The Sunset Goose

Location:Mirli
Website:https://mirli.at/
Address:Heinratsberg 69, 3011 Irenental
Status:Open (last checked on 21 November 2021)
Eaten:“1/4 Traunviertler Weidegans,” sauteed foie gras, two ¼ Staubiger, ¼ Grüner Veltliner

Mirli calls itself, not particularly modestly, “the nicest place in Vienna Woods.” Judging by the number of cars outside, it is certainly one of the nicest parking places in Vienna Woods. Many people seem to like driving there with kids, who can spend hours feeding farm animals and playing football on the huge meadow while their parents sunbath on the restaurant’s terrace, enjoying a cup of coffee or, at this time of the year, a goose. 

Mirli’s menu explains in detail how great the lives of the geese it serves were compared to some abstract “foreign geese.” It sounds almost as if the whole point of visiting this unconventional restaurant in the middle of Vienna Woods is to celebrate the joyful and fulfilling lives of the said geese. I have a strong feeling, though, that the geese, had they had a chance to comment, would not have shared the same enthusiasm. I would certainly not like my own life celebrated in a similar fashion.

Having said that, there was something about the goose that signaled its pre-kitchen experience had been different to the lives of most of the other geese I had met this season. The meat tasted healthy somehow. There were not too many loose bones or pieces of cartilage or fat or any other weird things one sometimes finds in a goose and wonders where they came from. Obviously, this had originally been a high-quality goose that unfortunately and unintentionally got slightly fucked up later on.

Undercooking the skin was one of the errors. I know that the skin is one of the unhealthiest parts of a goose (and a chicken, for that matter) to eat, but it is also the tastiest one. Therefore, it was a shame to leave some of the skin on the plate not for health reasons but simply because trying to chew it was anything but enjoyable.

Then there was a problem with the salt. The cook must have been a bit sloppy when distributing salt over the bird, for some parts of it were over-salted while the others remained too bland. The salt also did not have enough time to penetrate into the meat, so the only salty parts were on the outside.

The third blunder was the most stupid of all. Instead of serving the red cabbage separately from the goose, like most restaurants do, Mirli decided to hide it under the goose and then pour a ton of sauce over the plate. Worse still, the cabbage was mixed with lingonberries and was therefore much sweeter than one normally expects the cabbage to be. The end result was a sort of a thick sweet soup, which was almost too unpleasant to risk dipping the meat into. Sadly, there was so much of the stuff that most of the goose slices I had cut ended up in it and lost all their natural taste.

Despite all that, Mirli was great. Its location is indeed perfect: quite deep in the Wienerwald to feel authentic, yet close enough to a railway station to make the return to Vienna a piece of cake. Mirli’s cooks also know their job very well; the warm goose liver with mashed potatoes I mistakenly ate as a starter thinking it was cold foie gras was brilliant. It was also nice to be able to sit on the terrace and watch the sunset: my first goose of 2021 had been eaten outside, and it was almost bizarre to eat my last goose (before the COVID lockdown) outside, too. It is a shame that the weather got so cold afterwards, however, making me pay and run away much quicker that I would have liked to.

3.0

Goose
Cabbage
Dumpling
Size
Atmosphere/service
Value

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