Eating Out: One of the benefits of a university education, in my case at any rate, is the ability to retain large amounts of information for very short periods of time., writes Tom Doorley
This is down to four years of cramming for exams. At 9.30am I could be brimming with information about 18th-century Irish radicalism, but by 1.30pm it would all start to evaporate into the stale and smoky air of the late, lamented Lincoln Inn.
This has stood me in good stead as a restaurant critic. Generally, I can write up my notes within, say, three hours of a meal, and I get all the details down. Oddly enough, it's when I take notes at the table that I can get into trouble. Doubtless this is because I want to entertain my companion with a few bons mots and, er, witty apercus, and my handwriting suffers as a result.
I was thinking about this as I scanned my notes on the Belfry some days after eating there. They all made sense, bar one. Surely I had not ordered, let alone eaten, a dessert called "painless salmon with sewer bug cough"? Or was it "painted sandwich with some big Capote", a tribute dish to the eponymous Truman? Anyway, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.
The Belfry is a converted church in the hinterland of Mullingar, and as converted churches go - churches never really look quite right as anything other than places of worship - it's a pleasant building. It certainly wasn't a place of worship for the grub, though. Nor one to which I would willingly make another pilgrimage, notwithstanding the wonderful ease of access from Dublin, thanks to the new motorway.
I must stress that we had the early-bird menu, and perhaps the rest of the stuff it does is terrific, but I would have my doubts. Any restaurant that could dish up a slice of large-bore black pudding stuck into a round of tired and, I would imagine, reheated pastry, and then anoint the dish with what seemed to be a gloopy "port reduction" from a squeezy bottle is not doing itself or its customers any favours. The accompanying stewed apple was pleasant enough.
Little parcels of goat's cheese in kataifi pastry served with a kind of aubergine mush was not a bad idea in itself, and it certainly tasted a great deal more attractive than it looked. But when a dish arrives and one's first reaction is one of mild revulsion, it would appear that someone just doesn't care.
The kataifi was sparse, and the goat's cheese oozed out of it, making a pale picture of desolation. And this was placed on a dollop of beige sludge. I remember it as beige; my notes say grey. Whatever. It took some effort to taste it, but in terms of flavour it was okay. Not very exciting, not very cleverly conceived, deeply unattractive to behold but reasonably pleasant if I closed my eyes.
Main courses were a lot more encouraging. There was a proper lamb shank, well flavoured and with the moist flesh falling from the bone. This is how it should be done - too many restaurants reheat the dish from cold, which produces a waxy, greasy texture.
The ubiquitous confit pork belly, now compulsory on menus throughout Ireland, was one of the better examples I've tasted of late. The meat seemed to have been marinated in sharp but sweet apple juice, and it was cooked to crispness outside while retaining plenty of moisture within. There was also good crisp cabbage and a rather lacklustre scallion mash - or champ, as we tend to call it in this country.
The "crumble of the day" was apple. Apple puree, of baby-food texture, with a topping that involved pumpkin seeds and no great pleasure.
Ah, yes, the mysterious dessert. It was a sandwich of flaky pastry with a "summer berry compote". It wasn't bad, but the summer berries included blackberries, which, at the time of eating, were still hard and red in the hedgerows.
With one rather watery double espresso, two glasses of house white and a bottle of southern French red, the bill came to €112.60. tdoorley@irish-times.ie
The Belfry Restaurant, Ballynegal, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, 044-9342488, www.belfryrestaurant.com
Melodia Touraine Sauvignon Blanc (€23/€4.95 glass) had no varietal character whatsoever, and our red, Château L'Hermitage Costières de Nîmes 2003 (€35), was awful, a weird combination of over-ripeness and massive tannins.
Much better choices include the lovely Domaine de la Treille Fleurie (€32), the Kiwi Glazebrook Sauvignon Blanc (€28), the scrumptious Chinon rosé from Couly-Dutheil (€24) and Château Jolys, a Jurançon sticky for €20.50 a half-bottle. Taittinger NV champagne struck me as being way overpriced at €90. Henri Goutorbe NV, at €53, offers better value.