BSG

Once upon a time, there was a happy little piglet. He ran, and he jumped, and he oinked merrily, and he dreamed of all the things he would become when he grows up. And then he grew up and turned into three things: Braten, Speck and Geselchtes. Dreams are generally quite unreliable.

If a sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomato is called a BLT, Sonntagberger‘s Bauernjause can easily be abbreviated BSG. Apart from the thickly cut above-mentioned ingredients, the Brettl only contained some onions, horseradish and pickled cucumber. As the photo attests, the result was a fairly sad sight, and although all the meats were absolutely edible and non-industrial, I could not help feeling cheated. It also did not help to see much more appetizing Brettljausen at the other tables: thinly cut, nicely arranged and featuring some cheese and spreads. Given a choice between thickly and thinly cut Jausen, I always go for the former because of a better taste, but in this particular case, my choice was clearly wrong.

Another problem was the weather: quite warm for April, but not warm enough for the Heuriger to start serving outside. As a result, I had to sit in a small dining room with just a few tables pushed against each other and feel as an uninvited guest intruding upon the owners’ privacy. For the first ten minutes, the owners did not even come out of the kitchen to take the order: they were busy cleaning the dishes, taking care of two small screaming kids and – I think – washing the floor.

It got better later on, once the other tables filled up, and the place started to look more like a Heuriger than someone’s home. Still, Sonntagberger Mostheuriger is a very small, simple and rather hard to reach establishment, and going there with low expectations is the only way to enjoy it. They also have a surprisingly sour Most (for Mostviertel, in any case), which is better consumed “gespritzt,” i.e., mixed with mineral water.

Conclusion: not completely catastrophic, but far from great.