I'm mad. Before I moved here, my Irish friends boasted quite a bit about Dublin's new restaurant scene. I got quite a laugh out of that. I tried to imagine what a gourmet restaurant in Dublin might serve. I pictured leprechauns dining in "high style" - boiled potatoes with sliced Parmesan, beef stew with fennel, a mutton chop garnished with cilantro and served with a robust Chateau Guinness. C'est manifique!
Well, who can blame me? After all, I heard similar things about the London restaurant scene. I went to the UK several times last year, and the culinary highlight of each trip was (as usual) the inflight meal. And I'm a New Yorker. As far as I'm concerned, your average New York pizzeria serves better food than a four star restaurant in Rome; the bistros of Paris are greasy spoons compared to Big Apple eateries. As for Dublin, well, you go there for pubs, book stores, and pretty women (I'm referring to my girlfriend, of course). But restaurants? Fuhgedaboutit!
My first dinner in Dublin was at some joint called Roly's. The maitre d' was a big friendly guy, the ambiance was good, the food wasn't bad. All in all, a decent bistro. "No leprechauns," I quipped as I left. The next night I went back, just to make sure my judgment wasn't off. And then I went back the night after that. I was in serious danger of never eating in another Dublin restaurant besides Roly's.
What's going on here? I wondered. Could my friends have been right? I started investigating the Dublin restaurant scene with a vengeance. Lo and behold, haute cuisine is thriving, and the Dublin dining scene is impressive indeed. There are dozens of restaurants with excellent food and quality service. There's a broad selection of international restaurants, and metropolitan establishments whose bold concoctions and fresh ingredients make dining an adventure and a pleasure. Further, Dubliners are very restaurant-savvy. There is a real buzz out there about where to eat. Apparently the Celtic Tiger has a ravenous appetite. Bright lights, big kitty.
What have I liked? La Stampa for a fun evening. Gotham for a truly excellent New York-type meal at a modest price. Ayumi-Ya for Japanese. Milano's for a quick Manhattan-esque lunch, Trio's if I have a little more time. And then there are restaurants like Roly's and PD's Woodhouse in Dalkey. Though Roly's can be quite loud and PD's a bit cramped, I imagine heaven is a lot like these places.
I really don't know of any restaurants in New York that are this good, when you consider food, price, service and ambiance. How the mighty have fallen. First the crime rate plummets in New York, then they clean up Times Square. And now this. It pains me greatly to say it, but in some ways the Dublin dining scene is even better than New York. Dublin restaurants aren't as crowded, and you can have the table for as long as you like. For three weeks I thought the service was bad because the waiter didn't bring the check immediately after I finished my meal.
I should also mention that the service on a whole has been good to excellent. (I have an interesting relationship with waiters and waitresses. I'm delighted with their service, and, considering my accent, they're delighted I'm not a pain in the ass.)
Not that New York is a cow town. Though I'm impressed by the variety of restaurants in Dublin, it of course can't compare to back home. There are more than 7,000 restaurants in Manhattan alone, though it's 10 square miles smaller than Dublin City. In a given day you pass more restaurants in Manhattan then you do people in Dublin (providing you don't go to Grafton Street that day). Suppose you want to have Chinese. In Dublin, there are only a few decent Chinese restaurants, such as Zen in Rathmines. But I personally know of at least 30 excellent Chinese restaurants in New York. And I never even go to Chinatown. In fact, I don't even eat Chinese all that often.
Seafood and Italian restaurants are also markedly better in New York than Dublin. This was a surprise. I just naturally assumed, for some stupid reason, that sea food would be popular in a small place surrounded by water. But as far as Irish tastes go, ye might as well be in Kansas City. A friend blames it on the church, saying it has something to do with the old rule about not eating meat on Fridays. Sorry - I lived through that rule, too, and I don't hate fish. (I do, however, blame the church for the traditional Irish breakfast. With those puny, rubbery eggs and disgusting black and white puddings - I don't want to know what they are - I can't imagine why anyone would eat a traditional Irish breakfast other than for penance. Thank God the brunch scene is picking up in Dublin, with restaurants like the Mermaid Cafe justifiably doing a solid brunch trade.)
The Italian restaurants aren't much better. The sauce is so bland you'd think you were in a hospital (or Kansas City, anyway). The best I've tried so far is Steps of Rome. Entrees are in the £5 range, but ounce for ounce (and pound for pound), I'd match their sauce with those of restaurants five times as expensive. Though there are no leprechauns supping in these bistros, they may well be writing the bills.
How else to explain the mischievously high price of dining in Dublin? Sorry, but eating out here is more expensive than New York. Considering the difference in wages, it's mind-boggling. It seems that there are certain dangers - and price is one of them - in becoming almost too cosmopolitan. I love trying different foods, but some places are just plain over-the-top. Like the nouvelle places where three string beans and a sliver of chicken constitute a meal. Or the ones that serve exotic dishes with clashing spices - coconut milk and garlic - presented as works of art, with layers of food piled high like modern sculptures, with carrot shaving for hair and useless reeds sticking out like antennae, a colourful sauce pattern dripped onto the plate like something you'd see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Well, okay, it is fun, but only if it's inexpensive, the food is good, and there is enough of it. By definition, fine dining defeats its purpose if I have to stop at McDonalds on the way home. If I order grilled tuna, they can decorate it to their heart's content, but there better be a big piece of fish in there somewhere.
But this is not always the case. For example, I have eaten in Lloyds Brasserie and felt the chef deserved an art degree rather than a Michelin star. The other night I was in Cooke's and had, for £16.50 a heartburn fest of pasta, salami, and tomato sauce with cheese melted over the top . . . the kind of thing I used to make for myself when I was in college. Damn, I thought, can't a guy get a decent bowl of beef stew and potatoes in this town? One of my favourite restaurants in New York is an Irish pub on west 86th Street. I find myself looking forward to going home just to get some decent bangers and mash.
In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy the lavish dining opportunities that Dublin offers. There are a lot of restaurants out there and I want to try every one of them. Except the Independent Pizza Company. Word has it that their pizza is as good as New York's. I don't think I could handle that.