nickatbasel

Hi, We visited Vienna last year (2006). We gave up trying to get the attention of the rather snooty waiting staff at Café Demel one afternoon. We did stop for coffee at Café Sacher one evening - actually my wife had hot chocolate which was lukewarm and inferior to what I make at home. Again the staff were extremely snooty. For the a great lunchtime dining experience, we went down to Naschmarkt where there is a row of stalls-cum-cafés serving all kinds of cuisine from Viennese to Vietnamese. At Naschmarkt I also enjoyed just wandering through all the different Turkish and Greek stalls with the wonderful arrays of delicacies on offer. It is the sort of place where one is inpsired to buy a lot of stuff and spend the weekend cooking! There was a Persian restaurant we visited near Westbahnhof - the name escapes me - which we enjoyed except for the table full of smoking chimneys puffing away right next to us. (Slightly OT) The presence of smokers in Austrian restaurants was a big turnoff for us in many cases. In Switzerland, a couple of cantons (Solothurn and Tessin or Ticono) have now voted to outlaw smoking in bars and restaurants and many places are making moves in the same direction - e.g. in Basel there is an initiative now to force the issue to a referendum; so Austria was a bit of a shock in that regard. Cheers, Nick

I have a few chinese bamboo steamers which I use for doing vegetables. I place the steamer in a pan with water upto just below the bamboo platform. Rarely have a problem with vegetables being overcooked. Cheers, Nick

Hi Josh, I agree that the selection of eateries in Basel is pretty poor. I have put a few reviews on my own website - bastronomy.com. Additionally you might take a look at BaselExpats which also carries restaurant reviews. For shopping, if you are bored with the supermarkets, have a look at the Saturday farmer's market over in St. Louis, France (Bus 604 from Schifflände) or the market in Freiburg, Germany. Basel also has a decent market on Marktplatz but I will be the first to admit that it is highly overpriced. Cheers, Nick