fun in grinzing (and a not so good italian)

on saturday the four of us got the bus to grinzing with the intention of just stopping off for lunch (we were hungry!) and then getting back on the bus to complete the journey up to kahlenberg. however, we got drinking sturm... and kinda didn't make it to kahlenberg! ah well.

it was the first time kev and i had made it to grinzing even though its really not that far away. i looked up a heuriger (traditional austrian wine tavern) in our guide book, but failed to notice that it didn't open until 3.30pm. oohps. anyway, it didn't matter because directly opposite was a nice brewery/restaurant (called grinzinger bräu according to the sign in my picture) with seating outside in the lovely sunshine. and the sturm was gooooood (its quite sweet for me but somehow very addictive).

i had a delicious meat and cheese board...

sharron had a cheese board....

and kev and julia both had the rocket pesto pasta (which i tried and it was yummy!)...

once the sun went down behind the houses and it had passed 3.30pm we decided to check out the heuriger (called reinprecht) that we intended to go to first.... which was all of about 30 steps away!

its a huge heuriger in a 300 year old former monastery. it looked like a great place. i'm guessing in the summer it probably gets really busy and touristy but i bet its really fun (its open until midnight). the wine was nice and the traditional buffet looked awesome (loads of choice although we didn't get to try it). and they had a HUGE collection of corkscrews!

in hindsight we probably should have just stayed there.... because our evening meal turned into a bit of a disaster! we were looking for a good vegetarian friendly place for dinner, somewhere relaxed (we didn't want anything too fancy) and not too far away. the few places we tried were fully booked so we took a wander through forth district and ended up at an italian called da gino e maria. i don't want to be mean but our meal was pretty terrible and the atmosphere in there was bizarre! it was a saturday night and you could probably hear a pin drop even though there were many diners. the couple running the restaurant appeared friendly enough... but the food for me really wasn't up to scratch. sharron's spaghetti pomodoro was tasteless and had about 5 bits of chopped tomato in it, julia's tortellini looked out of a packet and my lasagne tasted like a microwave meal (sorry gino if i'm wrong... but i can make lasagne a million times better myself). they had a hilarious old skool dessert trolley they wheeled around the restaurant. oh and my plate was chipped and my wine glass had bright red lipstick all around the rim (which wasn't mine). anyway, i can safely say i won't be returning! if nothing else, the experience certainly made us laugh. i only wish i'd taken some pictures!

oh and i forgot to tell you i lost the lens cap to our camera on saturday at the U-bahn station when i accidentally knocked it off and it rolled (almost in slow motion) along the platform and off the edge onto the tracks. i thought about trying to catch it but had visions of me sliding onto the tracks myself and i hardly thought the risk was worth it!