Wild Goose, Ranelagh

We visited the "Wild Goose"  for their Early Bird menu the other night.  They call it their "Early Goose" which is a bit of fun!  

The menu they offer is below and it is €21.95 for two courses and €27.95 for three course.  It appeared to be extremely good value and offered some nice choices.

Ciaran had the sole for starter (tempura of Lemon sole with a mixed leave salad and a creme fraiche sweet chilli and coriander dressing). 
To me it looked like the batter was way to thick to be considered a tempura and he said it was under cooked and that the batter was very soggy on the inside.

For starter I ordered the Rillette of Goose Leg, Puy Lentils with Red Wine Jus.

The Goose was melt in your mouth delicious but the puy lentils were a bit over salted for my taste and the red wine jus was generally tasteless.

For mains we ordered (for a €5 supplement) the Rump of Irish Beef Steak served with sautéed spinach, caramelised onions, creamed potatoes and Béarnaise sauce.
Our thoughts were that the meat was very good and cooked very well (we both ordered rare) and that the char was very flavourful. 
I found the potato to be inedible (I think they had some cheek referring to them as "creamed" - to me they tasted like watery day old mash) - so Ciaran ate mine.  I don't like spinach so he ate mine also while the caramelised onions were very very tasty.
I think they could look at presentation - the sauce in a ramekin was bit naff - a teeny weeny jug might look better if they wanted to serve it to the side.

We had a French Malbec blend which Ciaran enjoyed but I thought lacked oompf.  

Generally we liked the ambiance in Wild Goose but felt let down by the food.  If we were given a lower quality meal because it was the Early Bird - shame on them while if this is the type of food that is always served I think Wild Goose is over rated.  We probably won't return, but if we did, I think I would like to try the Cote du Boeuf for two which looked to be very good.

I should mention that we saw nothing on either the Early Bird or A La Carte Menu for dessert that appealed to us which was a little disappointing also.  If I was to rate this restaurant I would give them a C and a "must try harder".