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Mélange (Light Espresso with steamed hot milk)

Mélange

n.

1.     Light Espresso with steamed hot milk served in a classic coffee cup. (from Julius Meinl "Vienna's leading coffee roaster for 140 years")

Notes: "Mélange" is borrowed from French, and is used in English, as well. The English definition is "a mixture; a medley." The Mélange is probably the most popular coffee order in Vienna cafes, and is also the coffee I usually order when I am visiting Viennese cafes for review in my Food and Drink section.

Mélange at Cafe Eiles

Sodazitron (Unsweetened, Carbonated Lemonade)

Sodazitron
Soda = soda water,  Zitron = lemon

n.

1.     Drink made from soda water and lemon juice. Sour, carbonated, unsweetened lemonade.

Notes: Some restaurants and cafes use fresh lemon juice in their Sodazitron. Others use bottled lemon juice, which isn't as good. Sodazitron is my favorite drink. I'll let you know in my restaurant reviews which places do it right. Sodazitron is also the URL of an interesting blog belonging to a nice acquaintence of mine who also lives in Vienna.

Li's Cooking - Asian Dining at the Naschmarkt

Li's Cooking is one of the many restaurants that have sprung up in the Naschmarkt over the last few years. Prices are reasonable, with most main courses costing less than €10. (The website seems to be down as I write this post.) Li's offers a vareity of Asian dishes, including traditional Thai, Malaysian, Chinese and Japanese foods, as well as sushi. The staff is friendly and mostly bilingual.

I arrived pretty early for lunch, and was one of the first guests.

I sat outside under the big red awnings. This is a photo down Naschmarkt's restaurant row, taken from my seat outside.

The Cripsy Duck Salad was delicious. Mango, greens, duck and a light vinegar dressing.

My only complaint: The Sodazitron was made with canned lemon juice.

Cafe Eiles Photos

Cafe Eiles is located in Josefstadt (8th district) at Jofestädterstraße 2. It's just behind and to the left of the Rathaus (City Hall), at the corner of Joseftädterstraße and Landesgerichtsstraße.

You won't run into many tourists at Cafe Eiles, even though it's near several prime tourist attractions (Ringstraße, Rathaus, Parlament, Volksgarten).

I guess it's just far enough off of the beaten path to avoid the throngs.

Which gives it an authentic gemütlichkeit that's sometimes missing in the noisier, busier cafes.

It's a place where you can comfortably drop in alone, order a Mélange, and spend two hours reading newspapers.

Wien 1130 (Hietzing) Sunday Morning at Schönbrunn

I met a good Austrian friend and his firecracker-smart daughter at the zoo at Schönbrunn Palace this morning. We spent about an hour wandering around, checking out the animals.

I've always enjoyed visiting zoos. I find the animals fascinating. I'm like a big kid when I visit (complete with guilty feelings about the animals being cooped up).

It was fun today to see my friend's little girl enjoying the animals and interacting with her dad. I want to say she's 3, but that can't be right. On the one hand, she's way too smart to be 3. On the other hand, there's no way three years have gone by since she was born, is there? Wie der Zeit vergeht...

I spent some time at the zoo after my friend and his little girl left. I didn't take many photos. For some reason, I wasn't in the mood.

I did, however, take a picture of this place:

Schönbrunn Meierei (an octagonal building housing a restaurant/cafe, located in the center of the zoo). Look at those blue skies. It was cold but nice out today, and contrary to what this picture might suggest, the zoo was crowded with parents pushing strollers stuffed with tightly bundled packages that might have been children.

I had lunch in the restaurant inside the Meierei (pr. my ah EYE). The food was not bad. I had a Schweinsbraten (pork roast) with Knödel (dumpling) and Kraut. The atmosphere was pleasant, even though mine was the only table in the restaurant without any children seated around it. The food prices were reasonable, but not cheap. Fun place to take kids or stop for a coffee / dessert.

I have more Schönbrunn pictures to get online. I'll try to play some catchup this week.

