food, friends and football are what thanksgivings are made of

Thursday 28 Nov 2019

We started a four hour food tour at 9 this morning. There were three groups of Americans on our tour, all celebrating Thanksgiving abroad. We started at one of the few family run coffee shops with coffee, chocolate cake and apple strudel. What a fabulous breakfast.

We then walked to Naschmarkt, which is a bridge that's built with a market on top to link streets together. It's incredibly touristy, and our guide, Lukas, said that we should avoid all stalls but one, because the vendors charge high prices and don't source locally. We had a cheese board with goat, sheep and cow cheese. One of the cheeses is coated in burnt herb ash, which keeps it fresh, however, to distinguish it from the French style, the cheese has red chilis in it that merely add color, not flavor.

After Naschmarkt we walked to leiberkas-pepi, which is a famous homemade leiberkas shop that boasts 12 flavors, including lieberkas made from horse. We sampled 5. My favorite was the one that included pickles 😍 All 5 were supposed to be eaten with spicy mustard and horseradish, however, after one tasting of the horseradish I opted for just the mustard. Lukas explained that this shop is cheap and near the Opera because after locals and tourists spend all of their money on Opera tickets, they come here for a cheap and filling sandwich. (Sidenote: we also found out that you can get standing room only Opera tickets for 4 euro a piece as opposed to the seats that run from 20 euro to 200 euro and have an enforced dress code #foodtourforthewin).

After having our fill of lieberkas Pepi we went to a candy shop, one of the last that follows the traditional style of candy making. We watched a video showing the process, and saw that for the specialized candies it can take three workers up to 6 hours to produce one batch. We sampled coffee, hazelnut and glacier flavors.

After, we went somewhere truly special. Lukas took us into an underground cellar that used to function as a storage facility for an abbey, but was also used as a shelter during WWII bombings. It's from the 14th century. Now it's a winery/restaurant/music hall. It's rustic, charming and completely empty during the day as it's only open to the public in the evenings. Here we tasted three wines, all of which were mixes or blends. A mix changes from year to year depending on the harvest, whereas a blend is created one year and then the winery attempts to replicate it every year thereafter to preserve the integrity of it for the buyer.

After the winery we went to a chocolate shop, where we sampled two chocolates, one apricot and one chocolate with poppyseeds. I liked the apricot best. The chocolate shop had chocolates that were made from 100% dark, however they were all imported from other places, like Peru. I just didn't feel right buying Peruvian chocolate in a Viennese chocolate shop, so we'll have to wait and taste 100% chocolate elsewhere.

After we went to a bakery and sampled four different breads. The underground oven that the bakery uses runs 24/7 because it's more efficient than a traditional turn on/turn off oven.

We ended with a meat board from a butcher shop that included Vienna's version of beef jerky, thick straight from the bone ham leg and thin deli sliced ham. All were delectable. As always, the food tour was a great introduction to the city of Vienna and it's food culture. It was a great way to connect with locals and tourists and to get our bearings in a new city. We'll definitely be sampling more breakfast cakes (what a great way to start the day!), in addition to more Viennese meats and wines.

After heading back to our hostel to check in, Mark did some work and I showered while we waited for Callie and Andrew to arrive. Once everyone was settled, the four of us went for dinner at an eclectic burger joint. My club chicken sandwich (it was the closest thing to turkey!) was oh so delicious and had lots of pickles on it 😁

We were incredibly satisfied and stuffed by our Thanksgiving meal choice, so on to the next Thanksgiving tradition, beer and football. We went to four bars looking for TVs, but kept coming up empty handed. We finally found a festive Irish pub, the golden harp, that was not only playing football games, but also handball games. We enjoyed a few pints and then walked to a craft beer bar with over 75 beer choices- yum! The atmosphere here was lively, so the four of us settled in for a few rounds of Thanksgiving "what if" questions to finish out our evening. Of course we missed our loved ones from back home, but are so thankful we have friends abroad to spend the holiday with.