Whatever else, the Bootshaus’s website has the best goose reservation system I’ve ever seen. Besides choosing the date, the time and the number of people, you can actually indicate whether you are coming to eat the goose or something else. Details like this can truly convince you that the goose will be cooked just on time for your arrival.
Unfortunately, one option missing from the website was to reserve a goose dinner for one person only. Thus, while walking past the Bootshaus this evening I had very little hope of not only getting a goose but also finding a spare table.
At the end, I succeeded in both. Having been seated and having placed an order, I opened a book and looked forward to enjoying some reading while sipping the beer. I could finish less than half a page when the goose arrived. And it was streaming hot. Whatever microwave the Bootshaus possesses, it is an impressive technological achievement.
The cooks of the restaurant were impressive, too, for the goose left very little to complain about. The meat had exactly the right texture and taste and was of sufficient quantity to make me feel full. The cabbage, mixed with chestnuts, was up to the standard as well, and only the dumpling disappointed by its general lack of flavor. It was a very well cooked goose dish — with no love, perhaps, but with the full intention of maintaining the restaurant’s good reputation.
Since taking over the “traditional” (but terribly overpriced) Beisl called Neu Brasilien and turning it into the Bootshaus, Landtmann — of the Cafe Landtmann fame — has worked hard at transforming the location into an above-average restaurant. The success is obvious: the once dark and dusty hut now features leather sofas and expensive cutlery. The prices didn’t go that much up, nevertheless. My only grumble is that the service was a bit too attentive at times. I couldn’t help feeling carefully watched so that my beer glass could be refilled the moment it turned empty.
Apart from that, a quality goose place, all in all.
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