A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES
Viennese Victuals
Fretting the exchange rate of a Canadian dollar against the euro is a pointless exercise. Especially for math-challenged people like me. While cash is kaiser in Vienna, baby, Ann figured out that for any electronic transaction we were better off deferring the conversion rate to our Canadian bank or credit card provider rather than obeying the instant skimming prompts of an Austrian ATM or handheld device. My sister Anne’s philosophy was much simpler for me to grasp: “A euro equals a dollar. It is what it is.” Her attitude led to my heartbreak. Bushmills Irish whiskey was on sale in every grocery store we ventured into, less than twenty euros. Trouble was our stay in Vienna was nine or ten nights and it takes me nine or ten months to work my way through a 750 mL bottle.
Leisure travel is paradoxical. You splurge for the trip well aware you will splurge on the trip and yet you try to economize. Once Ann and I settle in to our accommodation, we source the location of the nearest grocery store (and newspaper and tobacco shop). Our go-to was a SPAR Gourmet on Fleischmarkt; so proximate to our hotel there wasn’t time enough for me to enjoy an entire cigarette between doors.
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company paid for my university education. The last ad agency I worked for specialized in everyday retail. “Busy mom (who’s active, fit and cares deeply about her family) is the gatekeeper” in the jargon of a boardroom brief. I’m always curious in foreign grocery stores, their shelf alignment and the brands – some local, some intriguing and some distressingly familiar. I was surprised to find Driscoll raspberries in SPAR, their provenance Morocco rather than Mexico. Made sense. A daily stroll to a grocer is very civilized, you buy what you need and leave the rest. Of course, hotel rooms aren’t living quarters, merely comfort havens.
Social media is something of a scourge. One of its mixed blessings is the “absolute must” designation on some travel site or toddler attention span app. Edmonton Ann and I and our brother-in-law Al and Montreal Anne refuse to queue with digitized sheep. And the four of us were mystified by the prevalence of Starbucks cafes in Vienna, a city renowned for its coffee. Was it American corporate hubris or idiocy? We found a proper refuge that suited us.
The only acknowledgment of modernity in the Café Hawelka are dates, but you have to know where to look. Some of the theatre posters on the wall by the foyer are relatively recent. The other visible dates warmed my heart. The mastheads of some of the world’s most famous dailies draped majestically from a rack of slotted wooden library poles. World news on a stick as long as a pool cue. Like the curtain discreetly concealing the water closets, the Café Hawelka is draped in atmosphere. The establishment opened for business in 1939, the year following the Nazi-engineered Anschluss. Whether you request a demi-tasse of high-octane coffee, a bottle of pilsner, a plate of strudel or a bowl of goulash, the formally attired waiter presents your order on a silver tray slightly larger than the dimensions of a hardcover book. All that’s missing is a low hanging cloud of blue tobacco smoke. You long to be part of a bygone intelligentsia and earnestly discuss philosophy, politics and psychoanalysis; sausages, waltzes and whiskers on kittens. Some topics will drive you to drink.
Ann and I patronized Loo’s American Bar (cash only) twice; we’d stumbled across a local watering hole. Both times we sat outside on a narrow rectangular terrasse. The awning was black canvas, the suspended electric heaters were white, their filaments orange. The faux fur rugs draped over our black stools were grey. The ashtrays were silver. The pilsner was gold. The soda citron was clear. The regulars, about seven of them, granted us suspicious sideways glances the first time. A few of them made eye contact on our second visit. My penchant to listen in on other peoples’ conversations was stymied by the language barrier. What were they talking about? They watched the street and their conversation struck me as running commentary. Had our time permitted a third respite at Loo’s, I like to think Ann and I would’ve warranted curt nods of vague recognition. Maybe as far as tourists went, we weren’t so bad. I almost literally bumped into one of the regulars in the tiny, geometrically awkward space outside the water closets and he was visibly stunned when I gave way, made myself small against the wall. He said, “You are so mannered.”
Old Vienna is quaint in an imperialistic way, an architecturally stunning reminder that empires and the dynastic families who created them inevitably must fall. Proximate to Stephansdom is a fine example of latter day quaint. Steffl is an actual department store. Given the area, it’s necessarily a purveyor of “luxury lifestyle” – whatever that may mean to shallow, aspirational acquisitors. A social media photo op? Anyway…. the top storey, the seventh floor, hosts Sky bar, famed for its cocktails. It promises a panoramic view of the city’s First District provided its expansive terrasse is open in late November and it’s not dark out. Very swish.
Edmonton Ann and Montreal Anne ordered Cosmopolitans. Al ordered a Vieux Carre. I, not seeing a Corpse Reviver No. 2 on the menu, followed his lead. Al is a master toxicologist, an autodidactic bartender. He’s got the books, the utensils, the vessels, the glasses and all those other obscure and essential ingredients in his kitchen bar. “Pale Hecate” has patiently summoned some wondrous improvised concoctions in ours too. A Vieux Carre is essentially whiskey, brandy and vermouth further flavoured by an array of accents, stuff Ann and I don’t stock in our fridge or pantry. Al pronounced Sky’s Vieux Carre the best he’s ever had; they’re in his repertoire and he’s savoured them in their birth city of New Orleans. Cocktail tumblers aren’t bottomless. You begin by sipping a Vieux Carre before allowing it to evolve into a great a novel, you slow down because you don’t want it to end. Then again, I’m the type of fellow who rereads his favourite books.
Austrian food is dense, deliciously so. So much so that you’re inclined to sit with it afterward. When our quartet went out for supper, we’d turn up somewhere shortly after six without a reservation. Restaurant margins are slim and the key to profitability is turnover. Viennese waiters possess extrasensory perception. Our meals arrived before we’d time to close our menus. Our waiters had already moved onto seating and serving the next party who’d yet to arrive. If you’re ever in Vienna and planning to break some heavy news over dinner and expecting earnest, lengthy discussion, don’t.
Twelve Apostles was the most memorable restaurant. It wasn’t the food although, like every other place, its specialties fell within “good” to “very good” parameters. No, it was the setting. A deep subterranean network of brick-vaulted chambers whose primary foundations likely date from Roman times. Medieval mortar. And a fine mid-twentieth century air raid shelter. The four of us wished to linger. Our waiter grudgingly acquiesced to a second bottle of wine and a second beer for me. We were on his clock.
Should your palate be a tad more sophisticated than mine, you will sneer, but I’m no schoolboy and I know what I like. There is a hot dog stand on Schwedenplatz, a transit hub, at the foot of a bridge over the Donaukanal. It was there I ate a fiery red bratwurst rammed into a reamed-out baguette. A neat and elegant delivery system. The condiments were Dijon mustard and curry ketchup. Ketchup on a hot dog is normally a felony, a capital crime. But on this damp, chilly evening by the water, the mildness of the curry combined with the spicy heat of the sausage and the tang of the mustard strived for the sublime. Had my timing been better, by forty years, say, I would’ve inhaled two of them.
Holidays in their way, as memorable as they are, are reliable sources of regret. I don’t mean inflated credit card statements; I mean things left undone. It’s New Year’s Day in Edmonton, the snow is falling down as is the temperature, and I’m thinking about that kebab stand beside the hot dog stand. I never did get there.
Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still print. Collect the set!
