Online advice leads to a real Chinese cracker
I HAD AN INTERESTING e-mail from a reader the other day concerning an informal, keenly priced place on which I’ve heaped a bit of praise. She had no problem with the food in general but the service was a different story.
On one occasion she found a small snail in her salad. She had, she stressed, ordered the salad but not the wildlife, so she mentioned it to the waitress who cocked an eyebrow and said, “Oh well, these things happen”. Which indeed they do.
After a lengthy pause, during which her companion finished her main course, a snail-less salad appeared. There was no apology, no reduction from the bill, no free glass of wine or cup of coffee.
On another occasion, her elderly parents who were eating in the same establishment asked if the very loud music (it’s a youthful kind of place) could be turned down a little. “The manager likes it that way,” was the response.
I had hoped that the days when the restaurant industry could get away with treating customers with contempt while shamelessly dipping into their wallets were over.
Anyway, e-mail advice has put me on the right track on many occasions, not least in the case of Gong, which is a Chinese restaurant just across the road from the Stillorgan Shopping Centre.
I’ve no doubt that it’s merely due to some kind of cultural division, but upon entering many Chinese restaurants in Ireland I feel as if I’m intruding upon a scene of private grief. I don’t know if there’s a Mandarin or Cantonese equivalent of the céad míle fáilte. Perhaps Europeans are just too obtuse to read it.
In any case, there is a warm and kindly welcome at Gong where the front of house is managed by Tim, one of the old guard who used to wait on tables at China Sichuan when it was in Kilmacud.There is an assumption here that most punters will attack the food with knife and fork rather than chopsticks (which ruins the pace at which good Chinese food should be eaten, even if the most expert wielders of chopsticks can clear a fully laden table in minutes if under pressure).
And there’s a very carefully judged menu, true to good Chinese (mainly Sichuanese) cooking and with nothing much to frighten the horses.
Home-made pan-fried dumplings were so good that they formed, so to speak, the alpha and the omega of the meal, because we ordered them to start and to finish. Filled with a mixture of prawn and pork, slightly chewy in texture, served with a dark, salty, sharpy dipping sauce, they were very good indeed.
We also started with what the menu blandly describes as “skewered spicy lamb”, involving crisply grilled thin slices of meat with that strange citrus spiciness that comes from Sichuan pepper. And we had “hot and spicy ribs”, a very attractive variation on the hoary old favourite. A very sharp cleaver had divided the meaty pork ribs into cubes. These in turn had been marinated in, I suspect, a dry spice mixture and rapidly fried.
Dry-fried spicy chicken with chilli peppers was electric. There was enough dried chilli here to bring a glow to my delicate brow and a thirst for more Tsingtao beer. Eat this with a knife and fork and you will need an asbestos palate.
“Squid shreds with salt and pepper” sounds pretty ordinary. “You’ll like that,” said Tim. “It’s not too dry.” And I loved it. Thinly sliced squid, dusted with flour and flash-fried, were tossed with stir-fried scallions and a lot of fresh chilli. The heat could be adjusted by varying how much of each element we managed to clamp between the chopsticks. It was one of the best squid dishes I’ve had in a Chinese restaurant in Ireland. And Tim was right. It wasn’t dry and brittle but rather succulent in a way.
With four beers and two portions of fried rice, the bill came to €79.
THE SMART MONEY
The set dinner menu offers a soup (which goes way beyond the usual chicken and sweetcorn), starter (including a smaller portion of squid mentioned above) and a main course for €25.
WINE CHOICE
Interesting to see some wines from Berry Bros Rudd, including the fresh, fruity Berry’s House White (at €5.50 a glass or €21.50 a bottle) and the red equivalent which is always sound. There is also the Berry’s Own Rioja Crianza, which is a lovely, round, spicy red, at €29. With this kind of food I’d be tempted to try Lurton’s Pinot Gris (€24) from Argentina or the Vieilles Vignes Riesling from Rieffel of Alsace, a producer I don’t know. J-P Moueix Bordeaux (€26) is good, everyday claret. By and large, though, I tend to stick to beer and/or good tea when eating this kind of menu.