Livia’s win, however, had to be fêted in suitable style, so – after a nice cold apéritif of French bubbly, round my little red table – PGB and I set out in search of a nice place to eat. And we found one. When first I came back to the Nollendorfstrasse, my friend Horst pointed me in the direction of a tiny, Austrian restaurant named – what else – Sissi. There it was, just round the corner in the Motzstrasse. And, goodness me, Horst was right.
Tiny, charming, delightful staff and ... well, I have honestly to say, better food than I have ever eaten, anywhere, in Vienna itself. And at very reasonable prices. I had a consommé with a nice light leberknoedel, followed by what the English menu described as boiled calf carpaccio. The mind boggled. But it was delicious thin slices of cold boiled beef, served with a tiny light salad … delicious, and you come out at the end (as I like to do) thinking you have eaten nothing. Paul had a gulasch. Now I’ve seen all sorts of gulasches in my life and most of them would sink a sailor. Not this one. This is food for enjoying, not for simply swelling your stomach. And that means, of course, that grown-ups have space for pudding: Paul could not resist an apricot dumpling…
Our meal was completed by a nice bottle of Pinot (28 euros, wines in restaurants and bars here are grotesquely expensive – 200 to 400pc markup), served with decided talent by a young waiter who made the single bottle last tidily and precisely through our meal, instead of slurping it forcefully into the glasses in the hope the customer will order a second bottle…
We saved ourselves for the Châteauneuf du Pape (11euros at Kaiser’s Supermarket) waiting for us, nightcappishly, back at the Nollendorfstrasse.
A delightful evening. A delightful restaurant. I am already booked for a return visit Thursday… and that will not certainly be the last during my month-to-go in Berlin. Would it be too much to hope that one of the horses might win again, too?
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