The Viennese (not so royal) Deewan

Vienna-is a museum. As a tourist one will most probably not see Vienna in real-time - the living Vienna. I got to see it. It was a relief to see it.
Combined with the chilly fog, the city reminded me of Lahore often and once of old down town Karachi. I was sitting at a rickety table on the road side near an intersection, with cars swooshing by, and surrounded by old apartment buildings. It could have been Saddar. The only difference was the passer bys were mostly Europeans, who looked as though eating unidentifiable or maybe ethnic food at night outside was an odd sight. I wonder why? Almost all their restaurants and cafés in Vienna have outdoor seating. But I think I know. It simply had a different non-European feel to it.

The train route map of food.

After four years of being away from Pakistan, I sampled some real Pakistani food in a restaurant in Vienna. “Eat all you want, pay what ever you want.” An interesting concept. I almost missed the place when Mr. L, his friend and I were trying to find it. They spotted it and I still couldn't see it, till I was standing right in front of it. Deewan, Pakistani Food Restaurant (http://www.deewan.at/) was an unassuming place, which after a few days, I realised was at a walking distance from Freud's Museum. As I understood, the area has many students around and this place fitted the purpose of such a place. If I were a student there, I would be very happy to go there often.
Once we entered, it looked like a tiny school cafeteria. And ofcourse many young student like people had filled up the tiny place.
Food was served buffet style with about five kinds of curry, white long grain rice, some flat bread (which was not naan, perhaps some turkish bread) some salad, chutney, and yoghurt sauce (raita) and semolina (sooji) halwa for dessert. Very simple and not much quantity of food to be seen, which for a moment made me think, if it was enough. But it was!

Some reviewed that the Aloo Gobi
didn't have gobi (cauliflower)
in it!

We had read some reviews on the place before leaving home. They were mixed reviews. Some said, it was not spicy enough. I was skeptical about this review, for I believe that the misfortune of Indian/Pakistani food is, it has an image of being hot-spicy. Indeed, food from the Indian subcontinent uses many spices, but spicy is not equal to chilli hot. And the food at Deewan was not hot, rather quite mild, cooked in the home-style, that I really appreciated.

Where Mr. L goes, his Canon EOS 550D also goes. I was looking at all the pictures he had taken during my stay there and I have to admit, I looked quite pleased in the photos taken at Deewan. Ah, food speaks to me. And this food spoke to me of some one's home kitchen back in Pakistan (and India; one of the two cooks is an Indian, we were told)

“So, are you Pakistani?” asked Mr. L to the waitresses. Sheepish smile. “No”. “Ach so.” “So who is?” “The owner and one of the cooks. The other cook is Indian” The T-shirt she was wearing said, “Taste Unlimited” in the Urdu script. Very cheesy! But hey, so what?

My friends were rather surprised to find bones in their curries. Yes, admittedly the Mutton Spinach curry would have done itself good if it had more meat than bones. But on the other hand, the bones gave the curry a very good flavour. One or two bones in the chicken pieces in their Mirch Chicken was not a problem at all! But it raised their eyebrows. “oh, comon! Chicken have bones!” was received with a silence of doubt. OK, so the chicken we buy from supermarkets are so well prepared we never find traces of bones. Is that truly good? We are the spoiled people of the new age.

Mr. L and I like our smokes, so despite the chill in the air, we took a table outside on the side walk. Indoors was non-smoking and too crowded in any case. The table was not super clean, which made me smile. And one of the two waitresses was taking a break having a smoke herself at the other table. I liked the casualness.
While we were eating, a couple with their dog came and they also had to sit out, since I think pets were not allowed inside. We had been hijacking both the tables so we gave them one. From there, though I didn't understand a single word, Mr. L, his friend and this couple started chatting. I really liked the casualness! Once in a while, the man would look at me and continue talking in German. I just smiled and nodded....I was just enjoying the whole thing.

After two helpings and two shared glasses of beer with Mr. L, I was very satisfied.
If this was Japan, I would pay 1,000yen for this meal. Mr. L paid 15 Euros for the two of us (thank you) but he felt perhaps it was too much. Maybe there was a bit of a sentimental element working on my opinion of the worth of the food. His friend, gave a 5 Euros note to the waitress and as she was putting it in the register, he changed his mind and asked for 1 Euro back! But such is this place.

