zwiebelrostbraten | Death by Martini

Meat at Zum Wirt

I had some sort of late lunch, early dinner with my girlfriend at a place called “Zum Wirt” a couple of days ago. I opted, as I do most of the time, for an Altwiener Zwiebelrostbraten with roast potatoes. Zwiebelrostbraten is beef, simmered in some sort of broth, then adorned with loads of, ideally, crisp onions.

It wasn’t the best Zwiebelrostbraten ever, because the meat was rather far from tender, and quite fatty. But the potatoes were absolutely delicious, and soaking the crispy onions in the jus they provided was great fun too.

Oh, and another nice thing about the place: all tables are covered in white paper, colour felt pens are provided on each table as well. So while you’re waiting for your food to arrive, you can doodle ahead to your heart’s content! I took photos of our drawings, but there’s a time and place for everything, and this here isn’t the one. So you’ll have to make do with the picture of my food. Enjoy!

Das Lercherl von Hernals – Viennese cuisine in pseudo cabin atmosphere

When it comes to Schnitzel or any other kind of meat, served either with potatoes or dumplings and lovingly called Viennese cuisine, there are a number places people swear serve the best food.

I am always wary, since my standards tend to be, despite their simplicity, harder to meet than others. What I want is a lot of food for not too much money. I know, I still think like a student, and in a way, I still am. Despite my huge paycheck.

Anyway, the latest place I went to that served that Viennese cuisine was a place in the 17th district, called Lercherl von Hernals, where Lercherl is a diminutive of Lerche, and Lerche, you guessed it, means lark. Hernals, btw, is the proper name of the 17th district.

As expected, the interior consists of heavy wooden chairs and tables, loads of ornamental woodwork and a waiter who looks like during the winter months he usually instructs people on how to ski. A ski-instructor, if you will. He was still quite the polite chap, though.

I opted for a Zwiebelrostbraten, which is a slice of beef roast buried underneath loads of crispy onions, the whole thing, ideally swimming in a pool of gravy.

Never mind the fact that you can’t actually see the beef. It’s buried under these loads of onions.

While it was in fact quite a lot and very competitively priced, the beef was a bit on the stringy side. The upside to this is, that after all, I’m much more of a gourmand than I am a gourmet, so combined with generous gulps of their beer and total disregard for what a perfect piece of beef should be like, I absolutely enjoyed my visit to the Lercherl of Hernals.

So if you want authentic Viennese cuisine that’s not expensive and served in large quantities, do go there. As fair as I know, no bookings necessary.