Noodlekebap

When I left in 2007, Vienna was knee-deep in a pan-Asian food (and, with limitations, culture) craze. Sushi places were opening their doors at every street corner. Chinese dresses could be found in main street stores. People were crazy about Feng Shui, “Zen” this and “Zen” that, “Asian” spas and other true or perceived bits and pieces of “Asian” culture. Old Chinese restaurants decorated with generic imperial-looking paraphernalia that used to offer little more than chopped up meat on rice (with perhaps a few forlorn bamboo sprouts) felt compelled to ramp up their game. Instead of dirt-cheap lunch specials of sweet and sour pork, the word “Wok” appeared on signs in their windows and they changed their names from “China-Restaurant zum Goldenen Drachen” to things like “Lotus Asia Küche”.

Having lived in Seattle, and having travelled to China itself, I felt (for a change) well ahead of the fashion. I researched Viennese Chinese restaurants that offered dim sum, deplored the lack of Thai and Vietnamese food and was suspicious about the rise of the “Lotus Asia Küche”-category. If a host culture is clearly interested in your continent’s cultures, why would you move from more to less specific? Why go pan-Asian instead of being more daring and authentic with the spectrum of Chinese food offered? Off to Tucson I went, which was, admittedly, not the best ground for the various Asian cuisines, but nevertheless, there was “Gee’s Garden” for dim sum, “Sushi Yukari” for authentic Japanese food (as assured by several Japanese and experienced travellers to Japan), and several good Thai and Vietnamese places.

Preparing to go back to Vienna after 5 years, I was hopeful. Maybe the Asian craze had matured, maybe Austrians, living in the center of a small continent with 30+ languages and cultures, had gotten more informed about “Asia” and maybe one could now have a good green Thai curry in this town.

At first glance, I am a little taken aback. It looks like the happy mixing has continued uninhibited. The “Lotus Asia Küche” places seem to thrive. The menu of a Korean restaurant in my area of town also offers Thai and Japanese food. The lunch buffet at a “Wok” place near university is an unholy mix of Chinese and Sushi, with a deep-fried banana dessert that I recognized from the old-style Austrian Chinese restaurants but that I have never encountered in an American place or during my ten days in China. Chopsticks took a little while to find. A somewhat more upscale-looking place called “Chang” right around the corner from my apartment on one hand specializes on Peking duck, and the staff spoke Chinese to each other, on the other hand, much of their menu looked rather Thai. However, Thai or Chinese, the food was definitely good enough for a neighborhood round-the-corner place. To my knowledge, there is no specific law that says that no human is able to cook both good Chinese and good Thai food. Perhaps the mix places aren’t all that bad. Buuut…mix places somehow always make me cautious. And, of course, the search has only begun. Maybe the “pure” places are waiting to be found in the urban jungle.

On the other side of the spectrum, finding crazier mixes than Chinese-Thai has been no problem. There is a new fast food on Vienna’s streets: “Asian noodles". Noodles everywhere, in holes in the walls of tube stations, in booths together with pizza slices, at the traditional Viennese Würstelstand, at McDonalds (“McNoodle”, no joke!), and in döner kebab stands. Yes, döner kebab stands. No, I could never have imagined it either. Also, kebab meat can now be had in the to-go boxes (“kebab box”) familiar (to me, at least) from American Chinese restaurants. No, I have not tried it, or the noodles from the kebab stands, I have not yet been desperate/drunk enough. 

Some of these booths go the whole nine yards: kebab, pizza, sausage and noodles. Look no further, we’ve got it all right here.

What else is new on the “Asian” food front? Now, this I am utterly excited about: Bubble Tea! During my stay in Seattle, I developed a serious addiction to that stuff and could not find it for saving my life when I returned to Vienna. I was seriously contemplating cooking up my own tapioca. The better part of a decade later – voila! Boy, was I ever ahead of the fashion! Even better, the Austrian version is not catering to the American palate, i.e., I do not have to order it “half as sweet as you would normally do it”. And the best (worst?) thing: there are two Bubble Tea places right within a 3 minute walk from my office.