While there are plenty of restaurants in Vienna that offer dishes “from the grill,” Walters Mühle is one of the few that actually possesses a real charcoal grill. In July, I went to the Mühle to try its spare ribs, and the grill made a huge difference. Not only did the ribs taste freshly prepared – they were freshly prepared.
Today, waiting for my pre-ordered portion of Gansl, I was secretly hoping that the charcoal grill would be involved somehow. How nice would it be to try a goose smelling of wood and fire instead of industrial, microwaved red cabbage? And when after 20 minutes of waiting (a good sign!) the bird arrived at my table, its appearance initially reaffirmed my hopes: its skin was very dark, even black.
I cut off a piece and popped it into my mouth, fully expecting to hear a crunch. It did not follow. Instead, the skin had the texture of leather, though of a rather tasty one. I tried to cut a bit from a different piece (as a rather pointless “enhancement,” the goose arrived pre-cut into a few sizable pieces) and was rewarded by a great crunchy part of skin, very well salted – some would even say over-salted, but not I – with dark, but tender meat below it and no fat in between.
And so it went – whenever I was lucky to come across well-grilled skin, the bird was outstanding; at other times, it was simply good. Sadly, the cabbage was consistently bad. Not crunchy and lacking any spices, it was obviously of second importance to the cook, and I left most of it intact.
My main drive behind trying the goose of Walters Mühle, in addition to the restaurant’s vicinity to my house, was curiosity. I wondered if a less-known place like that could be a secret gem for the Martinigansl season. Unfortunately, it was not, but even if I won’t recommend the Mühle to my friends and colleagues looking for a goose dinner, I can see myself happily coming back for spare ribs or something else that involves the charcoal grill.
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