Beware: to reach this hidden gem you would require an almost two-hour bus journey from Vienna, followed by a nearly one and a half hour long walk through fields and a golf course (thank you, Austrian Federal Railways for streamlining your train connections). Is it worth it? It depends on your tolerance in respect of the countryside.
It’s not “urig,” the “urigness” slowly turning into a kind of a tourist magnet. It’s just very local, meaning that none of the people who fill up this small Heuriger within half an hour of its opening time will come from afar, none will be tourist, and most likely none will belong to the same generation as you. I would say that the average age of the customers was in the early seventies, and a few were quite certainly brain-dead.
You eat well, though. All the stuff on your table comes from the farm of the Neubauer family, apart perhaps from the eggs and the wine (possibly also the Pfefferoni), and the quality of the meat is outstanding. The pigs that the meats were in their previous lives were very happy pigs indeed. The Speck was juicy, tender and salty, somehow reminding me of the Schwarzwaldschinken. The ham tasted amazingly fresh, which is highly unusual for a ham. The cold Schweinsbraten were just good Schweinsbraten, possibly missing a bit of salt. Also present were three spreads: the liver (good as the liver goes, but I just don’t like liver), something Liptauer-like, but with much more egg (good) and a salty Verhackertes, which was sensational. The best thing was the bread, however: freshly baked, still slightly warm and super-soft with a crunchy crust.
I was advised to take a Grammelschmatzbrot afterwards, but somehow the “Grammelfettbrot” was not up to my excessive expectations, especially because of a total lack of salt. Perhaps a “Schmalzbrot” would have been a better choice, or a Surrippeln, which looked so appetizing on the nearby table that I may come back just to try them.
The biggest problem of Neubauer is the presentation. Had the Hausplatte come on a wooden plate, in a nice garden outside (admittedly impossible in January), better arranged and served with a bit of even fake hospitality, I might have given it a higher score. Like this, it’s a victim of its own urigness.
Leave a Reply