Kärnten, Austria -- Part 5, Asian Food
Villach has a handful of Asian food restaurants.
-Sakura across the bridge from the Interspar (grocery store) which puts out a buffet lunch
-Mr. Wu's across the street from the Interspar that serves tea in either a blue or pink tea set where the teapot sits on top of the tea cup.
-Liu's, which is on the Hauptplatz and sells bubble tea and fast food (stir fry noodles).
-Running Sushi in Atrio (the mall), which despite the name doesn't have very much sushi.
The quality of the food at all these restaurants is about the same. Very tailored for the Austrian palate, so meat heavy and salty. The sushi rice tends to be dry, and the selection limited. Thai, Chinese, and Japanese dishes are all served in the same restaurant. I tried to stick to Austrian food, but when I get homesick enough, even Austrianized Asian food looks good.
China Restaurant Asia in Hermagor, 45 km from Villach, may not sound like the name of a restaurant that does proper Asian food, but it does. If you call in advance, they will happily do a proper Northern Chinese style banquet, which was delicious. They even made a couple of very good vegetarian dishes. I only went here once, since I learned of it through word of mouth near the end of my stay in Austria. The owner speaks Chinese, German and English.
Since the Asian restaurants in Villach were not very good, I tried making some food at home. There's a tiny grocery store on Italienerstraße where you can get oyster sauce, hoisin, fish sauce, garam masala, vermicelli, and a few other things. With these supplies I attempted to make chasiu/chashao/marinated pork. Unfortunately this was my first encounter with a convection oven, and I did not go looking up information about convection ovens before attempting to cook the pork. It turned out dry, and less than good both times I tried it. I also attempted to make vegetarian lo bok go/lo bo gao/turnip cake. I improvised on the steamer and it turned out terribly. Lo bok go usually tastes good even if it turns out runny, but this was horribly dry, probably not cooked enough and inedible. A waste of a perfectly good turnip.
My successes with Chinese cooking was fairly disappointing, so I was very, very happy when I discovered, at the corner of Domgasse and Maistraße in Klagenfurt, a little Indian grocery store. They sold single serving (or double serving if you have a few more things to eat it with) boxed palak paneer, matar paneer, vegetable korma, and a variety of other things. They also sold a butter chicken mix that, combined with chicken and a bag of peas, would last me a whole week. I found a second Indian grocery store on Annenstraße in Graz. Graz was a 2 hour drive away, but the Moser bookstore and the Indian grocery together drew me there a handful of times after I discovered them.
I traveled around Europe a fair amount during my year in Austria, and sampled the Asian foods in many major cities.
Munich has a Uyghur restaurant across the street from the main train station that is delicious, and a sushi restaurant on Josephspitalstraße both of which I went to twice.
Munich also has a karaoke Chinese restaurant on Paul-Heyse-Straße that is open late, and fairly decent. A bit north of Munich airport, in Freising, is an Indian restaurant called Restaurant Bombay that my co-worker and I ate at before driving from the airport to Villach.
Vienna has the Naschmarkt, which has many small restaurants with good foreign foods, and across the street from it is the Chinese restaurant where I first saw a trilingual German-Chinese-English menu, and got wonton soup and siu mai. I ended up going to the Taste of India restaurant on Margaretenstraße with each group of visitors I convinced to visit Vienna with me. There was a food-kiosk fair in front of the Rathaus the first time I went, which had fairly decent Asian food. The Asian restaurants off of the pedestrian street Kärntnerstraße, were not good, however. There is rumored to be a good Persian restaurant in Vienna, but I didn't try it.
In Salzburg, the old city stays pretty Austrian, but there is Asian food if you get out of there. I tried Yans Teesalon on Hildmannplatz and Ashoka Indisches Restaurant on
Moosstraße, which were both pretty decent.
The Indian restaurant in Graz on Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Kai was good, though they only gave me a table if I promised to leave within 1 hour.
My friend in Copenhagen's favorite Chinese restaurant is on Dronningens Tværgade and is decent enough.
In Berlin, the fellow who grew up in East Germany sent me to Konnopke's Imbiss for currywurst near the Eberswalder U-bahn stop. He said whenever he went into the city, he would stop there on his way out. It is still doing booming business. So the Asian food I had in Berlin was actually in Spandau, in the mall next to the train station.
In Bonn, I went to another Taste of India, though I don't know if they are the same as the ones in Vienna, on Rheingasse.
In Prague, I went to a little Vietnamese place down the street from the hotel. And it may have also been Prague where I went to a late night Korean food joint run by Chinese immigrants, but I forget now.
I was in London for a very short time, so we mixed it up and got Ethiopian food there. In Italy, well, Italian food is delicious. I didn't eat any Asian food in Italy. And I didn't go to Slovenia for the Asian food either. Though I did go to restaurant Hisa Franko in Kobarid, which was the first time I'd been to a really, really fancy place.
