169 West, Weststrasse, Wiedikon
Dec
2017
Coffee
Okonomiyaki Waffel
Egg mit Spinat und Toast
Beaten to the punch by the Gault Millau is a clear warning sign: the real picky gourmet is on a slippery downhill slope about to get swallowed by gentrification.
169 West isn’t really a restaurant, it’s more of a mix of living room, bakery and café. It focusses on a few plates, specialty coffee and natural wines. We show up at 10:00 am sharp on a Saturday and have no trouble finding a table. We order coffe and a few dishes which we tuck into right away. A nice slow-cooked egg with spinach and toast makes for a good start of brunch.
The highlight however was the Okonomiyaki waffle. Okonomiyaki is a sort of japanese pancacke with cabbage, carrots, egg and whatever your heart desires. At 169 West it’s pressed into a waffle iron and served with a homemade mayo. Hangover or not, this is a fantastic dish on any morning. Salty and crunchy, gooey and rich, this is how you want to start the day.
Looking over at the other table, we see that they ordered a glas of bubbly to start the weekend. Normally something we’d welcome. Unfortunately we had researched the Gräbli bar a few hours earlier and weren’t quite in the mood for alcohol just yet. Still it was impressive to see that the Sommelière quickly tasted the bottle she took out of the fridge. That’s a nod to the high level of professionalism at the West 169!
Gazing at the walls we see that it has been covered by pages of Karl Marx’ “Das Kapital”. Not our favourite literature, but maybe a nod at the superbly fair prices, eg. the Okonomiyaki waffle cost CHF 8! We’d like to come back, but assume it’s going to be hard to find a seat.
31/12/2017 at 17:29
That does not look like an okonomiyaki, at all! Not saying it’s not tasty, of course, but it looks more like a plain American waffle with vanilla sauce.
There is a guy popping up at the occasional street food festival, who prepares a real okonomiyaki, and it’s one of the best things I have ever tasted.
Two thumbs up for decent prices for decent food in a Zurich restaurant. I always like supporting places that don’t exploit the fact that in Zurich, price is still pretty much a non-factor – at least for a sizable enough part of the population to make it possible for restaurants to survive with exorbitant prices, really crappy food, and even worse service.