An Introduction to Brettljause

Location:Gasthaus Tirolergarten
Website:http://zoovienna-gastro.at/unsere-betriebe/gasthaus-tirolergarten
Address:Maxingstraße 13b, 1130 Wien
Status:Open (last checked on 27 May 2015)
Eaten:“Bauernbrettl”, two glasses of wine (Riesling and Cuvee)

Tirolergarten is a very tourist-oriented place. Located just outside the Schönbrunn Zoo, it neighbors the Tirolerhof farm, which is supposed to explain to the zoo’s visitors what animal the beef comes from. The idea, I suppose, was that walking out of Tirolerhof and the zoo the tourists would have an opportunity to experience something like a typical Austrian hut with some of its specialties (and a few bog standard Wiener Schnitzels for less demanding customers). And one must admit that English-speaking Turk waiters notwithstanding, the hut does look quite authentic.

The Brettljause itself is also noticeably non-industrial, though I doubt that many of its ingredients come from the Tirolerhof (I have not seen any pigs there). Basically it contains a few slices of Speck, some Geselchtes, Verhackertes, blood sausage and Tiroler Bergkäse cheese (which has a slightly bitter taste, which is better than no taste at all). There are also two types of spread – the Liptauer and a white slightly garlicky one – neither of them extraordinary but not too bad either. Apart from that, there was some horseradish, mustard, picked cucumber, Pfefferoni and onion, accompanied by a tiny shot of surprisingly strong Schnapps.

This may sound as a very standard and boring Brettljause – and in a way it was – but generally, especially if one ignores the worse-than-average wine, the experience was a rather positive one, mostly helped by the meats that did not taste supermarket-y. A tourist visiting Vienna and dying to try a traditional Brettljause can do much worse than going to the Tirolergarten.

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