One regretful random afternoon in Austria, hubby and I were out shopping and decided to nick in to one of the many supermarket cafes they have here. I won’t say anything bad about these places – they have good, standard fare, it’s generally cheap, and they almost always have a salad bar – man I love Austrian salad bars!
But on this particular day, when I was pondering what to order, hubby made a suggestion for me – Herrengoulasch. Sounds interesting, methinks, so that’s what I went with.
Here’s what I got:
On top of the standard beef goulash and knödel (dumpling), they add a fried egg, a styled frankfurter (because come on, that’s what he is) and some gherkins.
Now I like all those elements on their own, so I was confident that it would be good. I especially love gherkins, so how can it go wrong?
It was wrong.
It was sooo sooo wrong.
It was one of those meals where I started chewing thoughtfully, forked in another mouthful, twisted my lips, swallowed it down and then blinked back my confusion.
I say good on you Austria for trying to ‘pimp’ the standard goulash, much like the way us Aussies ‘pimp’ a schnitzel and turn it into parma… I’m glad I gave it a go, but I’m not going to revisit.
I ended up eating most of the goulash, which tasted perfectly fine, stuffed in a few pickles on top of it and then gladly pushed it away from me.
I love goulash, but I’m going to leave it at that.
an aussie in austria 