There's no two ways about it, for me, a review must reflect the price paid. Here we had a 4 course Sunday lunch for €15 each so it's five star.
It's not a haute cuisine place, not close nor French bistro style, rather it's more cafe style and big portions, but to call it a greasy spoon would do it a disservice and unfair.
There are foodie refinements that should be easy to add at little extra cost.
To begin, I had a tasty vegetable soup with brown bread and Irish butter.
For mains, it was haddock with a lemon & dill sauce, mashed and garlic potatoes, a roast potato, cabbage, carrots and swede.
The haddock was the two things it had to be to be very good; fresh and not overcooked. It had a lemon & dill sauce.
For my dessert it was a light bread and butter pudding, with really plump raisins, whipped cream and custard.
We each finished off with a darn good chocolate topped cappuccino.
My wife had mini vegetable spring rolls with a tasty mini Caesar salad on the side, a turkey & ham main course (with pretty good pepper sauce on the side - gravy was also available) and the same mashed etc potatoes and vegetables, and dessert was lemon meringue pie with fresh cream.
The service was ace with every plate and bowl piping hot, so not chance of the food being cold.
All of the floor staff were genuinely uber friendly and attentive. The seating was cafe style, and all tables are now screened off from each other. Staff wore face masks and each table was disinfected between guests.
There's well-placed disinfection dispensers at the front door and before going to the upstairs toilets.
Now let me be picky with no slight intended here, bearing in mind the price and what we had was quite good.
The vegetable soup could be better seasoned; we could not determine if the mini spring rolls were bought in and deep fried or made in-house but we felt the former. A sweet chilli dipping sauce would be good.
The lemon & dill sauce on the haddock was good but should be reduced to concentrate flavour. The fish skin should have been crisped. Fresh dill and the addition of fresh lemon juice with brave seasoning would make the sauce great and a little lemon and dill will fo a long way.
The lemon meringue lemon filling should be a tart lighter mousse, again zinged with fresh lemon juice and grated lemon flesh for concentrated but less sweet flavour.
The custard here is that vivid yellow and starchy factory product, either tinned or made from starch based powder, food colour and milk. Either way it's a mainstay and throwback to the desserts of the 1950's and 1960's. The fact it's still going is all you need to know.
There's not much can be done to really improve custard without spending money say creme anglaise with vanilla pod - which would really increase the price - but I imagine the locals are more than happy with it, judging by the numbers dining, and we are very occasional, albeit pretentious upstart passers by.
Would I go back? Certainly even without the refinements. read more