A Sheep Pig Too Much

I’ve made a mistake. Well, two mistakes. The first one – to eat a second Brettljause on the same day – was probably unavoidable, since while visiting a rather remote region for the first and possibly only time one feels like getting the most out of it. The second mistake, however, was solely due to my total stupidity. Having found a perfectly normal Brettljause for a reasonable price in the Heuriger’s menu, I nevertheless went for a super-expensive (15+ euros) Mangalitza pork plate, despite the fact that I ate a fantastic plate of the same kind of meat at one of the best Heurige of Austria just six hours ago.

The Wollschweinteller of Zum goldenen Löwen was not merely inferior to the dish I had had earlier; it was simply below average, despite the noble animal it apparently came from. The ham was rather flavorless, had too much fat and was cut uncomfortably thickly. Ham is great when cut into thin slices or, or the other hand, when having a thickness of half a centimeter or more. When the slices are about two millimeters thick, the ham becomes strangely unpleasant to eat, suddenly requiring more effort to chew than your jaw is ready to make. While I could cut the fat off to make the ham taste less disgusting, I could not do the same with the salami, and as a result it tasted too unhealthy even to a seasoned pork-eater like me. The liver spread was the final straw, as it had a super-strong liver taste and was served as an intimidatingly huge portion.

I could finish the Speck – with not much enjoyment but without particularly exerting myself. The two thick slices of mountain cheese were actually very tasty, but unfortunately identical in their taste to the cheese one can easily buy from a supermarket. The only part of the Jause that I can say I really enjoyed was the tear-inducing horseradish, but I would not have expected anything less in Styria.

At the end, I left half of the plate uneaten and was extremely happy when the waiter finally removed it from my table, for even the sight of the remaining food was making me a bit sick. Zum goldenen Löwen is a very convenient place to dine in Bad Radkersburg and its wines are quite good, but the dish I ordered was totally wrong.