Dining in Style, at 90 Miles an Hour

That was the one catastrophe I skilled. After a dreamy evening on the metropolis’s new Resort Josephine, I finished for a lightweight breakfast on the historic Viennese coffeehouse Café Sperl in preparation for lunch aboard the ÖBB Railjet to Zurich.

The flat panorama outdoors Vienna gave approach to hills, adopted by mountains. I despatched my son a photograph of the show exhibiting the prepare’s pace as 233 kilometers, or simply beneath 145 miles, an hour. It felt like we had been on a aircraft, although the seats had been extra spacious.

As new and glossy because it appeared, the eating automobile was much less gratifying than the older Czech Railways model in lots of regards, with fewer seats, a plastic really feel and no tablecloths — crisp, white or in any other case. Service was much less attentive, too, mirrored within the lukewarm truffle-celery soup, which was in any other case creamy and filling, hinting of nutmeg and underplaying the truffle-oil notes. A regional most important course, kärntner ritschert (9.90 euros), improved issues: a rib-sticking, cassoulet-like stew of pearl barley, white beans and smoked pork morsels from the Austrian area of Carinthia close to Italy and Slovenia. Aromatic with marjoram and parsley, it put some extent on the ÖBB scoreboard. One other plus was the outstanding Domäne Wachau Riesling Federspiel Terrassen 2022 (12.70 euros), a white wine from Austria’s Wachau area on the Danube, that includes intense stone-fruit, lime and pear notes.

Because the surroundings gained elevation, I watched for snow however noticed little or no till after Innsbruck. As soon as the solar was behind the mountains, I ordered supper: natural paprika hen with spätzle (12.90 euros), and a neighborhood natural beer, Schladminger Bio Zwickl (4.30 euros). I didn’t thoughts the chilly temperature on the lager, however I’d have most well-liked the hen hotter, and with fewer crunchy bits of cartilage, or no matter it was that was not meat. It had a flavorful, creamy sauce, nevertheless, that soaked properly into the pasta.

General, it was a good effort, and I appreciated that the Austrian menu additionally listed vegetarian and vegan choices. However my meals suffered from the Railjet eating automobile’s environment and lackluster service, and as I left the prepare station in Zurich, I used to be already trying ahead to my journey by the Alps the subsequent morning.