Bad, Bad Fischau and The Dining Room

Yep. It's been over a week that we landed in Vienna for a 4 days visit to our friends Pinki and Andrea. How fast time flies!

Already on our way to Zurich airport, we found out that Pinki was in bed with the flu and that Andrea would pick us up. Poor Pinki. He really did not look his best. We had been looking forward to this get together and were hoping that he would recover quickly.

Once in Bad Fischau, not only Pinki, but also Embers was there to greet us. Isn't he cute?

On our first evening at the Backstage bar, we listend to a band called Lazy Diamonds, a blues-rock band. Their motto that evening was: "Rock is not dead". Believe me, if it was ever dead, it sure wasn't after that concert.

We slept in on Thursday morning and found a much fitter Pinki. He was still under medication, but definitely feeling much better, so we decided to just take it easy at home before going out for dinner.

After all, we had made a last minute reservation for dinner at The Dining Room in Vienna that evening.

Thanks to Kim from Stepping Stones, about a year and a half ago, I discovered a new blogger. Her name is Angelika, a lovely, warm woman with a passion for cooking. I won't too go much into detail, but I had the chance to read about how she fullfilled her dream, namely, opening her own restaurant. It was so exciting to follow her from the decision to "go ahead and do it", reading about her planning, the difficulties she ran into and the whole renovation work of turning part of her private home into a restaurant. The special thing about this restaurant is the fact that it has a maximum capacity of 12 guests and you really get the cozy atmosphere of being entertained by a private friend.

We were warmly greeted by our host, Angelika, and Maria, responsible for the service, and let's not forget Gino, her Golden Retriever. Actually, Gino is part of the family and is the therapy dog for Angelika's husband who suffers from Parkinson's. Angelika first made us visit her kitchen and then escorted us to our table where we took an aperitif. While Angelika was cooking up a storm in the kitchen, Maria made sure that we never ran out of anything. And we were not the only ones to enjoy the freshly baked bread. Also Gino loves "Mom's homemade bread", and if you feed him a few pieces (like we did), you can be sure that he will cleverly snatch the next piece that you have lying beside your plate.

The dinner was excellent! All of it. We were too busy eating to take pictures of the food, but you will find enough on Angelika's website to make your mouth water. There's a reason for the Dining Room's motto: "For the love of celebrating life". We had an incredible evening!

We drove home and pretty much went straight to bed with our full bellies.

The Friday was more or less dedicated again to resting and photography at home before going to the Backstage Bar for another evening of live band. Pinki was feeling much better and we had a fun time.

Then, already Saturday. We went to do a bit of shopping in a nearby mall before Pinki drove us to the airport. Another great mini vacation at Pinki and Andrea's was nearing its end. The nice thing was that we still had the whole Sunday to spend with Dale before going back to work. Aren't we leading a crap life? ;)