-Sakura across the bridge from the Interspar (grocery store) which puts out a buffet lunch
-Mr. Wu's across the street from the Interspar that serves tea in either a blue or pink tea set where the teapot sits on top of the tea cup.
-Liu's, which is on the Hauptplatz and sells bubble tea and fast food (stir fry noodles).
-Running Sushi in Atrio (the mall), which despite the name doesn't have very much sushi.
The quality of the food at all these restaurants is about the same. Very tailored for the Austrian palate, so meat heavy and salty. The sushi rice tends to be dry, and the selection limited. Thai, Chinese, and Japanese dishes are all served in the same restaurant. I tried to stick to Austrian food, but when I get homesick enough, even Austrianized Asian food looks good.
China Restaurant Asia in Hermagor, 45 km from Villach, may not sound like the name of a restaurant that does proper Asian food, but it does. If you call in advance, they will happily do a proper Northern Chinese style banquet, which was delicious. They even made a couple of very good vegetarian dishes. I only went here once, since I learned of it through word of mouth near the end of my stay in Austria. The owner speaks Chinese, German and English.
Since the Asian restaurants in Villach were not very good, I tried making some food at home. There's a tiny grocery store on Italienerstraße where you can get oyster sauce, hoisin, fish sauce, garam masala, vermicelli, and a few other things. With these supplies I attempted to make chasiu/chashao/marinated pork. Unfortunately this was my first encounter with a convection oven, and I did not go looking up information about convection ovens before attempting to cook the pork. It turned out dry, and less than good both times I tried it. I also attempted to make vegetarian lo bok go/lo bo gao/turnip cake. I improvised on the steamer and it turned out terribly. Lo bok go usually tastes good even if it turns out runny, but this was horribly dry, probably not cooked enough and inedible. A waste of a perfectly good turnip.
My successes with Chinese cooking was fairly disappointing, so I was very, very happy when I discovered, at the corner of Domgasse and Maistraße in Klagenfurt, a little Indian grocery store. They sold single serving (or double serving if you have a few more things to eat it with) boxed palak paneer, matar paneer, vegetable korma, and a variety of other things. They also sold a butter chicken mix that, combined with chicken and a bag of peas, would last me a whole week. I found a second Indian grocery store on Annenstraße in Graz. Graz was a 2 hour drive away, but the Moser bookstore and the Indian grocery together drew me there a handful of times after I discovered them.
I traveled around Europe a fair amount during my year in Austria, and sampled the Asian foods in many major cities.
Munich has a Uyghur restaurant across the street from the main train station that is delicious, and a sushi restaurant on Josephspitalstraße both of which I went to twice.
Munich also has a karaoke Chinese restaurant on Paul-Heyse-Straße that is open late, and fairly decent. A bit north of Munich airport, in Freising, is an Indian restaurant called Restaurant Bombay that my co-worker and I ate at before driving from the airport to Villach.
Vienna has the Naschmarkt, which has many small restaurants with good foreign foods, and across the street from it is the Chinese restaurant where I first saw a trilingual German-Chinese-English menu, and got wonton soup and siu mai. I ended up going to the Taste of India restaurant on Margaretenstraße with each group of visitors I convinced to visit Vienna with me. There was a food-kiosk fair in front of the Rathaus the first time I went, which had fairly decent Asian food. The Asian restaurants off of the pedestrian street Kärntnerstraße, were not good, however. There is rumored to be a good Persian restaurant in Vienna, but I didn't try it.
In Salzburg, the old city stays pretty Austrian, but there is Asian food if you get out of there. I tried Yans Teesalon on Hildmannplatz and Ashoka Indisches Restaurant on
Moosstraße, which were both pretty decent.
The Indian restaurant in Graz on Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Kai was good, though they only gave me a table if I promised to leave within 1 hour.
My friend in Copenhagen's favorite Chinese restaurant is on Dronningens Tværgade and is decent enough.
In Berlin, the fellow who grew up in East Germany sent me to Konnopke's Imbiss for currywurst near the Eberswalder U-bahn stop. He said whenever he went into the city, he would stop there on his way out. It is still doing booming business. So the Asian food I had in Berlin was actually in Spandau, in the mall next to the train station.
In Bonn, I went to another Taste of India, though I don't know if they are the same as the ones in Vienna, on Rheingasse.
In Prague, I went to a little Vietnamese place down the street from the hotel. And it may have also been Prague where I went to a late night Korean food joint run by Chinese immigrants, but I forget now.
I was in London for a very short time, so we mixed it up and got Ethiopian food there. In Italy, well, Italian food is delicious. I didn't eat any Asian food in Italy. And I didn't go to Slovenia for the Asian food either. Though I did go to restaurant Hisa Franko in Kobarid, which was the first time I'd been to a really, really fancy place.