Westlicht / Photos

There's a photography / camera museum here called Westlicht.

After German class today, I went there to see their Polaroid exhibit (you can read all about it on the link above.)

I kept wishing my buddy J. Don Cook could have been there with me; I know he would have appreciated not only the great photos, but also the fantastic display of interesting cameras they have on display.

(By the way, J. Don is a photographer of some note, nominated several times for a Pulitzer for his photography, and his new book SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: PHOTOS & ESSAYS is a must-see / must-read.)

I'd heard Polaroid made a few cameras capable of shooting 20 X 24 inch pictures; seven cameras, actually, of which five are still working and in use for special projects. I saw a number of shots from these cameras and they're stunning----no grain.

Before the museum opened, and then afterward as I roamed around, I shot some pics of life in Vienna:

Leaving the museum, I saw a guy's hand and feet through the exit at the bottom of the stairs.

Old building, partly reflected in the glass of a new building.

A clerk in an upscale menswear store.

I stopped for a beer at Cafe Alt Wien.

Another beautiful building in the light of the setting sun.

This is a video screen in the subway tunnel, at eye level with the cab of the lead subway car,
where the driver sits. He can look at the monitor to make sure nobody's in danger before he drives off.

This was a handheld exposure at about 1/2 second.
Usually I can get better results even at this slow shutter speed but I forgot and moved the camera before the image got fully recorded----but I kind of like the smeared look of the shot. Interior, Cafe Alt Wien.

6 Course Meal

NOTE: I edited this post and the formatting got fucked up, and repeated attempts to un-fuck it were unsuccessful. Sorry.


I write about food a lot because I like to eat. As long as we're forced to do it, we might as well shove something good into ourselves, right?

I also like to cook. I'm OK at it but I realize that to do it really well is like any other skill---very few people reach the top of the game.

Wednesday night B and I joined her parents and her sister R at Freyenstein, which describes itself as a "gourmet Gasthaus." I shan't disagree. R knows a lot of uh,---food snobs, and they recommended the place. Turns out they were right.

Here's how it works: they use the finest ingredients and lots of wild plant, including flowers (yes, there are edible flowers.) They change the menu once a week or so to reflect what's in season. Well, I say "menu" but really it's "the food." You don't pick----they describe each course and you say, "OK," or not. Though I have to say: one of the courses contained something R and her father were allergic to, and they made a substitution.

You get six courses, each of which contains two items (except the final course, dessert, which had three.)

Cost per person is 37 Euro (excluding drinks and tip) which comes to about $53 at current exchange rates.

So obviously, you don't just drop in on a whim. You can't anyhow---reservations required, because even on a Wednesday night the place fills up. In fact, they called us and said: "Are you sure you're coming?" Because if we weren't, they could have easily filled our table with someone else.

We went because we were belatedly celebrating B's birthday, her father's birthday, and our wedding.

Thanks to B for going to the trouble to translate the menu from German to English for us, below. My pics aren't the best because I didn't want to use flash, and as the evening wore on the pics got darker / blurrier. Use your imagination...

As amuse-gueule (a starter not on the menu, but given to customers in good restaurants to start
you off) we got cold sour cherry soup and salad of wild herb

(left) Oven-baked tomatoes and mini squash with olive vinaigrette and basil
(right) Romaine lettuce with peas, celery and Camargue red rice

(left) Chanterelle sauce with fried and half-sliced knackwurst
(right) Leek soup with finely cubed vegetable and tarragon

(left) Crisp mullet with curry flavour, duckweed and juice from crustaceans
(right) Pan-fried salmon trout with red beets and horseradish 

(left) Poached bit of veal shoulder with porcini, brioche dumpling and mushroom plant herb
(right) Old Viennese style breaded fried chicken with potato salad and peanut-chickweed- mayonnaise

They offered two dessert plates. I chose this one:
From left: Curd cheese dumpling with stewed red currents and pistachios.
Greengage galantine, iced vanilla sauce and water melon.
White chocolate cream with bitter almond flavour and mélange of wild berries and English mint.

B chose this one:
Goat camembert with black walnut and dandelion syrup.

I'm going to overlook the British spelling of "flavour" here because B did a lot of work translating the menu. Silly British people, adding unneccesary "u's" in their words...

The entire dinner took about 2.5 hours; they weren't trying to rush us.

I told the restaurant manager it was one of the best meals of my life, and I wasn't just blowing smoke up his wine cellar.