Eating Mittel European Memories
It’s Saturday night at the time machine called The Coffee Mill, the venerable Hungarian cafe tucked into the maze of a mini-mall at 99 Yorkville. As the violinist plays Shostakovich’s Romance, the theme music for Reilly, Ace of Spies, the template for James Bond, I step back a century into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that Mittel European tinderbox of the great conflagrations of the twentieth century. This sprawling multi-ethnic territory was the nursery for spies, the tutor in ambiguity, and the cafes the training camps for the great game of intrigue and political upheaveal. When I finally had a cup of coffee mit schlag at Vienna’s Cafe Central, I was disappointed to discover that the table where Lenin plotted the Russian Revolution had long since been recycled during a couple of major makeovers, and neither was there anything to remind me that an aspiring artist Adolf Hitler had tried to hawk his paintings there.
As far as I know nobody has tried to take over the world from a table on the patio at the Coffee Mill while listening to Strauss – although it’s entirely possible that Conrad Black’s defence may have been hotly debated between long time regulars National Post Columnist George Jonas and Black’s lawyer Eddie Greenspan . But for sure, no one sits silent at the Coffee Mill. The Viennese may be cosy but Budapesters let it all hang out. Everyone’s talking as they nod along with a waltz. And is it fancy, or is there something conspiratorial about these groups? About the young couple behind us who are smoking long, thin cigarettes and talking intensely. About the way people table hop. These must be the Hungarian diaspora, refugees and their families who fled the failed revolution of 1956. Now it seems all but forgotten by the world, but for my English generation, the Hungarian revolution aroused emotions akin to the Spanish civil war in the thirties – I had a teenaged boyfriend who smuggled himself into Hungary in a steamer trunk to throw himself against the Soviet tanks. It was a great romantic cause.
The Coffee Mill was opened by Martha von Heczey in 1963 – she’s still running it today - and immediately became a home from home for a generation of writers and artists, among them Dora De Pedery Hunt who sculpted Canadian medals, the writer/performing artist Sonia Dunn,and Kati Rekai, who wrote children’s guide books, and who persuaded Heczey to put their photographs on the restaurant walls like they do at Sardi’s in New York.
Do the diners stop talking to eat? You bet. For 47 years, The Coffee Mill has been one of the city’s great deals. Not just such faves as iced coffee with whipped cream or hot chocolate with whipped cream, but a menu of Hungarian specialties drawn from a proud and spicy culture, earthier than the Viennese with its etiolated Hapsburg cuisine. Think paprika. Not hot, sharp paprika but mild and sweet which is what makes the goulash soup $6.50 so palatable – The Coffee Mill’s goulash soup is a tasty delicate broth with beef and vegetables. Kolbasz is Hungarian for sausage and the notable one is Debreceni $8, mildly spicy with potato salad. If it wasn’t such a warm night, I’d have Veal Paprikash $13.50, the rich creamy stew often described as Hungary’s national dish. Or the Cabbage roll $10.25 which like the goulash soup is b eguilingly subtle. Instead I settle for the Viennese classic, Wiener Schnitzel $12.25, a huge toasty wing of the Flying Nun’s cornette, fried, breaded veal beaten to a faretheewell with a scoop of mashed potato and deliciously sweet and sour coleslaw. It’s certainly the crowd pleaser. For dessert, we have chestnut puree put through a ricer topped with whipped cream and tlimp white pancakes wrapped around apricot jam. I should add that the menu also includes less exotic fare, open egg salad sandwiches, melts, crepes stuffed with seafood. And at this, the least pretentious of restaurants, you can drink a perfectly good no name imported white for $6 a glass.
All this and history too.
And one last thing. The bill is handwritten. What a relief. It’s just been reported that printed receipts contain BPA Bisphenol A which can be absor bed by the skin and perhaps damages the digestion! What next?
All Star Yum for Bucks The Coffee Mill 99 Yorkville 416-920 2108. No wheelchair access.
Dinner: food plus tax $53,
Hi Gina! Thanks for sharing!