Vienna, Austria 7: Ilona Stuberl

Our lunch/dinner on the third day in Vienna was Hungarian dishes at a family-run restaurant, Ilona Stuberl. We both started with "Jókai" bean soup. The soup was a bit salty but hearty and very meat with sausages.

Our server brought a bread basket and told us the cheese rolls were not for free. I have never seen a for-fee-bread in the basket along with for-free-bread. We were very careful not to touch the cheese rolls.

My main was stuffed cabbage rolls. The filling was something like pork sausage. It was also very meaty but tasted fine. J's dish was veal goulash with gnocchi. I tasted the little pearl-shaped gnocchi a bit, which was pretty good!

In addition to the bean soup, the main dishes were rich and made us very full even though they were in a small size. We had to leave the restaurant without sweet Hungarian crapes for desserts.

It was our "museum" day. Just before the lunch, we visited the Secession Building that was built in 1897 as a result of a art movement (to a vibrant contemporary from a centuries-old tradition style) led by the likes of Gustav Klimt. The highlight of the exhibition was Klimt's "Beethoven Frieze," a 30-meter-long interpretation of Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony."After the lunch, we went to Museumsquartier, the Vienna's art complex near the Imperial Palace and visited Leopold Museum to see one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art. It was quite interesting.

To be continued...