A DAD'S LIFE:It's a heady thing eating out when they're older
I’D SAY the staff of Trocadero restaurant in Dublin have seen a few bodies crashed out on the couches over the years, but my two – both the younger and the elder – had had enough recently and stretched out full length to get some kip.
We don’t get to restaurants a whole lot anymore. When we do, it’s usually family friendly, nothing too extravagant, nothing too spicy, nothing too new. Nothing too great really.
You have kids. For the next 10 years your palate enters a world of pizza and pasta. But I like eating out with them, mainly because they are better dinner companions than most.
They get excited by restaurants; they think waiters are performance artists; they are all about the dessert. What they don’t do is patience, which is why the idea of spending big for something of an epicurean experience makes little sense most of the time.
For the occasion of the granny’s most recent big birthday, we booked the Troc. It was something that had always passed me by, a Dublin establishment that I associated with other people: initially older sorts, then luvvie sorts, then just people whose lives weren’t dictated by the freshness of the baby vom on their shoulders.
The thing is, by the time you can bring your brood out to eat again without the meal descending into farce and humiliation, you’ve forgotten about any alternative to Milano’s. So when the sister made the booking, I thought, nice one, looking forward to that.
Going to the Troc for the first time when you’re 40 is like going to Fossett’s circus, or the Abbey or Croker. You wonder how the hell you managed to avoid it for so long, and why. It is as it had always been described to me: old school and red, with a nice, oozy decadent quality. The service was startlingly friendly and I could happily eat the T-bone I had that night most days, for most meals.
The granny didn’t want a fuss made. She had us on pain of death that no happy birthday would be sung. We risked it, and whisper-sang when the waitress produced a dessert with a candle protruding and slipped it discreetly in front of the blushing birthday girl. Sometimes you have to override the granny and, while she looked suitably mortified, I think she’ll forgive us. All told, after a feast in elegant surroundings to mark a big event, it would have been rude not to.
It was then, as another bottle was uncorked and further full glasses of luscious red were poured, that the contrast between old and new came into focus. I felt the wine work its magic and the lips begin to flap.
Looking around, I saw flushed faces and beamed with the excitement of it all. In a past life this would be the kick-off point. The mother would be serenaded into a taxi once she started to flag and the rest of us would waddle off into whatever trouble the night could throw at us.
It’s rough then, as the eyelids droop and the smiles slope, and you begin to ponder where to next, that you see your two daughters spread themselves out on the couches to snooze away the remainder of the night. They didn’t whine, at least not a whole lot, about the night dragging on, but made themselves comfortable to see out the end of it. Presuming the end of it would be not too far away.
For a few seconds the issue was confused. I’ve always found it hard to walk away. Just because your kids are snoozing in front of you, on a couch in a restaurant late on a Saturday night, doesn’t make the decision any easier. In reality, there is no decision to be made. You came together, you will leave together, at a time manageable to all and in a dignified manner as befitting a father in front of his children.
But for a moment there is the wheedling niggle of the warming booze. They could go on home. Things are only really kicking off here. What do they need me to go with them for anyway? They’ll be fine with their mother. I’ll put them in a cab and be home shortly, an hour, two max. And if I do that, I’ll be in better form tomorrow for having had such a good night.
It’s only for a moment these days, but the self-justifications come from all angles like Ronaldo crosses. In the end, we got out without much fanfare and eased our way into late night Dublin. I strolled up Exchequer Street with my girls in tow, through the throng, to pick up a cab on George’s Street. And nearly all of me was glad to be going home.
* abrophy@irishtimes.com