Rather than stuff my already lengthy accounts of our time in each individual city, I decided to talk about the food we encountered throughout the trip in a post all to itself. Each city and country we visited had strong regional variations, but I thought a single post would also be good for tying together the similarities we saw, too.

Let’s start with Vienna. Bordering Germany and Czechia to the north, the base of its cuisine is similar to both of those nations. It weighs heavily on grains and meat, especially pork and beef. However, Vienna has a couple specialties that feature prominently, and I tended to focus on those when we ate. First is schnitzel, which comes cheaper with pork and 30-40% more expensive with veal. The dish features a large slice of meat, between a centimeter and inch thick, that is encapsulated in a light fried dough. It comes with various accompaniments, including potatoes, parsley, lemon slices, and tart cranberries in the past. Any of the city’s wheat beers also pairs great with this dish. Vienna has a take on goulash as well, although it’s more of a stew and was, in my opinion, less flavorful than the Hungarian version. 

Vienna’s other strong point is in coffee and pastries. We took the opportunity to indulge in both at Cafe Landtmann, a famous spot near Rathausplatz where Freud used to frequent. One of my friends got a cappuccino which came with much more foam than one in say, Australia would have. I opted for a coffee variant that was topped with orange and whipped cream. Coffee purists would turn their noses up, but sugar fiends will love it! The pastry game was pretty strong too. One pastry in particular is most iconic: the apple strudel. Layers of pastry dough with roasted apples and sauce in between, usually topped with powdered sugar and whipped cream. It’s both hearty and filling, but doesn’t leave you with quite as much of a sugar rush as the city’s more decadent cakes. I certainly didn’t need the amount of whipped cream that came with my coffee, so I actually ended up ordering my strudel without the cream to save money, and then took it from my coffee! Then my friend Joel did the same. How’s that for frugal travel?

Next was Budapest, my personal favorite for food. The first thing to note is that Hungarians love their paprika. One year they had a bad harvest and declared a nationwide emergency and rationing as a result! This peppery spice manifests in several dishes, with the most common one probably being goulash (spelled gulyas in Hungary). Our first night in Budapest, we stopped in a restaurant called Getto Gulyas, a restaurant I stumbled across my last week of study abroad, but went to thrice in that last week. Contrary to most gulyas in Hungary which comes in soup form, they still serve it as a stew with doughy “dumplings” to the side. The best part of gulyas is the accompanying sauce, which is rich and flavorful, and is soaked up well by bread or other grains. We also got bone marrow, which came topped with garlic. Meat and grains still form the foundation of the diet here though, and my study abroad program actually warned that Budapest would be harder on vegans than most cities. Anyway, Budapest joins Vienna in being pastry-proficient, even though they aren’t as well known for it. Our only stop for sweets this trip was Socks Cafe, the one I used to work for hours at. Back then I’d eventually cycled all the way through their menu, although this time I just got their Sacher torte. I also got their cherry coffee, which would’ve been a splurge for me during study abroad but was a drop in the bucket now. Lastly, my favorite gelato shop should be familiar to anyone who loves the chain Amorino and their rose-shaped ice cream creations. It’s Gelato Rosa just south of the St. Istvan cathedral, which is my favorite for their creative flavors of basil lime, strawberry elderflower, and lavender white chocolate. This was my most special treat during study abroad, and I went there to commemorate events like my first half marathon, 21st birthday, and the day my Microsoft housing stipend hit my savings account! They’d added black sesame to their roster this time, and I went twice this trip despite the freezing weather. I still haven’t experienced anything like the freshness of their fruity flavors anywhere else in the world.

Next was Prague, which was probably the highlight of our trip both in terms of variety and quality of our food. We actually started off with our favorite dinner of the trip, at a restaurant our Uber driver recommended that was a block from our AirBnB. We never would’ve found it otherwise, since it wasn’t even listed in Yelp by my memory. We started with a bowl of pita bread and tzatziki sauce, along with a plate of prosciutto and arugula. After mostly meat in our first two cities, we were glad to finally see more vegetables. The rest of their dishes were meat-based, but more creative and flavorful than the schnitzels and gulyas we’d had so far. Particularly good were the thick slices of duck that came with a rich orange sauce.

