Few things in the world are worse than reserving a table at a restaurant two weeks in advance just to discover upon the arrival that it is nearly empty. One of those few worse scenarios is to reserve a goose as well and to realize that the bird delivered at your table had been cooked three days earlier and spent most of its post-mortem life in a fridge.
Mercifully, neither of the above is true about Das Bootshaus. The restaurant was full of people, so the early reservation had certainly been a good idea. Moreover, the goose showed all the characteristics of having being cooked in accordance with my pre-order. It tasted fresh, with no signs of pre-boiling or re-heating, and its crispy skin indicated that the cook was well aware of the trick of keeping the goose under a high oven temperature for a short time. That trick is so easy and obvious that one can only wonder why 80% of restaurants overlook it completely.
The less obvious trick that Das Bootshaus had used was to mix the red cabbage with sweet chestnuts. That, too, had worked beautifully, especially because the said cabbage also contained traces of apple and orange. The potato dumpling, on the other hand, was quite ordinary, but did not have that sticky consistency that differentiates disgusting dumplings from edible ones.
I suspect I was simply lucky, but the goose breast I got was enormous. I tried to eat quickly, trying to catch up with my friends whose portions looked significantly smaller, but kept on discovering more and more meat. The complimentary schnapps that the restaurant served as the digestive at the end was certainly welcome.
From my experience this year, Das Bootshaus is certainly one of the better places to eat geese in Vienna. It might not have the same “home cooking” aspect as the goose of the legendary Schiefer Giebel, of course, but at least it makes one feel that ordering in advance makes sense.
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