This was a result of two spontaneous decisions: one was to stop at the Unterwirt Hütte while walking down the mountain for my ultimate destination – a Brettljause at Trattler Einkehr, the other was not to order a Brettljause from the hut’s menu. Two Bretljausen in a row would be too much, I thought. Well, spare ribs followed by a Brettljause are too much, too.
Whether you are going to enjoy these ribs greatly depends upon your attitude to cartilage. If biting on a piece of something tough while eating a rib and having to spit it out bothers you, Unterwirt is to be avoided. Personally I highly dislike that, but there was fortunately enough good about the ribs to close my eyes on that particular deficiency.
As it is often a case with village-made spare ribs, they had been lightly smoked before grilling, and that has given them enough taste to compensate for the lack of marinade. When cartilage was not involved, the meat was rather easy to separate from the bones, and the garlic sauce with some herbs – the only sauce served with the ribs – was absolutely perfect to dip the meat into. The cabbage salad, too, was perfectly made, reminding me of the salad at Strandcafe on the best of the days.
Some entertainment was provided, too, in the form of the owner’s daughter running around looking at the sky and periodically screaming “Mommy, this looks bad, Mommy this looks very-very bad!” The “bad” was the approaching thunderstorm that I could not see because of the roof over my table (though the thunder was impressive). The thunderstorm started two minutes after I left the hut, and although I got spared the worst, when I reached my hotel I found remainders of ice around it. Then I read in the news that entire villages nearby had to be evaluated by helicopters.
Visiting Unterwirt Hüttn is recommended, just check the weather forecast before.
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