Kristian's Monastiri Vienna - Restaurant Review

Last Saturday we had an excellent dinner at Kristian's Monastiri in Vienna's 7th District. The restaurant was totally full and everyone seemed to be having a nice time. The restaurant staff were friendly and attentive - even though they were so busy - a welcome change.

Our waiter recommended two bottles of wine, first a Grüner Veltliner - one with a nice mineral taste (so good we drank two bottles!), and then a red curvee. The wine list focuses on Austrian wines and these two were excellent. It was especially nice because the recommendations were relatively reasonably priced (25 Euros, 39 Euros).

We were served an very nice amuse bouche to start, there's a photo above. (Sorry for the photo quality, the lighting was very romantic!) It was a small piece of smoked duck breast and a pepper mouse.

Then several of us had the artichoke - sheep cheese salad, also very good. Several of us also had the manzanitas pork: two different cuts of meat served together. Also quite nice.

We tried three desserts and the cheese plate. All were excellent. On the left is the variation of sorbets and ice cream. On the right are the Bohemian pancakes and rhubarb ice cream. At the top of the article is passion fruit, creme brulee and passion fruit ice cream.


Our only complaint was that some smoke wafted in from the adjacent smoking section a couple times, although it was not bad by Austrian standards. Dinner for five with three bottles of wine cost about 300 Euros including tip.

I used to walk through the wonderful pedestrian passageway alongside the restaurant everyday for a project I was working on in 2007 and always wanted to eat here, now I wonder what took me so long. We'll be back again soon!

What the iPad means for social media

Nice article from Salon on social media:

What the iPad means for social media

And, don't forget my music video Psycho (Social) Networker on YouTube.

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Bern Switzerland Recommendations

Bern rooftops and the Alps in the distance from the roof of Bern's main station (from my Bern flickr photos - click on any of the photos to enlarge).

We traveled to Bern often when we lived in Switzerland and recently visited to attend a conference. Here are some recommendations.

Bern is Switzerland's capitol and is less than an hour from Zurich by train. The train is a great way to travel: it's faster than driving and you can see exactly how Switzerland's "taktfahrplan" system works (it's a timed transfer system where all trains arrive in stations a few minutes before the hour - then passengers transfer between trains - then the trains all leave a few minutes after the hour). Here's some information on transport in Zurich and Switzerland from my website.

 Bern Cathederal and center city (shot near the Barengraben).

The Zurich - Bern route is especially interesting because to make the one-hour "takt" work, the SBB had to build a high speed section of track on the route. Now the non-stop trains take about 57 minutes - the high speed section was designed exactly to fit the one-hour takt. If you take the train, look around: there is a non-stop train every half hour and several local trains - and they are almost all full. The Swiss rail system is a great example of how creating an integrated network of high quality public transportation can get people out of their cars. But, back to Bern.

 Kornhaus Bridge in Bern (note the tram on the bridge and the Alps faintly in the background).

Bern's main train station is in the center of town. Like most Swiss rail stations Bern's is very busy. It's filled with stores (which, due to a special law, are open late and on Sundays - in contrast to most stores in Switzerland). From the main concourse you have two choices: go towards the city center or towards the parking garage.

Surprise! First, go in the direction of the parking garage. A set of elevators will take you past the parking floors to the fourth floor: the elevators open onto a huge park called the Grosse Schanze in front Bern University's main building. This photo shows elevator building, cafe and university building (unobstructed view). In the other direction is a view over the city and if it's clear you'll be able to see the Alps in the distance (see top photo). There is a restaurant here which is pretty good, it's actually a cafeteria for the SBB workers, but Swiss cafeterias can be quite good.


The historic center of Bern is a UNESCO world heritage site. Much of it was built during the middle ages and it's filled with brightly painted fountains and cobblestone streets. The most noticeable feature are the arcades: there are continuous arcades on many of the central streets. The first level of these buildings is filled with stores, restaurants and cafes. There is a farmers market on Saturday in front of the Swiss Parliament and extending down some of the adjacent streets. The photo is behind the scenes at the market: coffee to go. The center of Bern is a wonderful place to wander around.

One of the highlights in Bern is the Zentrum Paul Klee. Klee grew up in Bern, became a teacher at the famous Bauhaus school in Germany, and then moved back to Bern. A large collection of Klee paintings was donated to the city on the condition that they build a museum for it. The Zentrum Paul Klee museum, designed by Renzo Piano, is a beautiful building with an undulating grass covered roof. The site overlooks the city and is easily reached by the #12 bus from the main train station (the museum is at the end of the line and so the buses say "Zentrum Paul Klee" on the front). The museum can be crowded so plan accordingly.

Also note that if you are coming on the train to Bern you can buy a combination ticket for the round-trip train ride, the local bus and the museum from your originating train station. Just ask for a "RailAway" ticket for the Zentrum Paul Klee (German only). Also note that RailAway (English) has lots of great rail ticket combination offers. These not only save you money, but also reduce the hassle of figuring out how to buy tickets and use local public transport systems (although using public transport is not difficult in Switzerland).

