My previous goose post was called “A Happy End” to celebrate the facts that a) I ate the final Gansl of the season and b) it was quite good. But as luck would have it, life was still to gift me with one more goosing experience and it was not one to write home about.
Lehner had been known to me from my previous visit to Linz, when it left a strange feeling. While tasting pretty awful, Lehner’s goose made an impression of a once good bird that had been stored for too long. Unlike back in 2019, this time the waiter had no doubts that a goose was available (after all, the dish was still mentioned in the menu he handed me) – and that despite the fact that today’s visit was even later in the year than the previous one.
While today I did not hate the taste of Lehner’s goose as much, calling it good or even average would be a lie. It was again a really old goose, possibly cooked a long time ago and kept warm throughout the following days in the hope that an idiot like me would order it. The skin, once certainly crunchy, had the consistency of old leather but was still tasty somehow. The problem is that there was almost nothing beneath the skin. The meat, gray and tough, was meager and glued to the bones. It was as if all the fat had evaporated from the poor bird, leaving the bits that were hard to find and cut, and even harder to chew.
The red cabbage was overcooked, but generally OK taste-wise. Surprisingly, the bread dumpling was the part I enjoyed most (I suspect, the older dumplings are, the better they get), but frankly 30+ euros was too high a price for such a small bit of satisfaction.
“Wia z’haus“ is a dialect form of “wie zuhause,” that is “like at home.” If I had cooked a goose like this at home, it would have simply served as another confirmation of what a hopeless cook I am. Perhaps the chef of Lehner had somehow recognized that fact and served me exactly what I deserved.
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