Mr. L is right. It is quite an international city despite its smaller size in comparison to other major cities of the world. I felt this more, after our Mochi Quest ended. More on this in the next post.
I did not for one moment think that I would be happy about Pakistani food in Wien. Good surprises can happen indeed!



Photo Credit -  Leopold Schmallegger, Vienna-Austria

The Mochi Quest

Autumn in New York is considered beautiful; Fall as they call it. Autumn in the Fuji Five Lake area is also magnificent. The discovery of Autumn for me was in Japan, 2006. Till then I had never seen Autumn in real.
Autumn in Vienna reminds me of winters in Lahore. Cloudy, foggy and misty cold. I read in one of the tourist information websites that November is not exactly the time to be in Vienna as its mostly, dark, rainy and “miserable”! (http://www.tourmycountry.com/austria/vienna-in-november.htm) But the weather is kind some times and the sun shines nicely for a short while once a day.
And I am here in this weather and sitting in a cosy living room typing and smoking to my heart's desire (soon the heart may stop functioning for this abuse).

Dear Mr. L. worries himself to death over everything. One of the things that has been causing such worries in the last days is what to eat, and I suspect more so by having me here. Running out of ideas as to what to eat....Greek food? Pakistani Food? Japanese food? “hmmm, let's look at the menu.”

“ Emi, what is muzzi? Oh, its not muzzi, its muchi, oh no, its mochi. What the hell is a mochi??? Rice cakes! Viery Viery interesting! I want muchi!” So we go out on a hunt to look for muzzi-muchi-mochi. And our quest lands us in Kiyoyo restaurant in the Millennium Centre. Sounds like Kyoto....manipulative. “...by the way, do you have mochi?”

From their facial responses, we deduce the following: of course there is no mochi here ! What Mr. L. wanted to try was Daifuku Mochi. And it was not to be found in the “Kiyoyo”...after a bit of nudging we found out there is some form of rice cakes; the Chinese steamed rice cakes. These cakes are a coarser form of the mochi and the ones we had were covered in coconut flakes. But the Chinese cakes were actually quite good. Though I hate coconut, the fact that I could eat it enables me to give them a star on it. However a friend of Mr. L. ordered some noodles with slices of duck...and it was the most disgusting food I have ever eaten in my entire life. When asked about it, the poor waitress said, the sweetness of the sauce comes from teriyaki sauce. From what I tasted, I can tell you exactly how so called teriyaki sauce was made: some soy sauce of a horrible quality (or perhaps even salted coloured water) and sugar, thickened with corn starch. I believe the cook doesn't even know what dashi is. Even if they made this with just some real soy sauce it would not taste so bad. We suggested that we be served some sushi in lieu of the Ugly Duck(ling) but that was not to be...I would not eat sushi in this place anyway...which, as I tell Mr. L. about what I am writing, I am quite rightly pointed out that it was simply a fast food /cheap Asian restaurant and that I should take it easy on them. Alright. Enough said.
Later Mr. L. and I went to a Mexican Restaurant in the 2nd floor of the Millennium City which was quite nice indeed. Mr. L. ordered crispy tacos with chicken stuffing and I ordered their self claimed hottest item in the menu of chilli beans with chicken and corn. Both looked very appetizing and the taste was good. But, I still cannot get used to the Austrian food portions! I felt, I had too much of the stew and I wish there was something else with it to balance out the flavour and portion of the stew. Maybe, some rice, or salad. It was indeed hot and flavoursome but towards the end, I felt bored by the taste as the quantity was big. Mr. L.'s dish however, could have had more tacos, since they were paper thin and even with the filling, two looked a bit meagre. I am not sure if it satisfied him. All this said, he complimented his food, which I had a taste of and agreed. The interior was fashionable and clean with some music from the 80s and the 90s playing in the background unobtrusively.

Unfortunately, the evening ended badly for me for I began suspecting that I may have a mild form of some mental and/or emotional disorder because I felt increasingly and exceedingly uncomfortable, nay, disturbed to the point of physical affectation by the large number of (young) people and the noise made by them and in general at the Millennium Centre on this Friday night. I feel very apologetic to Mr.L. for I am sure I seemed very ungrateful to his efforts to have me have a good time of the evening. Forgive me.

I think our search for Japanese mochi in Vienna will continue. Will our search yield the desired results?