Zur Steinernen Birne (and yes, the huge stone pear at the entrance is impressive) is one of the few “super-Heurigers” selected as “Mostbarons” on the www.mostbaron.at web site. Having visited quite a few of them, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect and can offer a piece of good free advice: ordering the most expensive Mostbaronjause is not necessarily the best choice.
The thing is, with the Mostbaronjause all the restaurants try to overdo it by adding some strange ingredients one could very well live without. In the past I have seen apples, nuts, berries, Solettis, etc. Zur Steinernen Birne offers some home-made jam (but no mustard), a vinegary potato salad, a vinegary cabbage salad, potato-and-egg-stuffed Schweinsbraten and a weird omelette-type thing tasting of cold mashed potatoes. All of these, while interesting, were not exceptional and did not really “belong” to the dish. Much better was a cold Bratl – a thick piece of cold meat cooked with onions. The meat dumpling – a specialty of Mostviertel – combined a pleasantly spicy meat with a totally bland potato crust.
The other meat ingredients – Schweinsbraten, Speck, Geselchtes and so on were very nice and definitely home-made, but ended up being overweighed by the “strange stuff” and typically tasteless cheese. At the end of the day, I was re-reading the impressive Jausenkarte, whose length could beat the menus in some full-scale restaurants, and regretting that I did not take something more down-to-earth, like all the locals around me seemed to be doing.
In summary, it’s a recommended place, just think twice before going for the Mostbaronjause.
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