wild

last night kev and i had a lovely evening at gasthaus wild (thanks for the recommendation sarah!). it is an old viennese restaurant serving really good quality traditional austrian dishes. they change the menu often and with the seasons. i was really impressed with the food and the service was really good too.

kev tried the tafelspitz as a starter... but i think it was tafelspitz with a twist! the meat was set in a jelly with beetroot. it was unusual but actually really tasty, especially with the schwarzbrot served with it.

we both ordered the filet steak for main. de-licious. the steak itself melted in the mouth and it was served with some great sauteed potatoes and a rich tomato/pepper sauce. thinking about it, i could actually eat it again right now!

kev had a vanilla sponge type thing for dessert. not the prettiest looking thing but it really tasted great. i went for the cheese plate. they were really stinky cheeses but sooooo good.

great selection of beer and wine too! (i wasn't drinking puntigamer it was a dunkel beer).

i would recommend booking though. we didn't and when we arrived there was no space in the no smoking area. but it was fine, we just walked to urania for a beer and then went back an hour later. it was lovely looking out over the canal.

(i couldn't keep my hand still enough!)

*diet starts tomorrow!

the albertina

after all that eating and drinking and sitting in pubs over the weekend (what happened to my healthy eating?!) sharron and i visited the albertina yesterday to see the current exhibitions.

it is a beautiful building and the three current exhibitions are really good (all for one admission fee of €9.50. really good value). we saw...
mel ramos - girls, candies & comics
roy lichtenstein - black & white 1961-1968
the blue rider (der blaue reiter)
we saw some really great art... some very different styles and artists. mel ramos' huge paintings of commercial pin-ups (naked women draped over oversized cigarette packets, pieces of cheese or a sauce bottle) are really good (and humorous!). i love the ideas behind his paintings. i enjoyed seeing some of lichtenstein's original drawings and paintings close up... they look quite different to how you see them in print. and the blue rider, an exhibition based on 10 of the artists who were part of the group known as 'der blaue reiter' formed in germany (one of whom was wassily kandinsky) was really interesting too.

the sun returned yesterday. everything always looks so much nicer in the sunshine! i was happily snapping away when the camera battery died, so this is all i've got. boo :(

saucepan & spoon?

can anyone enlighten me as to why there are a few saucepans and wooden spoons hanging from the fence at rathausplatz?!

our long weekend

our friend sharron has been visiting us for a long weekend (i took friday and today off work so we could hang out together in vienna!). we've had lots of fun over the extended weekend doing lots of things.... including beers with friends at 1516 to celebrate st. patrick's day (we couldn't get into flanagans irish pub it was SO packed), yummy lunch and afternoon drinks at naschmarkt deli, burgers and beers at shebeen watching football, drinks at molly darcy's watching ireland beat england in the six nations rugby, dinner at aromat, sunday brunch at die wäscherei, wandering around the city, and lots more. hmmm.... i'm beginning to see a recurring theme here.... everything we did mostly involved drinking and eating in pubs/bars or restaurants! oohps (i blame the bad weather for making us take shelter inside!).

here are some pictures from our meal at the cute little cafe/restaurant aromat on saturday night...

the food was delicious as always! we all chose from the daily menu. my stuffed veal with roasted vegetables was so yummy (kev had the same) and so was sharron's herb gnocchi with two types of pesto. dessert was really good too.... citrus cheesecake and chocolate cake. lovely meal and great night.

i love the pottery wine coolers they have from england....'ideal for use at home or on safari' (i bet they come in really useful on safari in england. WHAT?!).

awesome spinach & ricotta cannelloni

sunday dinner before my friends left for the airport was jamie oliver's awesome* spinach and ricotta cannelloni (*jamie's word not mine! although i do agree. yummy. BAD for the waistline though. just don't look at the amount of cheese that goes in this recipe!).

i doubled the recipe by the way and we had leftovers the next day (when it was even better). one thing i would say is that it needs a lot longer in the oven to bake and brown than the recipe says. i wanted it to be more crispy and well browned on top but i had to give up waiting otherwise our friends would have been late for their flight!

swinging high!

yep, that's me! this weekend i finally got to ride on the swing carousel at prater (remember i mentioned about it back here*). this is a swing ride with a difference (it's 311 feet high. yikes!). it was a shame the weather wasn't sunny like saturday, it was rather windy up there.... but i LOVED it! 

*mimie - i promise we will go on the high swing ride together soon!

a night at capatosta

on saturday night we dined at capatosta (thanks for the recommendation bernie!). it was a really great place to eat and spend the evening with friends. there was live music and the pizza was amazing (it really tasted like pizza i've eaten in italy. really great ingredients. i had spicy italian sausage and rocket). many mojitos and aperol spritzers were drunk (although no aperol for me... i'm not keen). a really fun night!

kev had baked cheesecake with a firework in it for his birthday!

saturday in the city

on saturday my four visiting friends and i went on our first fiaker ride around the city! it was fun and so lovely in the march sunshine. can't believe it's taken me a year to ride in a fiaker but i guess it's a very touristy thing to do and for €65 you wouldn't do it very often. but it was worth it and a really nice way to see the inner city.

friday in vienna

a great friday with friends. and the sun is shining!