A Goose for Lunch

I will always remember Gamlitz as the place where a few years ago, following a daylong cycling/wine-tasting/Brettljause-eating tour, I stopped in the evening to have a last beer and afterwards could not find my bicycle in the dark. I ended up running from restaurant to restaurant, asking where the bicycle parking place could be and was always receiving the same answer, “One parks where one wants.” When half an hour later I finally found the bike, I was so happy that I rode it in the direction opposite to my hotel for a few kilometers before realizing the mistake.

I am sure that Wratschko was one of the places where I went to enquire in my moment of panic. Come to think of it, Wratschko could have very well been the location where I drank my last beer.

The scenario was much less extreme today. Yesterday, when I stopped at Wratschko for a final beer after a cycling/wine-tasting/Brettljause-eating tour (I don’t see a reason to change a perfectly good tradition because of a single unfortunate incident), I saw that the restaurant was serving goose and decided to revisit it today for lunch, just before catching a train back home.

I generally don’t expect much from geese outside Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland, having had a few bad experiences in the past. Wratschko’s Martinigansl, however, was very similar to the ones I had had closer to home, and even better than many of them. Although lacking a crunchy skin, the goose did not contain any off-putting fat, and its meat was well cooked yet tender. The portion may not look big on the photo, but in fact, it was sizable, for the cook had removed all the bones except the drumstick’s main one. The specially prepared sauce matched the meat very well and enhanced its taste. And yes, it was a sauce, not a pumpkin soup as my photo seems to suggest.

I liked the bread dumplings, which were well spiced. The red cabbage may have been slightly overcooked, but had a pleasant sweet taste with a subtle Christmas-y flavor of cinnamon. The only problem was, during the cooking a piece of a cinnamon stick must have fallen on the goose itself and got attached to its skin. Of course, I had the “luck” of accidentally biting on it, and it was not at all a pleasant experience. The first impression was like chewing a small piece of bark; the second impression was an intense taste of something weird, which made me think of some particularly disgusting medicine.

Rest assured, however, that the chance of the cinnamon stick misfortune happening again is virtually zero, so if you in South Styria and have a yearning for goose, Wratschko is a safe and enjoyable location. Interestingly, two waiters at the restaurant asked me if I wanted red wine with the goose instead of white one. Aware that South Styria is famous for its white wines, I resisted, and now regret that a bit. Since Wratschko is also a wine maker, the recommendation might have been a good one.