For a long time, the name “Strandbeisl Selbstverständlich” was for me a synonym of “bad food.” Because of the restaurant’s closeness to my office, my colleagues and I tried it as a lunch location for a few weeks, but its lunch menu was so dull, that eventually we all reached a silent agreement to lunch anywhere but at Selbstverständlich. Its à la carte menu was not much better: quite short and containing mostly standard dishes cooked in a sloppy, uninspiring fashion. Even its coffee was one of the worst in town; the only explanation for the restaurant’s continuing survival was, in my opinion, its cool location by the Old Danube.
Then last year (after a very long break) I tried Strandbeisl’s spare ribs and was positively surprised. They were not only edible, but even enjoyable. The old cook must have retired (or had been fired) by then, for the improvements were evident. I left myself a mental note to try the Martinigansl at the next opportunity.
I missed that opportunity last year by arriving one day after the goose season’s closing, but today I was intent on fixing that error. Having approached the restaurant, however, I hesitated. A half of it was dark, and the other half looked very empty, with only one table occupied by two ladies. Outside, a fat and visibly intoxicated guy was chatting with the waiter. As I approached the waiter with a question about Martinigansl, I was half expecting to hear that it should have been ordered in advance or was unavailable for some other reason. The answer “yes, we have it, and it’s very good” was surprising but welcome, and even more reassuring was the confirmation that the side dishes could be white cabbage with bacon and bread dumpling rather than the much more common red cabbage and potato dumpling.
It took more than 20 minutes for the dish to arrive, and the first impression was quite good. Although the bird’s skin lacked any crunchiness and the layer of fat beneath the skin was at the verge of unpleasantness, the meat had the right texture and a taste that was not very goosey but not bland either. It was only when I mixed the meat with the brown sauce at the bottom of the plate that I realized that the dish must have been prepared a very long ago.
The sauce was very thick and somehow shiny, like sauces become after cooling down and getting reheated. It tasted of something old. The age of the dumpling was even more noticeable: it was very dry, like a slice of bread that was toasted multiple times. The white cabbage was obviously microwaved, and the pieces of bacon in it were dry and hard, again hinting at their age.
The goose of Selbstverständlich was anything but fresh, yet edible. I would not advise anyone to try it unless there is absolutely no alternative – also because it is criminally overpriced – but if someone you love invites you and you cannot find an excuse to refuse, you might get a couple moments of enjoyment out of it. In my case, the most exciting thing was to watch the fat man come to the counter to pay and listen to the waiter reading the bill to him. I could not help but feel some respect for the guy, because after drinking so much alcohol, one should have troubles staying on one’s feet and not hold a fairly meaningful conversation.
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