I exchanged an email this week with my friend in Wales, Wardy. Wardy is an editor and he was about to embark on a visit to Vienna to attend an annual medical trade show there. He's been attending this meeting every March for well over a decade and knows the terrain well. A decade ago, I used to attend this same show and I rather enjoyed it. The way Europeans approached business was gentile and ever so civilized. Americans could take a lesson from it.

Talking with Wardy about Vienna made me think of the great pleasures of that vibrant hamlet: St, Stephens majestic cathedral. The Sacher Hotel. The Vienna Opera House. Boiled wool jackets. Schonbrun. Yes, these are all wonderful, but the greatest pleasure in Vienna for me was, hands down...wait for it....wienerschnitzel. Come on, you knew it would be food, right?

The first time I tried wienerschnitzel was in Berlin in 1994. I was there on business and the client suggested we retire to a small cafe called Kempinski Eck. As we sat down, my client said, "Shall we try the wienerschnitzel?" I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I had never tried it and what's worse, I had no idea what it was. I certainly couldn't admit it, so I nodded in agreement. I thought it was sausage (no doubt tied to dubious associations with the American fast food chain Wienerschnitzel) but more often than not, I enjoy sausage, so what the hell.

When the plates were presented to us, I discovered the mysterious wienerschnitzel was a pounded piece of veal, breaded and flash fried, crispy, buttery and without a whiff of grease. Served with lemon and a side of kartoffel, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was one of the top ten meals of my life and I've eaten at many four star restaurants. It was sublime.

I made the mistake of trying it again in a few American restaurants, but something always seemed amiss. It wasn't until my next visit to Vienna that our English sales rep took me to the mother of all wienerschnitzel emporiums: Figlmuller.

It's not a fancy place. There are hard wooden benches and long rustic tables. Patrons sit elbow to elbow. The ambiance is noisy, the service is brusk, but the star of the show is the wienerschnitzel. Pounded to slim proportions, the portions are immense, often draping over the edge of the plate like a an errant pizza. Side dishes are secondary here, which explains why they are served a'la carte. But the schnitzel is perfection: crunchy, juicy, flavorful. The Viennese say "A schnitzel should swim," so it's prudent to generously sprinkle with the lemon juice. It's considered a badge of honor to consume entirely the blanket of schnitzel served you and indeed on my first visit, I did. For the rest of the trip, I never heard the end of it from my colleagues, to my growing annoyance.

A decade has passed since my last meal at Figlmuller, but I remember it still and with great fondness. Visit their website. OK, yeah, it's in German, but you'll get a glimpse of the proportions of their signature dish and well, that's all you really need to know.

http://www.figlmueller.at/

Note: Go to the pulldown menu at the top for Figlmuller and select "Das Schnitzel."