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