Blaue Gans, July, $23

Just to mix things up a bit, I decided to make a reservation at the Austrian restaurant, Blaue Gans. Austrian food may sound strange or exotic, but it is shares the same palette of flavors and ingredients as German cuisine which a lot of people are more familiar with.  The chef Kurt Gutenbrunner wanted his restaurant to honor the memory of the "wirsthaus" of his childhood.   At this restaurant the vibe is casual and light and the menu is heavy on the, well, "wirst".  Their lunch Prix Fixe is three course and $23.  You can choose any appetizer or entree for your first two courses and then a dessert for your third course.

Mee-Ryung Lee is my lunch date once again and we were seated in our favorite arrangement, in the corner of a banquette.  The tables, chairs and banquette melt into the background so you can focus on the colorful art on the walls.  The wine list had a nice selection of Austrian and German wines, as well as,  the usual French and California suspects.  The menu is straightforward with salads, sandwiches, entrees and, of course, "wirst".  I decided to embrace the "wirsthaus" offerings and selected the weisswurst with brezel (pretzel) to start.  M chose the beef consomme with vegetables and dumplings.  The second course was obvious for me, schnitzel.  M gave in to her love of seafood and ordered the mussels.  The dessert selection would be offered after we ate our entrees.

First, we got our bread, what a wonderful beginning.  One of the baguettes were pretzel and the other was sesame.  They were soft and warm and did not need any butter.  The pretzel bread had a nice amount of salt and was tender, not like the brutishness of an NYC hot pretzel from a vendor.

My weisswurst and brezel came to me unadorned except for the pot of mustard under the pretzel.  The "wirst" was flavorful and rich, but not oily.  It was cooked well, not bursting at the seams from to much heat or mushy from not enough heat.  The pretzel was warm and soft with the right amount of salt.  It was a very pleasing combination.  M's consomme was enjoyable, as well, but tasted more like a soup than a clear, clean liquid of a consomme.  The vegetables and dumpling were a little sparse for me, but I like thick soups.  We both agreed it needed a little salt.

Our entrees came to us unembellished, stripped of any perfunctory greens or foamy infusions.  I quite like the straightforward presentation in this setting, nothing to distract you from the flavor of the food and calmness of the atmosphere.  My Jaegerschnitzel came with mushrooms and bacon, the Jaeger- part, I guess.  The schnitzel was a flavorful pork chop, pounded thin, breaded and well seasoned and pan fried.  It was very enjoyable and how can you go wrong with mushrooms and bacon?  Oh, and there was yummy mound of herbed spaetzle, too.  M's mussels were a different story.  The lobster broth the mussels came in lacked some flavor and a few mussels were overdone.  It was disappointing, but not devastating.  They were still good enough to eat.

Our desserts, you will have to forgive me, but, I am not really sure what they were called.  Our waitress named and described our choices for us, but I cannot recall it, my notes from that lunch don't make much sense of dessert names and there is no description of the desserts listed on the restaurant's on-line menu.  I can tell you they were both Austrian and delicious.  One dessert was pieces of refried pancake, essentially.  It had powdered sugar and a berry compote.  It was quite tasty and, I thought, quite clever.  I like dishes that you can repurpose a main ingredient into another dish, generally, its called a leftover and I think it works better at home.  The other dessert was a thick, carmelized meringue served over berries.  It was sweet and delicious and quite suprising.

I would definitely come back to this restaurant for another lunch or dinner.  I like the casual nature of the place and while the food is not the best I have ever had, it is fun and interesting.  All the dishes we had were well executed enough to lead me to believe that anything else on the menu would not be disappointing.