The second district is known to be a Mekka for foodies – with a variety of nice places and restaurants. One that has been praised by critics lately is the asian fusion kitchen place called Mochi. So on a mild summer evening we went there to check it out.
The restaurant is situated on a beautiful paved place with hardly any car traffic and a statue of the famous Austrian poet Johann Nestroy watching over it. The atmosphere is just amazing:
First impression: Wow! The restaurant’s team is incredibly friendly, attentive and polite. Thumbs up for that! The menue is designed for sharing the food, so you have a big choice of rather well priced small dishes. Regarding drinks, they serve Asahi (a Japanese beer, brewed in Czechia) and Villacher both from bottles only. The beer choice could be better, especially with the fish a Weissbier, Weizen or a really dry Pils would be cool. But anyway.
The Edamame (immature soy beans) came with fresh horseraddish. After I’ve figured out, that you don’t eat them with the shell (stringy, stringy!!) they were just delicious 🙂 A very clean, green taste. The Sakura Salad was a mixed salad (bitterish herbs like rucola) with dried bonito flakes, daikon (a raddish) and sakura dressing. The salad was to die for – very tasty, balanced and like nothing I’ve eaten before. The slight fishiness was excellently countered by the sweetness of the dressing and the bitterness of the herbs. Amazing!
As a second course we took California Maki, which were well tempered (!) but not very exciting. The Hot Mochi Roll was a giant, deep fried Maki with eel, avocado, cucumber and egg. It wasn’t really hot but VERY tasty and well composed.
Again great service: One of the owners of the place served the roll and admitted that one piece had fallen down (so we got 5 insted of 6). As a compensation he invited us for the dessert – a great gesture!
Finally we went for some skewers. If you take 3 skewers, they come with a free bowl of rice. They were all great, very tender meat and a thick, dark and sweet marinade. For my taste the marinade was a bit too sweet after all, but the fresh spring onions on top balanced that a bit.
As a dessert we chose Mochi, mooncakes filled with red bean paste and walnuts. I’m no particular fan of Asian sweets – but those were just great, with a very tasty filling.
Except that I took an insect bite from an unknown predator on my back (it hurt!!!) it was a perfect evening. We payed 40 Euros, including 2 drinks – a place with real value for money and incredibly tasty, fresh food!
