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A great meal at Wallsé(11th Street and Greenwich), which is fast becoming a favourite. Kurt, the irrepressible chef, is one of those impossibly thin people that likes to watch you chub up before his eyes. A tasting menu emerged, not a false note on the food front, the boozers looked well pleased too with the Austrian wine list, and a really wonderful staff. A chestnut soup and a squash soup amuse. Smoked trout palacinka. Spaetzle with white truffles. Foie gras terrine with apple. Wiener schnitzel with cucumber and potato salad. We were with a friend recently returned from Russia who just happened to have a huge tub of caviar in her sheared beaver purse, we sent it into the kitchen for the staff to have some, but they sent it back out with mountains of crème fraîche and delicious little Viennese palacinka pancakes. Desserts are, as one would expect from a nation of cake lovers, sublime. Try the Salzburgerknochen (literally the mountains of Salzburg), a sort of Austrian île flotant with fruit. Kurt is also in charge of Cafe Sabarsky (1048 Fifth Avenue at 86th Street) where you can go and pretend to be in Vienna for the afternoon, eat cake (there are also soups and sandwiches), drink great coffee and reduce yourself to a sugar and caffeine fuelled haze.