Austria - The Tiroler Hut

I’M BACK! Bloody nora – not only am I being copied I’m being overtaken!

http://worldoflondonrestaurants.blogspot.com/

http://www.kabulawayo.co.uk/

They’ve only got pictures and decent reviews as well. Puts me to shame. To shame.
I’ve been busy and this blog has slipped, actually slipped is a bit of an understatement, it’s collapsed and is lying in a pile in my cellar getting mouldy.

I’ve actually been to Austrian and Bangladeshi in the last two years, but I’ve not written them up. Now’s my chance to rectify this and get it going again, starting with Austria.

The Tiroler Hut is a relatively well known place in West London, famous for its music, steins and sausages. I went along with a group of friends expecting a proper party atmos.

We were well placed with a big table in the main room and were brought those massive steins of beer that clunk beautifully when crashed together. Cue at least a quarter of an hour of clunking and drinking whilst perusing the menu.Everyone ordered two courses, with something meaty to start and something meaty to follow. There’s actually a main for two described as “Lots of Meat – only for the very hungry”, I passed and ordered the sausage described as a Tirolean favourite. Our starters duly arrived and we chowed down on cold and limp processed meat. No-one looked particularly happy with their choices, but then the music began and we were distracted by a man in full Austrian garb playing pop hits on the keyboard and singing along. He was sitting in a decorated purpose built booth, as a DJ would, and neither his playing nor his singing were much cop. His enthusiasm for it made up for that though, and the looks of wonderment from around the table were justified.

Some reluctantly finished their starters, others gave up hoping for better with the main course. We were all disappointed. The meaty mains were equally cold and lacking any joy. We all went around trying each others dishes, with no-one seemingly finding anything particularly tasty. We consoled ourselves with our ongoing battle to finish a stein of beer.

The entertainment began putting out a set of bells and finding attractive female volunteers to play them along with the music. When entertainment is done with such passion, no matter how bad it is it’s hard to dislike, and it certainly stopped you from focussing too heavily on the quality of the food. If it wasn’t cold when it arrived, it was cold when they took it away.

Steins completed, we tried to order more drinks, but the restaurant was packed and it was hard to get anyone’s attention. The entertainment had turned into karaoke, with a drunk but smartly suited man singing a song in German. After a while we gave up, and made our way back out into the night. The bar was packed and people rushed to take our table. I possibly should have told them how bad the food was, but they looked like they didn’t care.

Would I recommend Austrian food? Well to be honest no, but I can’t say I’ve tasted the best of it.

Oh eck, the competition have found an Angolan place! I’m going to have to pop back before carrying on with Barbados. One of them found an Azerbaijan place that opened near Marble Arch, but in the time it’s taken me to sort myself out it’s closed again. I must not let things get this bad ever again. At this pace it’ll take me just under 50 years to complete the blog. I’ll have to live to be 83. It could be that with changes of countries over the course of that half century, it’ll become a Forth Bridge effort. Zimbabwe’ll be one hell of a party if I ever get there.