Cafe Sabarsky
at the Neue Galerie
1048 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028
Mon. and Wed. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Thurs. Fri.Sat. and Sun. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Closed Tuesdays
There’s a first time for everything and Hungarian Beef Goulash is no exception. When I sat down to eat at Cafe Sabarsky I immediately felt like I was going to get some authentic German/Viennese Food. The Cafe Sabarsky is very well designed and has a classy dark wood look. The serving staff is all very well dressed and our server spoke in a German accent and knew both English and German. She taught me how to pronounce, “mit Shlag,” which means, “with whipped cream.” I was very hungry at the time and had recently come to New York by airplane from LAX. So I decided to order their Hungarian Beef Goulash because it sounded good. Also I saw a woman eating a stew-looking meal and I was interested.
The Hungarian Beef Goulash is in a red saucy-stew that tastes delicious. It isn’t very stew-like though. This is because there is only sauce and four medium-large pieces of beef. So usually when I think of a stew it has vegetables in it. But this is a Goulash which means…well stew with vegetables and beef. So I guess this is a more pure form of Goulash because it is just Beef and Sauce and that’s it. But even though it didn’t have any vegetables in it that were chunky, it seemed like there were vegetables including the possibility of onions that may have been dissolved into the sauce. On the bright side, the Beef was extremely tender and high quality. And even though there was a tiny bit of fat on the meat, I didn’t end up discarding more than the tiniest bite of it.
The Hungarian Goulash wasn’t a cheap dish, it was $26.00 but it did come with some Fresh Herbed Quark Spatzle. This was basically extremely high quality room temperature macaroni and cheese, but without the holes in the macaroni. The Spatzle was more dense than macaroni. It was in-between pasta and gnocchi. This meal was very filling and even though it was pricey the service and environment was worth it. The serving staff was so comfortable, I never felt rushed at all and I had plenty of time to talk and relax. This was so much so that I ended up getting a Cappuccino as well and sharing a apple strudel. The cappuccino was very good and it was the perfect bitterness-milkiness ratio. And the apple strudel tastes fresh and tart, as if it was made from real apples and not some sugar preservative concoction that so many of us are familiar with when it comes to strudel. It had the flavor of a home-made strudel, but with the texture and presentation of a professional desert. The foam from the cappuccino could have been a little bit silkier but it was still very good. At least there weren’t big bubbles. I’ve noticed that some expensive cafes and restaurants sell cappuccinos and charge an arm and an elbow and yet the foam has big bubbles. Cafe Sabarsky did not disappoint in this respect.
I liked the food at Cafe Sabarsky so much that I am probably going to go to the art gallery that it is affiliated with.
-Tyler