Monday is not an easy day to find a Brettljause around the Southern Styrian wine street. I mean, it would have been easy enough had I settled for revisiting one of the places I had tried in the past six years, but my determination to always discover something new made things very difficult. It did not help that having cycled to Leutschach and drunk at its brewery (something I can never resist), I fell victim to the South Styrian warped spaces and spent an hour and a half cycling pointlessly from hill to hill. At least I did not end up in Slovenia and was not arrested by the border guards.
Gallunder was, in fact, one of the first taverns I saw today at the beginning of my cycling misadventure, and the only reason I did not stop there was because it was not open yet. I kept it in memory, however, and when my prospects of finding a place to eat dwindled to zero, I decided to take no more chances and head straight towards it (I missed the road a couple of times nevertheless).
Unsurprisingly, by the time I reached the Buschenschank, it was starting to get dark and very cold. Moreover, the inside of the tavern was packed with people, which left me sitting outside with an Austrian couple at a table next to mine, and even they left very promptly. I cannot complain about the wine’s temperature though; it was indeed very cold, like the Brettljause and, well, myself.
The Jause came on a normal plate instead of a wooden plank and looked quite small at first. It is not until I started to get rid of the less desired things like the liver spread that I noticed that the portions were well above average. The Speck and the salami were cut into very small and thin pieces, but there were a lot of them, piled one on top of the other and creating an impression of volume. The salami was cut in a strange way, apparently along a sausage rather than across it.
All the meats tasted fresh and pleasant, and I did not even mind the liver spread, despite its strong liver flavour. Only the cheese disappointed by its plainness, but Southern Styria had never been a country of strong cheese. Besides, the cold and the prospect of cycling back to the hotel in complete darkness with only a hand torch to help me bothered me more than I would have liked. If you are not under stress, however, Gallunder is a competent Buschenschank with friendly service and quality wines.
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