Eastern Eurotrip in 10 Days (Day 2): Cafe Konditorei Aida, Vienna
My cousin and her friend went into disappearance mode upon the appointed meeting time and this made the tour guide rather pissed. Oh well, nobody can control my cousin anyway because she’s used to get her own way and to be honest, she’s a very chilled woman by nature. Turns out she was having her R&R at Cafe Konditorei Aida along Mariahilfer Strabe. She refer to the cafe as pink cafe though instead of calling its name, Aida.
I did not blame my cousin for getting lost at Cafe Konditorei Aida because the cake display is enough to make one sweettooth human being lost in what seems to be cake wonderland. Aida is a franchise chain of 34 espresso bar and pastry shops in Vienna and they had been around for a long time, since the World War II to be exact. To make itself distinct from its modern competitors, Aida has been reluctant to change its coffee flavour for example, by refusing to add flavoured coffee to their list of beverages like its competitor, Starbucks.
Aida’s specialties are cakes, pastries, doughnuts, coffees, teas, ice cream and merchandises (including gifts). Since Aida had always been decorated in salon look with overwhelming theme of pink, the coffee chain is more popular with the ladies. Although I don’t think men nowadays show disgust toward this feminine color.
I ordered one item each from Aida’s cakes and pastries. The original Viennese Mozart Cake (EUR 2.90) is described as dark sponge filled with the finest nougat and pistachio marzipan, encased in light chocolate fondant icing. It’s basically a chocolate cake filled with nougat and pistachio marzipan. The cake was nice but to be honest, it’s hard to see the Austrian failing at making chocolate related stuff because after all chocolates supposedly taste the best in Europe, no?
The “Golatsche” pastry is described as finest flaky pastry with a light Austrian soft cheese filling. Claimed as traditional favourite in the coffee house, the pastry is indeed flaky and yummy. There are a lot of comments in Tripadvisor about rude services and stuff at Aida but I suppose sometimes it may be due to frustration during busy times. Thankfully, I did not meet any rude service during my visit to Vienna.
In order to prevent waist destruction after consuming many sweet stuff, it’s time for me to continue wandering around Mariahilfer Strabe, the longest shopping street in the city of Vienna. By lunch time, the street is totally crowded by people, especially since it’s Saturday.
Not only clothes boutique and department stores, you can also find many souvenir stores along the street. By now, you would have probably realise that there are so many stores displaying Mozart. Well, this is not a surprise because after all, Mozart is a true born Austrian and he’s what you can call a classical genius. He used to perform in front of the royals. His life is not all about fame though because apparently during those dark days, the life of a musician is not really easy after all. Struggling with finances and diseases, he died when he’s only 35. Oh gosh, that’s pretty young I have to say. It seems that the life of musician nowadays may not be any better but at least in terms of health, hopefully the modern musicians live longer days now. Everyone’s fighting hardship anyway on this fallen earth.
Uhh okay, before this post going toward its darker mood, maybe I should take a peek of what kind of items being sold in a typical souvenir store in Vienna. You can basically find all sort of goods such as bags, teddy bears, kitchen stuff, t-shirts, jackets, caps with has the word “Vienna” or probably “Austria”. I don’t collect this kind of stuff but my mother was pretty excited whenever she can find pretty magnets to add into her collection of fridge-magnets-around-the-world.
Vienna has its own street food to offer such as fried seafood stuff (shrimps, calamari, etc) and sandwich/ wrap. The fried seafood selection kinda reminded me of Old Chang Kee back home. The concept is basically similar, selling fried stuff. The portion that the street vendor gives in Vienna seems to be more although it’s justified by its higher price tag as well.
It seems that all tour guides love to bring its tour participant to stores such as Swarovski. I suppose Indonesian love to shop A LOT and the tour guide will surely earn commission whenever they manage to lead customers to buy some stuff from the stores. Swarovski is everywhere in South East Asian but I think the price of its products sold in Vienna seems to be priced lower compared to the ones in Asia (probably due to the crazy mark-up). This is really one huge piece of crystal, I can’t imagine how much it costs. Probably not as expensive as diamond, for instance, but it sure is still expensive.
Another spot which is 90% visited by tourists is Hard Rock Cafe. I don’t collect any Hard Rock merchandise although I used to frequent Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore quite a fair bit of times back in my early-20s days. My friends and I were into live band and Hard Rock’s strong rendition of long island tea back then. Hard Rock Cafe in Vienna has some interesting display to check out though such as concert memorabilias. There is a piano which was used by Coldplay and even a black magician hat which was used by Will I Am from Black Eyed Peas. Hmm, I haven’t heard Black Eyed Peas for a while. Kinda miss their old songs like Where is the Love.
Cafe Konditorei Aida is located at:
Singerstrabe 1,
Vienna, Austria
Cafe Konditorei Aida’s opening hours:
Monday to Friday 7AM - 10PM
Saturday to Sunday 8AM - 10PM
Hard Rock Cafe is located at:
Rotenturmstrabe 25,
Vienna, Austria
Hard Rock Cafe’s opening hours:
Monday to Thursday 9.30AM - 1AM
Friday to Sunday 9.30AM - 2AM