Eating, eating, oh and yes, what shall I eat

It's amazing how when you travel things get down to basics. Where will I sleep, where will I eat, and how do I get around? Where will I eat takes up a lot of time. You figure you have three meals a day typically multiplied by each day you are traveling. That's a lot of brain time spent on the topic of food and eating. Plus, if you are like me, I get excited to try the local fare and experience some sort of interesting meal.
So, in honor of my daily quest, here's a quick bit on the highs and lows of my dining experiences this last week.
I kicked things off with a bang in Vienna, eating dinner at a local pub. This pub was nothing special. A dime a dozen here. There was one old guy chain smoking at a table in the front of the pub. I opted for a table a few feet away in the "non-smoking section". (This is typical here.) Since I was on a mission to have some weiner schnitzel I decided to jump right in and order that for dinner. They suggested a variation on the plain version - the "Gordon Bleu". This appears to be the spicy cousin of Cordon Bleu. It was filled with cheese, ham, onions, and jalapenos. As soon as my order was in I heard very loud banging coming from the kitchen. I guess I figured it was already pounded out or maybe it was ordered frozen from some factory. Nope. Made to order. It was so good! It was served with some potatoes/french fries. I told myself not to waste the space on the potatoes but they were so good too. They were cut round, like chips but they were super thick. They were better than I ever expected they could be.

My next experience, but not necessary a highlight was having coffee and apple strudel at a "famous" cafe in Vienna. There are loads of these places and having coffee in Vienna is a thing to do. They have all sorts of variations on how they serve their coffee and every order comes served on a silver tray with a cup of water. The apple strudel wasn't very good however. My friend Cindy gave me a bit of the low down on strudel and told me that each area makes theirs a little different. In Vienna it is just a thin layer of filo dough around a mound of apples. I think I prefer more of a pastry dough AND I really prefer it warm. Mine was served very cold.

The last meal I have to highlight is my lunch from yesterday. I still hadn't had my knodel and apparently they serve it here too. I went to a place recommended by my hotel (fyi - great place to stay if you are ever here - www.aiquattroangeli.com or www.atlanteresidence.com). I noticed that this pub boasted that they were the original Pilsner Urquell house. Wow! That's cool I thought...that is until I saw this on another restaurant. Maybe it doesn't mean what you think it means.
Anyway, onto lunch. I ordered something that sounded like roasted pork with a little smoked pork, a little duck, potato knodel/dumplings, and bacon and bread knodel/dumplings. Fantastic! The serving of food was massive. I couldn't believe it and instantly felt like a fat American, eating way too much. However, that changed when I hardly made a dent in the plate. I started with the roasted pork. This was so insanely good. I used the bacon and bread knodel to soak up the gravy and soup up some sauerkraut. It was so good. I moved to the duck. It wasn't bad. I had some amazing duck in Vienna so I had high expectations. Plus, that roasted pork was so good I don't think anything could beat it. I made my way to the smoked pork. Oh right this is what we call "ham". Duh. I've done this a lot on the trip so far. I skipped eating too much of that and went back to the potato knodel and duck. I noticed when I was eating this plate of very brown food that my friend Tamara wouldn't ever be able to eat it. She doesn't eat brown food or food that touches each other. She would have been in dire straits with this meal.