The St. Martin’s goose is out, the Christmas goose is in. And it does not matter that the Christmas is over: restaurants are still going on offering geese for take-away. Do you think Christmas geese are bigger and happier because they had two months more to live than their friends that perished at St. Martin’s? Call me a cynic, but I don’t think so. Much more likely, they simply stayed in the freezer longer.
I still have fond memories of the Artner from my office parties there many years ago. We were eating steaks, of course, and watering them down with Artner’s own wines. These are the two things the restaurant is famous for, but when I saw a possibility to order a goose from it, I did not think long. They must have a good cook, that’s for sure.
It is undisputable that the cook knows how to make a good sauce. The “Orangenjus,” supplied in a nice glass jar, was truly great and would have improved any dish, from pork cutlets to desserts. In fact, the potato-chestnut olive, which replaced the usual dumplings, was more of a sweet dessert, and as such another highpoint of the dish.
Unfortunately, it looked as if the goose itself was an afterthought. The leg was as unexciting as it was small. The meat was not tough enough – OK for a chicken, not OK for a goose – and kept on annoyingly slicking to the bones; the skin was just a wobbly brown mess. It looked as if the bird was quite small and sad to start with, and then it was not cooked long enough. For the price I paid for it, it was a rip-off. The olive/sauce combination was very enjoyable, but I am afraid the only other reason to order a Christmas goose from the Artner is to obtain a nice and handy glass jar.
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