Also took this shot today:

This is the Hietzing U4 station. If you want to visit the Schönbrunn Palace on the U4, get off at the Hietzing stop, not at the Schönbrunn stop. Follow the signs to the Tiergarten (zoo / lit. animal garden). You will enter a large gate and find yourself in the palace gardens. Continue walking in the same direction (as you were walking when you passed through the gate) and you will reach the palace. The walk from the Hietzing station to the palace is the same length as the walk from the Schönbrunn station to the palace, but the first route is nicer. It also gives you a chance to take a look at the zoo and Palmenhaus (greenhouse) along the way.

Vienna Rathaus Christmas Market (Christkindlmarkt) Pictures

The Rathaus (city hall) plays host to a variety of seasonal events throughout the year. In December, the big event is the Christkindlmarkt / Weihnachtsmarkt / Adventmarkt (Christ Child Market / Christmas Market / Advent Market).

During this holiday event, hundreds of vendors selling everything from pastries and sweets to Christmas ornaments and handcrafts to sausage and cured meats to Punsch and Glühwein (hot, sweet drinks with rum or wine) occupy wooden stalls set up in the large place in front of the Rathaus.

Welcome to the Vienna Rathaus (City of Vienna)

During this holiday event, the Rathaus is turned into a giant Advent calender, with 24 of its large windows each covered by one of 24 cloth curtains printed with the numbers 1-24. On the First of December, the curtain with "1" printed on it is removed, revealing yet another curtain with a Christmas scene printed on it. This continues for each day of December until the 24th, when the big "24" curtain is removed from the large window on the center tower of the Rathaus. In this picture you can see five of the still-covered windows, and one (between 15 and 16) that has been uncovered already.

(38 images / photos / photographs / fotos)

New Braunfels & Gruene Photos

On the same trip during which my mom, sisters and I visited San Antonio, we also spent some time in the small Central Texas towns of New Braunfels and Gruene (Grüne). If I move back to Texas, the central part is where I would most like to live. While the landscape around Houston is pretty flat, this area of Central Texas is so hilly that it is also known as "Texas Hill Country." Central Texas is an area rich in rivers, lakes, nature, and what passes for culture in Texas ;-)

"Gruene" is a form of the German word for "green." In Texas, when we speak about the town of Gruene, we pronounce it "green." Texans also seem to have a problem pronouncing "New Braunfels." The most correct pronunciation I've heard sounds like "New Bronfels." Less elegant degredations include "New Bronsfel" and my least favorite, "New Bronsfels." The word is not spelled "Braunsfel" or "Braunsfels," people. Get it right! (just kidding, sorta) New Braunfels is named after the Prinz zu Solms-Braunfels, a German noble who came to Texas when land was given out free of charge to European immigrants. Here's a young German visitor's take on Austin (he mentions new Braunfels, as well -- all in German, though).

"Braunfels" is German for "brown rock" or "brown crag." "Wurst" is the German word for sausage. New Braunfels hosts an annual Oktoberfest called "Wurstfest" (sausage celebration). It's interesting to note the imprint German and Wend (German-born slavs) immigrants to Texas have left on the state -- in architecture, music, town and street names, as well as general customs.

Tubing is great! Rent an inner tube for a few bucks, throw it in the river, and float down to a central meeting point, near the Schlitterbahn (slide way, approx.) water park, where a bus picks you up and drops you back off at your starting point.

Schlitterbahn offers seasonal jobs to young, non-US citizens. Their busy season is over for 2004, but they start taking applications for Summer 2005 in January. There's also a new Schlitterbahn water park on South Padre Island, off of the Texas Gulf Coast, near Mexico.

How to Eat Boiled Crawfish

The day after I took the Paris photos, and two days after I took the last Bankgkok photos, I arrived in Houston, Texas, the town where I was born, or my Geburtsort. It was May 26th or so. My good friend, Matthew Walker, and I visited the Magnolia Bar & Grill for a few Texas beers, some excellent boiled crawfish and live zydeco music. Crawfish are also known as crawdads, mudbugs, crayfish, Flusskrebs (German), écrevisses (French) and probably a host of other regional names. Here are some of the photos I took that afternoon:

There's Matt. He's usually pretty laid back, but he gets serious when it comes to crawfish. I can't blame him.

Crawfish massacre. These are crawfish heads - what's left of a crawfish after you eat the meat.