently built, high-rise buildings and with more under construction, but this restaurant, called Böhmerwald, has survived in a traditional, older structure.

I later found out that "Böhmerwald", means Bohemian forest.  The name is apt since the menu features Czech and Slovak dishes as well as Viennese cuisine.

I started with white cabbage soup.  It had a surprising sweet and sour flavor that was interesting and tasty.

For the main course I had "stapacky", a Slovak dish with little dumplings, pork, sausage and sauerkraut.  It was very good.

For dessert I had a Viennese specialty, Palatschinken, thin pancakes filled with apricot jam.

I was very pleased with the homey atmosphere, the good food and service, and the relatively reasonably prices.  So I returned last night for supper.  The place was much more crowded.  The service was slower, but the two waiters were running around to keep up.  I ordered "Knoblauchsuppe", garlic soup.  It was very garlicly, definitely not something to order if you are out on a date.  My main course was "Tafelspitz", boiled beef in its juice.  I  researched the dish and discovered that "Tafelspitz" was the favorite food of Emperor Franz Josef.  Boiled beef sounds sort of bland, but this was not only tender but also very tasty... even tastier with some of the freshly shredded horseradish served to the side.

The clientele seems to all be local, but with all the new hotels near the train station, I suspect that they are beginning to get some tourist trade  They do have menus in English.  
It's the kind of place that I like... tasty home cooking... that is if your mom were Viennese or Slovak.