You can also walk to the museum, the city has recently created several "trails" through Bern connected with Paul Klee. The trails also take you to other Bern sights and have signs describing the connection with Klee. The sign at the right has a drawing Klee made when he was growing up showing the same perspective of the city as you can see.

We have three restaurant recommendations, although there are plenty of great places to eat in Bern. The first is the Altes Tram Depot, a modern microbrewery built into, well, an old tram depot. It's directly adjacent to the Barengraben: an open-air cage for bears (Bern's city symbol is the bear, you'll see bear images a lot in Bern). Right in front of the tram depot is the old bear pit, just looking at it makes you feel sorry for the bears kept there; but on the side is the newly completed bear area: a large expanse on the banks of the Aare River with its own river water. It's a huge improvement and another popular tourist site.

 New Barengraben in Bern.

The Altes Tram Depot restaurant has traditional Swiss and "beer hall" food not to mention excellent beer. We have eaten here many times and it's always been good. Last time I had their wild (venison) shown in the photo, and our friends had Zurich geschnitzels (veal in cream sauce), Munich Weisswurst and spatzele - everything was tasty and high quality. It's a busy restaurant but service is quite good although it can get loud (after all it's a beer hall!). They have a wonderful terrace/ beer garden overlooking the Aare and historic center, it's a great place to have a beer and enjoy the view. (It's also on the #12 bus line to the Paul Klee Zentrum - bus stop: Barengraben).

On our last trip we had dinner in a wonderful restaurant called Brasserie Bollwerk. It overlooks the railway viaduct that leads into the Bern main station, so there's lots of trains going by (especially just before the hour and just after the hour, have you been paying attention?). They also have a nice terrace for outdoor dining, although it's on a busy corner so there is lots of automobile traffic. The restaurant is a member of Slow Food Switzerland and so much of the food is local and organic - they are also non-smoking! They have drawings from a local artist, the photo shows a set of postcards to help explain the local Bern dialect of German.

We started with a calamari and fennel dish (shown in the photo), then the special of the evening, a wonderful roast lamb (perfectly cooked) with potatoes and vegetables. Dessert was a really find chocolate mousse. They also had a wonderful Côtes du Roussillon wine that went perfectly with the food. The staff at Brasserie Bollwerk were friendly and efficient. They are open for lunch and dinner during the week.

Note that across the street in the ground floor of the rail station is the SBB Heritage Foundation library. This is not really a museum, but the historic archives of the Swiss National Railway. They often have small exhibits in the lobby area. They are only open on weekdays 9-12 and 13:30-17, and you need to ring the bell to visit.

We had lunch at another great restaurant called Moléson. One of my favorite foods is tarte flambée, the Alsacian pizza-like dish. I like the traditional version with creme frasche, muenster cheese, bacon and onions; Moléson's tarte flambée had a couple more ingredients, but was very tasty. The service could not have been better - they even let us substitute the traditional tarte flambée for the one on the daily special menu (a chicken-curry based model, maybe ala Wolfgang Puck's spicy chicken pizza, but, to me a bit of a travesty ...). We had a wonderful salad to start and coffee was served just right. The restaurant in the back looked excellent too (we ate in the front cafe). They also try to use local ingredients and organic food.

The Bus from Curitiba

My latest music video: "The Bus from Curitiba" probably needs some explanation, so here's a little bit about bus rapid transit and then the words with a couple comments.

Bus Rapid Transit and Public Transit Priority
Curitiba Brazil is famous for pioneering the development of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). In the 1970s the city decided to build a very efficient bus-based public transport network instead of a relatively short section of metro line (which would have cost the same amount of money). The results have been nothing short of fantastic.

Curitiba's BRT system has been replicated throughout the world, although not to the extent that it deserves. Many cities are seduced by the thought of rail-based public transport preferring the sexiness of rail over the benefits of creating a more comprehensive public transport network.

Rail-based public transport is critical in large cities where there is sufficient demand, but I think it's better to build an attractive and efficient public transport network - based on buses - and then replace buses with higher capacity rail lines when necessary rather then building 'starter rail lines' and hoping to attract riders. It's the network that enables people to get 'from everywhere to everywhere' thus addressing the oft heard complaint that "I can't get there with public transport."

For more information on Curitiba see: the great Streetfilms Curitiba video showing the system in operation and describing how it works; Professor Robert Cervero's excellent book The Transit Metropolis (which also describes many other interesting examples of public transport throughout the world); and the wikipedia article Rede Integrada de Transporte.

BRT can be defined as the systematic application of public transport priority techniques. Zurich is a great example of another approach towards systematically applying public transport priority techniques; rather than building any large project Zurich incrementally added improvements that speed-up bus and tram service over the last thirty years thus creating a fast and efficient surface public transport system. You can read more about Zurich in Professor Cervero's book and in some of my publications and on my website improving public transport efficiency.

