Different kind of beautiful Chapter 5: A taste of the coffee culture in Cafe Sacher

Travelogue: 8th June 2015

Our train journey from Prague to Vienna took about 4 hours. That 4 hours in the train was not a waste of time. The views that we passed by were of green fields and beautiful landscapes of nature. If you are awake long enough, you will find watching the lovely views from the window enjoyable.

I spent half the time praying that this stack of luggage will not topple down onto me who was sitting near it. Yup, and that is my ‘Elsa’ sock trying to remind me to chill. This is not how I wanna die. 

We arrived safely, and I am so thankful for that. Lol.

The streets of Vienna were even more empty than the streets of Prague in the morning. It was a Sunday and almost all the shops were closed and locals stay indoor to spend time with their families. After checking in, we took some time to rest before heading out for a late lunch.

This is a huge contrast to the scenes in Singapore. The streets of Singapore are the most crowded during weekends because people are are not required to work and so they can be found in shopping malls with their friends and families. All restaurants are almost full and waiting for seats may take ages.

Due to that, we were back in our rooms early yesterday to have a good rest. Today was going to be another exciting day.

Our first task of the day was to…………….. go for breakfast! Ok, one of my travel mates, Bon said that Vienna has a long tradition of producing the finest cakes and desserts. She said that we could expect the best coffee and desserts here because there is a popular coffee culture here that we need to explore.

Good morning from Vienna!

Coffee, desserts, food and everything nice. Of course I was excited. We were early and the chosen cafe was still closed. Apparently hanging around the cafe and peeping in will not influence them to open the cafe any earlier.

So I simply sat at a nearby bench to do some people watching and I saw this lady with her 3 loyal dogs. It is common to see anyone walking their dog, but she had three dogs following her. Wow.

Sleepy selfie with the bestie. Hey, I rhymed. #lame

I think we were only waiting for a few minutes but somehow it felt like ages because we were all starving. Look how happy and relieved we all looked when we finally came in.

I would say that they do treat all their customers with hospitality. In fact, we have been blessed with great customer services from Prague and now here in Vienna. After our last experience with customer service in Italy in our last trip, I guess you could say that we did not have too high expectations of the service industry in Europe.

We were wonderfully wrong.

Even though we were among the first few customers, the cafe quickly filled up. Apparently Cafe Sacher is  one of the most popular and well known cafes in Vienna.

I love how the entire cafe looked so grand. Let’s take a group photo with one dorky face. 

Nothing makes me happier than the sight of food when I am hungry.

Everything felt too pretty. Bon and me took ages to take photos of these food. Thank you to the bestie, AK and May for waiting patiently and tolerating this weird obsession of taking photos of food.

I ordered the salmon and it came with the toasts.

The salmon was simply perfection. I felt like it melt into my mouth and the little cream had a sour and a little taste of wasabi.

Of course we could not leave the cafe before tasting a slice of Original Sacher-Torte mit schlag (with a generous dollop of unsweetened whipped cream) and a cup of coffee.  Traditionally, the coffee comes with a glass of water.

Original Sacher-Torte was invented in 1832.  It is one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. This dessert has a long history of legal issues over the use of the label “The Original Sacher Torte”. Cafe Sacher, who won this legal battle have been using this name and this cafe is the only place where you can find “The Original Sacher Torte”.

True to its name and reputation, Bon and me both thought that it was one of the best tasting cake we have ever eaten. Yes, and we do eat a lot of cakes! Lol.

If you are in Vienna, do drop by this cafe. It is attached to Hotel Sacher, thus the same name. You may want to check out the cafe’s website here.