Frommer's Review
For night owls, this restaurant is set almost immediately adjacent to Vienna's largest food and vegetable market (the Naschmarkt), behind a facade that's lit up with thousands of whimsically cheerful strands of tiny light bulbs. This all-day, all-night restaurant seems very far removed from the Habsburgundian grandeur of central Vienna, despite the fact that it has been a local institution for the past 125 years. It's famous among those who make it either their business or their hobby to stay out very late at night. An equal-opportunity feeder, it caters to more than just the entertainment industries: Early-morning truckers loading and unloading vegetables at the nearby market sometimes drop in for beer and Wiener schnitzel, sitting more or less amicably next to soggy and perspiration-drenched or beer-soaked insomniacs from the neighborhood's many straight and gay bars. It also does a roaring business from the after-theater crowd at the nearby Theater an der Wien, and by 4am the place is usually packed. Staff tends to be cheerful and philosophical about the role they play in feeding and caring for the needs of Vienna's dark side. The ambience evokes an amicably battered inn whose woodsy decor hasn't changed much since the 1960s, except for a replica of a bare-branched tree, draped with glittering lights, near the bar at the entrance. Menu items are hausmannskost, substantial, traditional, and comfort food. Examples include Styrian-style chicken salad with pine nuts, bacon-studded dumplings with green salad, pork cutlets with potato salad, and what a local paper (Kurier) defined as "Vienna's best gulaschsuppe."
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