Xu’s Cooking makes you want to kiss the cook while the staff will make you want to apologise for ordering something in the first place. I have to admit it: I love myself some good Asian cuisine. The spices, the textures, the combinations of sweet, sour, spicy – it’s all designed to make me leap with joy.
And boy, did Xu’s Cooking make me want to do a somersault!
Chef Xu really knows what he’s doing. He’s been in the Asian vegan and vegetarian scene for over 20 years now, and you can really taste it. With fresh ingredients all round, he scoffs at glutamate and other artificial bullshit. This way, your tummy will love this food just as much as your tastebuds will.
Just in case you’re now shaking your head from side to side, murmuring to yourself that a vegetarian restaurant has no place in the vegan section of the Würstelstand – rest assured, Xu’s Cooking is mostly vegan. The vegetarian dishes are clearly marked, and most can even be prepared vegan.
Seeing as it was our first time, we ordered five different dishes to share: fried “chicken” drumstick, peanut vegetable balls, (these two were appetisers), spicy soup, the sizzling hot crispy ribs, and the special “chicken”.
Now, we couldn’t tell whether the waitresses were happy to see us or wanted us murdered in our sleep.
It might sound a bit cliché, but I personally link Asian food to smiling faces, a bit of friendly chit-chat. Well, nothing here. Our two waitresses were highly reserved, to say the least.
The food was pretty good, we loved the drumsticks and the perfectly seasoned sauce that came with them. The soup and the veggie balls weren’t the bee’s knees, but the main courses made up for it greatly. The ribs came in a cast iron mould directly from the oven, and the special chicken tasted as yummy as it looked.
For five dishes, additional rice, and two drinks, we only paid €35.20. A very fair price, especially for a full-on vegan meal, where in other places you’d simply pay a third more because it’s “vegan”. With the great food quality and the perfect price range, Xu’s Cooking is an unconditional recommendation for any vegan (yeah, or vegetarian) in Vienna. As for the waitresses, we’d say you can get through the meal without them talking to you. And maybe, it simply was a bad day for them when we visited. That’s always a possibility.
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