Die Plegerbruoke: A Typical Austrian Pub

You can't realistically avoid meat in Austria without missing out on most of the local cuisine.  So I didn't.  Instead, it being "fresh game month" in Salzburg, I ordered venison in a beer sauce.  The sides were actually the best part of this; the brussel sprouts were young and tender, and that beige ball is a bread dumpling which would give my best matzoh ball a run for its calories.

Stefan had a beef dish with fried potato dumplings and red saurkraut.  And, of course, we washed this down with a liter of Steigl helles beer.

But we were in Austria.  Which means that even this local pub devoted a lot of effort to dessert.  November is also chestnut harvest, so we ordered two of the special desserts, both based on chestnuts.  Above are riced roasted chestnuts served over vanilla ice cream with sour cherries.  I like sour cherries; I wish they weren't so hard to find in California.

Also accompanied by sour cherries were the fried chestnut-stuffed sweet dumplings.  Wow.  The yellow fruit are not cherry tomatoes, but some kind of tiny citrus fruit which I didn't recognize.  We had "Junker" wine with dessert, which is an unaged late-harvest white wine which is popular in Austria.  A bit sweet for my taste, but it went with dessert.

Austria: land of delicious calorie-loading.  I think I've gained 5lbs this week.  No wonder the locals climb the Untersberg mountain peak for an hour every morning!