The Bus from Curitiba - Words and Comments

I visited Curitiba to ride the buses in 1997. The city was extremely pleasant and enjoyable. In addition to the buses I remember a fantastic passion fruit smoothie. Here are the words:

Fast and fun and clean and quickly,
The bus from Curitiba comes cruising,
And when she comes the people all say ahh ...
When she moves she's like a Samba that
Rides so smooth and sways so gentle
That when she passes each one she passes says ahh ...
Oh I would ride her so gladly,
If transport planning wern't done so badly,
Yes, I would ride her so gladly,
But each bus that we put in a plan,
Just gets replaced by a tram,
Fast and fun and clean and quickly,
The bus from Curitiba comes crusing
And when she passes I smile
But we don't BRT
Not in our city,
No we just don't BRT.

OK, I am not being totally fair. Planning isn't always done badly, but as I outline above, I think too often we ignore the bus option (of course capital and operating funding programs also enter into the picture, but that's for another song). And, of course, trams make sense in larger cities with strong demand, but gladly and badly is a pretty good rhyme don't you think?

Builder Bob on Westbahnstrasse

From my flickr Westbahnstrasse Tram Track Renewal set.

I just finished my series of website pages describing the Westbahnstrasse Tram Track Rehabilitation Project completed during the summer of 2009. The two new pages present aerial views of the work (from a neighbor who was also fascinated by the construction process) and photos of the workshop where the Wiener Linien prefabricate the track by cutting, bending and welding together sections of rail. The website pages include photos, descriptions and YouTube video links.

Now I can get started on this summer's Westbahnstrasse project: the Westbahnstrasse Chronicles! Stay tuned.

Scoul Switzerland Recommendations

We returned to Scoul, one of our favorite places in Switzerland, for our ski holiday this year. The weather was great and the snow was fine. Scoul is about four hours from Zurich by railway. This post lists some of the reasons we love Scoul.

First, of course, is the Rhaetische Bahn; Scoul is the terminal station (shown in the photo above) at the southeastern end of the Engadine Valley (St Moritz is at the other end of the valley). The Rhaetische Bahn is a narrow gauge railway that serves the canton of Grabunden. It operates the famous Bernina Express and Glacier Express. This is a special year because the Bernina line is 100 years old. Anyway, the Rhaetische Bahn is exactly as you imagine a Swiss railroad: small red trains traveling through a magnificent landscape. If the weather had not been so good we would have taken a few joyrides over the Bernina Pass, but that will need to wait for this summer.

The skiing in Scoul is very good. Switzerland is spoiled for all the wonderful places to ski and Scoul, which would be on the top of the list in any other country, is not as popular as the more famous resorts. But, of course that has the positive side that it's a little less crowded and a little less expensive. The lifts are also a bit outdated (they have several Tee bars and old chairlifts in addition to the brand new gondola and a couple new chairlifts).

Another great reason to go to Scoul is the mineral bath. They have a relatively modern bath complex right in the middle of the town. My favorite part of the bath is the outdoor section with a view of the mountain peaks in the not so far distance (see the photo on their website). You can visit the bath for three hours (bring your own towel) or do something called the Roman-Irish bath, which is a two-and-a-half hour experience of going from sauna to massage to steam bath to different temperature mineral pools, followed by a half-hour rest. We've done both and they are highly recommended. You need to book the Roman-Irish bath in advance, see their website.

Scoul is a tourist destination and there are many places to eat and sleep. The old town down the hill from the main street, has wonderful historic architecture and traditional guest houses. The main street has several historic and modern hotels with all the comforts you would expect in Switzerland.

We have stayed at the Hotel Traube, an historic hotel, the Hotel Curuna, a very nice hotel with a very good breakfast, and Chasa Sofia, a four-room bed and breakfast that is out of this world. All three are located right in the center of Scoul, within five-minute walk of the bath.

Finally there's lots of great food in Scoul. We visited a wonderful cafe on our trip in February: Mund Art. It's a great place for cake and coffee or a drink anytime (try the local beer: Biera Engiadinaisa). The people are wonderfully nice and friendly, the owner gave us a tasting of his homemade chili pepper syrup.

We had a wonderful dinner at the Hotel Traube restaurant (they also have Biera Engiadinaisa). Their wine list is superb, they probably have 50 different wines from the Canton of Grabunden; we had an excellent Pinot Noir (Blauburgunder) from Annatina Pelizzatti. We all had variations of venison (Wild), either steak (shown in the photo upper left) or stew with spatzele, one of my favorite wintertime mountain village dishes.

Finally, no trip to Scoul would be complete for us without a visit to the Pizzaria Giovanni adjacent to the Hotel Curuna. They have a wood-fired oven, use local organic ingredients where possible and have a wide variety of dishes beyond pizza, but the pizza is great. Service was a little scattered on our visit but the food was fine.


We can't wait until our next visit to Scoul!

MIT Media Lab's Bill Mitchell Interviewed

Here's a great video interview of Bill Mitchell, the Smart Cities Director at MIT's Media Lab. They are developing ideas like the cars in the photo above, rethinking the entire concept of cars from technology to the transport systems in which they operate.

I was especially interested in his description of the 'future of mobility' where he talks about the need for sophisticated management algorithms helping to make more efficient use of existing resources (11:15 into the interview). This is exactly the idea behind the Bus Meister concept for using Web 2.0 applications to help provide priority for public transport.