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Published: June 13th 2012
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Pizza Capricciosa
Ham, mushrooms and artichoke hearts Thus far, my entries have all related to specific events or otherwise temporally oriented phenomena. I would, at this juncture, like to pause this chronological pattern and interject with the pretense of a gourmand. Succinctly, I want to talk about food. And beer. Though more about food. So here we go.
You know that one, irritating question that every fan of food, every devotee of delicacies hates? Yes, you do. “If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
How the fuck am I supposed to pick just one, you idiot? Don’t you understand my relationship with food? I’m a whore. I eat everything. I love everything. Well, almost everything. I could live without sauerkraut.
But the answer is surprisingly simple. Pizza. It’s delicious, it’s versatile, and it contains all the necessary food groups. You can do anything with pizza. And it’s still usually pretty damn good. So I would choose pizza. It requires the least compromise.
Those who know me can attest to me being a persistent paramour of pizza. Even though it scarred me in my developing years. I went to Italy, the purported birthplace of pizza,
Pizza Carbonara
Bacon, mushrooms, and an egg. and it was terrible. Every pizza I had was bad. I was flabbergasted, confused, and then despaired, despondent. It was a veritable rollercoaster of emotion. So imagine my apprehension at moving to a place where pizza is prevalent and potentially unpalatable. Suffice to say I was preparing for further disappointment.
And I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I don’t know what happened when I was in Italy during the 7
th grade, but Italy lied to me. Or my taste buds did. Or I only ate at trashy pizza places on the prepaid tour plan. Either way, some cosmic fluke occurred, some grand conspiracy to poison my perception of Italian pizza. In Vienna, there was a pizzeria on every corner. And pizza was the first thing I had after settling into my hostel. It was delicious. 30 centimeters of thin crusted, salami and onion loaded heaven for around 8 euros. And again here in Villach. But with different toppings. And twice more in Tarvisio, Italy with more variety. Everywhere I go there is this delicious, doughy pie. I couldn’t be happier. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to reevaluate my misconception.
But enough about pizza. This is
Racer's
Home of the Racer's Burger and not-so-bad beer. Austria and I should be talking about Austrian food. Except, Austrian food isn’t as exciting. They eat a lot of sausage. And ribs. Most of the meat consumed here is pork, from sausage, to ribs to ham, bacon, and tenderloins. And it’s all quite good. Especially the bacon wrapped hot dogs. Those are fantastic. I’ve eaten at a rather upscale Austrian restaurant, had a soup and Cordon Bleu, both tasty. The beer there was better than most of the crap available here. If the pizza was a huge, delicious surprise, then the beer is a huge, disappointing letdown. I expected better. Really. It’s cheaper and comes in bigger cans/bottles, but you sacrifice the quality. Nothing in the grocery store is worth buying (even if it’s only 47 cents for a half liter). You have to get the Hausbiers at local restaurants to have any hope of drinking a decent brew. The best beer I’ve had was home brewed by my advisor. Dark, rich, full of flavor. Like a good imperial stout.
But the food makes up for the beer’s deficiencies. Austrian’s take on American food was pretty good. I had a burger with fries the other day that was
Kebap
Slow roasted all day for your express tasting pleasure. actually quite tasty. I’m not the biggest fan of burgers because my standards are pretty high, but I would order this one again. It was probably the bacon. The bacon here is of much better quality than the beef (quite opposite of America if you ask me). But they all eat their French fries with ketchup. I can’t stand it. I want something different, unique, and tasty. Ketchup is so…meh. I don't even use it in America.
Austrian’s take on Mexican food, however, left much to be desired. But thisis likely due to being spoiled by San Diego and Santa Barbara for so long. Mexican food here just can’t compare. It isn’t bad, but I won’t eat it again due to its obvious inferiority. The biggest difference I noticed was the use of corn instead of rice in their burritos. Added an interesting component, but tended to overshadow the other flavors. I think I’ll stick to rice.
But speaking of Mexican food, there is an appropriate analogy to be made here. Kebap (or shawarma as you may know it) is to Austria like Mexican food is to California. An Arabic dish of lamb, goat, turkey, chicken or beef
Dürüm
'Nuff said. is slow roasted all day long on a vertical spit. When you order, they shave off a bunch of meat and throw it in a pita (this version is döner) or wrap it in a thin tortilla (called dürüm) along with tzatziki sauce and vegetables. It’s amazing. Beyond amazing. I’m addicted. I don’t want to come home anymore because I will be leaving this behind. The average döner is 3 euro and slightly bigger than a 6” sub. The average durum is just under 4 euro and the size of a good California burrito, but with a higher meat-to-other-shit ratio. Epic comes relatively close to describing them, but falls so short.
Then there’s ice cream. Or gelato. There are quite a few good gelaterias in town. It’s cheap. And delicious. Are you noticing a trend here? 1 scoop, 1 euro. 2 scoops, 2 euros. Scoop = big. So, for 5 euro, I just got a hefty doner kebap and two scoops of gelato. Quite satisfying. One gelateria deserves special mention however. Gelateria Italiana by Luis. It’s an Italian gelateria (obviously) in Villach, Austria, run by Portuguese. My Brazilians love going there because they can order and chat in Portuguese.
I like going there because it’s cheap and amazing. They have tons of choices ranging from the common vanilla, strawberry, chocolate to the not-so-common pistachio, tiramisu and hazelnut. Baskin Robbins’ got nothin’ on this place.
TL;DR – The pizza is fantastic. And cheap. The Austrian food is decent, and averagely priced. The Mexican food is mediocre and overpriced. But the kebap reigns king, in price, quality, and quantity. It just can’t be beat. The gelato is fantastic. Oh, and the beer is shit. But the wine and schnapps make up for it. All in all, very satisfied with the variety and quality of victuals.
Word of the Blog: Erdbeer
It means strawberry
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