We’ve been doing the touristy thing all week. Forget the grand Habsburg buildings and great museums: the baby panda in the zoo rates as the highlight so far.
Food here’s interesting. We stumbled into the hotel’s restaurant on the first night in jeans and T-shirts, sat outside on the terrace, ordered beers – and then discovered that the chef who created the menu has two Michelin stars! The following evening took us to a more traditional place, recommended by a business acquaintance of mine who lives in the city.
Figlmüller has been serving Viennese specialities since 1905. It’s an old-fashioned, serious place: the staff are professional, but somewhat formal and scary. The queues outside are daunting – we were lucky, getting in within a mere half-hour’s wait.
As we arrived, a cute young American woman and her mother were finishing their food at the next table. The daughter turned to a passing waiter and asked for the cheque. A few moments later, he reappeared at our table with the menus and she leant over to ask again – a little irritably.
“But of course, madam,” he replied, reaching into his pocket and taking out the bill that he’d been away preparing.
I rather thought he should have kept the slip in his pocket. “Indeed, young lady. Would you care to follow me to the cashier’s office?”
Through a back door, into a dark room. “Now, perhaps you would care to explain why you felt it necessary to be so rude?”
She would apologise, beg their forgiveness.
The strap hanging on the wall would have been used countless times over the past century. He’d take it down, flex it. “You see, young lady, we take a traditional view here. As you’re about to learn.”
She’d protest, but he’d be stronger than her: she’d quickly find herself tossed over his knee, skirt lifted for a thrashing…
…and then he’d allow her to pay the bill.
Back in reality, somewhat later – whilst we ate our much-renowned Schnitzels – we became aware of a slight kerfuffle at the door. A young lady had pushed to the front of the queue: “We made a reservation for 8pm.”
The maitre d’ checked his lists. Arched eyebrows: “Did you?”
She fell silent, then shame-facedly confessed that she had not. He sent the blushing girl scurrying away, her tail between her legs. Only I rather wished that he’d invited her in: shown her too through to that back room, taken down the strap again before revealing that he knew she was being dishonest, and giving her the choice: “I can either call the police and report you for deception, or you can bend over the chair and we will deal with this here and now.”
Remarkable, isn’t it, the number of attractive young women you meet whose luscious good looks are marred by abominable behaviors such as rudeness, willfulness and deception? Why, you can’t avoid it even on holiday, you poor, poor man!