Ottakringer

Ottakringer, Vienna

Pub just off the river bank in Central Vienna

There's a section of the riverbank that the locals call "the Bermuda Triangle," because it's so easy to get lost in the pubs there. We aren't sure, but we think we found it, and so we thought we'd stop for dinner at one of the local joints.

We're still not sure what the actual name of the place is. The sign said "Bermuda Brau - Ottakringer." That could just have been a beer sign, though. At any rate, we grabbed a table out on the narrow street and ordered our usual bread basket with the pork schnitzel and a perch with tomato sauce. Mark got a brown beer which he liked well enough, resembling a New Castle brown. Tim got a Pepsi Light for the first time in Europe.

The beer bread here, as everywhere, rated highly. One thing Germany and Austria can do is bake bread. We were slightly disappointed with the pork schnitzel, although it was good. It was pounded very flat and fried with a smooth breading, not a crumb breading as we so often get in the states. The meat was good and not too dry, and with lemon, the flavor was pretty good. It just wasn't the wonderful regional specialty we were anticipating. We did like the potato salad that came with it, though (Tim more than Mark): a very simple sweet-sour dressing, like the Pennsylvania Dutch's German Potato Salad, but without bacon or extra trimmings, and not heated.

The perch was good, a simple whitefish done well. It was overwhelmed by the tomato sauce, but that was okay as the tomato sauce was pretty good, thin but nicely salted and with good juicy tomato. The fish came with buttered and herbed potatoes; the herb was mostly parsley. Good potatoes, cooked just right, but again, the butter and parsley was nothing special.

Good location, out on a street table on a warm summer night, but other than the location, there wasn't much to recommend this place as opposed to any of the other pubs in the "Bermuda Triangle" of Vienna's riverside.