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?