Of course, everyone agreed that the real culinary highlight was going to Den Noc for pancakes. Our first pass through we didn’t arrive until 11 a.m. or so, and had to wait 15-20 minutes for a table. It went quickly and we were seated and had ordered before long. But only the coffee and wine that I’d ordered came right away. Our food took so long that I ordered another glass of wine, which was brought promptly. And then another… although at this point the rest of my party was getting irritated with waiting. When the waitress came back with my third glass, I asked politely how much longer they expected our food to take. She went back to check with the kitchen, and her response upon returning was: “Apologies, but we had forgotten about your food. It is starting to be made now”. It’s the most blunt I remember a restaurant ever being about an error. Also, did they really just think we were there for one of us to sip wine for an hour? Anyway, there was a lot of huffing and puffing and one friend pledged to leave a bad review after we’d eaten. Little did we know we would be eating our words with the pancakes once they came out, though! They were light and fluffy, and provided the perfect bedrock for the toppings we had. My favorite savory one is probably the one with bacon, avocado and feta cheese on top. Another good one had a light sour cream beneath a bed of prosciutto and cherry tomatoes. The undisputed star of the show, though, was Den Noc’s specialty pancakes, half of them chocolate, beneath a layer of apricot jam and topped with whipped cream. They were so good that my friend and I ordered them again while we waited for his emergency passport to finish processing. Out of all the dishes we tried, it was the one that my friend recreated for us and his family once we’d returned home. And when I returned to Prague with my family two years later, we stopped here not once but twice. Although I ordered wine again, they did not forget our food again!

Our last stop in Prague was one of several Hemingway Bars around the world. They’re known for creative themed cocktails, which I’m a huge fan of! (They also carry hundreds of brands of extremely rare liquors, including some very rare bottles, but those are frankly out of my budget). On this first visit I sampled both the light side and dark side cocktails, the former of which came in a mug styled after the droid R2D2. I would have purchased the cup, but that sadly wasn’t an option. Next was probably the fanciest serving contraption I’ve ever seen for a cocktail, a styled glass dispenser. Because the drink was heavy with absinthe, they pack the dispenser with ice so that it’ll weaken slightly as time goes on. I’m sure many a customer has appreciated this in retrospect, but for me it was just something else of note. Their menu does change every now and then, and when I returned with my family they had ones themed for Game of Thrones and Garden Gnomes. We also opted for a light limoncello drink that came with a scoop of sorbet. Except for more outlandish creations like the GOT foam, quality craftsmanship shone through in each of these drinks. It’ll probably be awhile until I find myself in another one, but when I do I cannot wait to see what they come up with next!

Last, and honestly least, was our visit to Nuremberg in Germany. We were all pretty ready to go home at this point, but I found the food here to be underwhelming. Our first night, we arrived late enough that we just grabbed sausages at the Christmas market, which were hearty and did the trick. The next day, we made lunch reservations at the Albrecht Durer house restaurant. We were served the most stereotypical German food I could’ve imagined. We got sausages and sauerkraut, a heap of beef stew and starch, and a massive steaming bowl of purple cabbage. Seriously, that cabbage could’ve been a meal on its own and I still don’t think I could’ve finished it! The food was good and I finished most of my main, although I barely touched the “side” of cabbage. It was just completely lacking in variety. Also in true German fashion, I ordered a litre of dopplebock (that was the smallest size they had) to down it all. Beer was cheap, delicious, and came in large sizes for every stop of this trip. We probably each drank 5 litres or more by the time it was over. Anyway, dinner that night proved to be sausages once again, adding to my enthusiasm that we would finally be headed home. 

The high points of our trip for food were definitely in Budapest and Prague, while you’ll probably have to search harder in Vienna and Nuremberg in particular to switch it up. You’ll also have to be mindful to get enough vegetables (excluding cabbage), because those aren’t prominently featured either. One thing you certainly can be sure of, though, is that you won’t go hungry with the meal sizes here! Just make sure your pants are stretchy, or have a size to spare.