Travel Bug:

Perhaps the Viennese are so grumpy because they live in an icebox for eight months of the year? Maybe it's having to talk the language of a people they despise? Maybe they're pissed off because they've got no coastline to defend? No beaches to sunbake on?
We think we now know the answer – and it was right in front of our nose all the time! Well, three times a day at least.
It's the food! For you see, Vienna is renowned for two dishes – Weiner Schnitzel and Tafelspitz. Pity really, as Don Gordon-Brown reports.

It's the veal thing!

A TRIP to Vienna would not be complete without sampling its most classic dish – Weiner Schnitzel. The Bug suggests you try this delicacy as early as possible during your stay so you can then get on and enjoy the rest of your visit.
We are indebted to the Frommer's guidebook, Vienna & the Danube Valley, 1st edition, for alerting us to the fact that the best place for WS was Figmullers with a couple of dots over the u, a charming tourist trap in the old part of town and just a couple of cobbled streets from Stephansplaza.
We were grateful to find that despite lobbing unannounced at about 6pm in the middle of a Yank-swollen summer, we were ushered promptly to a table inside, the Reserviert sign whisked away. A doubt passed briefly before my mind: had Figmullers with a couple of dots over the u somehow got advanced warning that one of the world's leading travel and food writers was in their midst?
Still, we'd come to the right place: on a chalkboard just in front of our table was an offer to enjoy their famous Figmuller with a couple of dots over the u Schnitzel, 'our speciality, is larger than the plate'. Part with 156 Austrian shillings and you could enjoy the schnitzel 'mit salad oder pommes frites'.
Naturally, we both ordered the speciality, with spuds, and they arrived just as our tall and elegant waiter finished taking our order. This of course, is a slight exaggeration, but it was all very prompt; the time it took to replace one of our meals that had mistakenly arrived with salad was almost improper.
So, what is it about the the Weiner Schnitzel that makes it so popular; the Figmuller with a couple of dots over the u Schnitzel in particular?
Judging by the Figmuller with a couple of dots over the u model, a small morsel of veal is panel-beated to within a centimetre of its life, dipped into a tub of batter and then dropped screaming into a vat of fat. It's then plopped onto and flowing over both sides of a plate, perhaps just how a cross-section of Amanda Vanstone's buttocks would look if they had been put through the same process. It is only conjecture as to whether they would taste the same.
Perhaps Weiner Schnitzel is an acquired taste, but when you tuck into the Figmuller with a couple of dots over the u model , it's all very enjoyable until perhaps there's only one Amanda Vanstone's buttocks left on the plate. It's about this time that you realise that the taste of bread crumbs gets a little boring after a while, even if, now and then, you can almost sense the flavour of something that once had legs screaming to break through. Maybe it's the memories of your mother's own crumbed veal. Loving pounded, sure, but still thick enough to have made the poor creature's pathetically short life seem somehow worthwhile.
More so when you finally reach your limit at Figmullers with a couple of dots over the u and your plate is still embarrassingly chockers with ex-baby cow. A glance around the room as other people's plates are being cleared away shows many of the diners have called it a day long before you.
Even so, here was the opportunity to wash down the meal with another of the country's tolerable house reds. Alas, the prompt service that we'd come to know and loathe at Figmullers with a couple of dots over the u had come abruptly to an end and the reason was sitting right beside us - a table full of septic tanks. Never, ever, risk your life by getting between a waiter in Europe and a free-tipping American tourist. We had become invisible to our tall and elegant waiter. No amount of waving, coat-tugging, heart-attack feigning could pry our man from his task of taking their orders, suggesting a fine wine, finding an extra seat, putting up with their repeated requests for beer, each time pointing out with utmost patience that Figmuller with a couple of dots over the u was a wine outlet only.
About a half-hour later, we pondered whether walking towards the door would restore our visibility. Outside in the drizzling rain, a small line of would-be Weiner eaters had developed and we realised our only hope lay in at least two of them having American accents and voices loud enough to be heard inside. That was a joke, by the way.
Time passed as we watched our trans-Pacific neighbours all hold hands and pray to their God – even we didn't think the food was that bad – and listened as they bagged the tucker and criticised the wine. "Oh my God," whined one of the women, "it's vinegar!"
If our tall and elegant waiter heard any of this, he was oblivious to it.
We're not sure what happened about a half-hour later, but the waiter suddenly recognised our hand signals and a hastily written bill was slapped on our table. As mentioned in an earlier article on the Austrian billing and taxation systems, it did not disappoint. By our reckoning, it was some $10 Australian over the odds. Was it a VAT? A night-time charge? Was a tip already included, we asked our tall and elegant waiter.
None of those things, he replied. He'd forgotten we'd both had potatoes instead of salad, hadn't he? A quickly re-scribbled bill took about $5 Aussie off the bill. Considering the meals came with the choice of side order, his explanation made no sense whatsoever. But we didn't press the issue: tall and elegant was off and running. Maybe one of the Yanks had a nose that desperately needed blowing.

Tafelspitz it out!

To be uploaded soon. Promise.