Plane Spotting

A special thing about Heuriger zum Weißen Kreuz is that it is located very close to Vienna airport, less than two kilometers from the runway, and although you cannot see the planes taking off and landing from the tavern’s walled garden, you can certainly hear them and spot them flying over you while you are enjoying your wine and snacks. The other good thing is that you are very unlikely to find any tourists there. While not particularly remote (you can reach it with a bus or a bicycle from the nearest train station in about 15 minutes), Enzersdorf is not famous for anything in particular, as far as I know.

It could be famous for the variety of ingredients in the Heuriger’s Brettljause, however. The menu listed them as Geselchtes (smoked meat), Surfleisch (salted meat), Bratenfleisch (roasted meat), Presswurst (head cheese), Blunzen (black pudding), Speck (bacon), Luftgetrocknetes (air dried meat), Kletzerl (a small salami-like sausage), cheese and spread (paprika-spiced minced bacon in this case). Highly unusually, this was a rather precise description, except that I have also discovered some kind of salty ham and a second type of bacon. All these ingredients were represented by a couple of slices only, but all together made the dish quite filling. The price of the Brettljause did not include bread, but the cheese straw I took was still warm and tasted very fresh.

Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, the Brettljause itself was not particularly flavorsome. Everything tasted good enough, but no one ingredient was especially exciting or left a lasting impression. While I do not believe that the ingredients came from a supermarket (except the cheese and the Kletzerl, maybe), they could have come from the local producers who provide their stuff to supermarkets. I only felt strongly (and negatively) while eating the Bratenfleisch (which would have been called Schweinsbraten in other places), because it contained both annoying cartilage and unchewable skin.

Still, Heuriger zum Weißen Kreuz is a non-obvious, quiet (the sound of planes notwithstanding) and enjoyable location, which has good wines and a number of other dishes, including warm ones, which you can try if a completely OK but slightly boring Brettljause is not something you are looking for.