On Gluttony, Part 1: Schnitzel, Schinken, & Zuppe in Vienna for a (Practically) Wordless Wednesday

I'm back, and I'm hungry!

On our trip to Europe last spring - the bulk of which was spent in Prague and Krakow - Poppa Trix and I contrived to spend the last two days in one of our favorite places on earth: Vienna. This was partly to see Mother-in-Law Trix, who lives there, and partly to eat. And eat. Oh, and drink. And then, when we were tired of that  ... eat. I'll wager that in two days we ate more than most normal people do in a week. In fact, we ate so much in 48 hours that I have divided our gastronomic exploits into two posts, each covering a 24-hour period.

And so, without further ado, please enjoy this not-quite-wordless-Wednesday post outlining our gluttony on day one.

We arrived at the crack of dawn after an incredibly uncomfortable overnight train from Krakow, so our first order of business was procuring some coffee. We headed to Aida in Stephensplatz:

I love that coffee always comes with a little glass of water

But we needed solid sustenance as well, so we got something I had been craving since our trip to Vienna the year before: a mayonnaise ei. Yes, there is an egg buried beneath that glorious shiny casing! And I know what you're thinking, and yes, it does rather look like that. Knowing the Viennese, I suspect it is no accident:

And with this we had a schinken rolle, or ham wrapped around horseradish. Heaven.

After a shower at our hotel, we headed to Restaurant Sperl in the Belvedere neighborhood to meet Mother in Law Trix and have some lunch:

 I was happy to see that the Sperl kitty was still there! 

I had been dreaming about their knoblauchcremezuppe, or garlic cream soup, since the year before:

Luckily for us, it was barlauch season. Remember barlauch? Last year Poppa Trix and I saw people picking it in the Wienerwald. A wild garlic, it's related to ramps, which I talk about here. The barlauch soup was intense, and I loved it:

It also happened to be asparagus season, so an asaparagus soup was in order:

And asparagus season means entire asparagus menus, so we ordered this:

And this:

Truth be told, I wasn't wowed by these. I much preferred this:

Knockerl with sundried tomato and cheese and ham and .... mmmmm

Once we were finished eating food, naturally we wanted to go look at food, so we headed for the Naschmarkt, Vienna's amazing outdoor market where you can get virtually anything your heart desires:

 Asparagus

 More asparagus ...

 Barlauch!

 Viennese dogs are lucky dogs

 I sure hope that chicken didn't lay that egg!

 Mushrooms

 So many spices

 That certainly was a lot of walking! Time for dinner. We returned to another favorite, the very local, neighborhood-y Phonixhof in Neubaugasse, where we indulged in some schnitzel:

Nearly as big as the plate!

But you don't suppose we split one do you? Goodness no! I had this, the cordon bleu, stuffed with cheese and ham:

While Poppa Trix had this spinach-stuffed one:

Note that it's not paper-thin as is traditional, but it was scrumptious nonetheless. And to avoid scurvy and rickets, we also had this colorful salad (of course they couldn't resist throwing some potatoes on the plate!):

And there you have it. A gluttonous day, to be sure, but not epically so ... for that, you'll have to wait for Day 2!