Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Shack
I should have been all over this blog on Wednesday. My Tesco order arrived while I was out on Tuesday and on Wednesday our fridge was full to the brim. The weather was still good, so nothing was dragging me down; and yet, I did not have any ideas what to cook, let alone what to write. So I took the easy route and made some shop bought garlic and herb fettuccini with vegetable carbonara. They're simple to make, but no less tasty for it.On Thursday, a friend of my mum's came to see us from Germany. He likes his food, but is very hard to please, and wherever he goes he is always looking for this strange concept that tourists call "authentic local cuisine". I remember, years ago in Prague he dragged us into an incredibly run-down, dirty restaurant on the edge of town claiming that this was how the natives liked to dine. There was no convincing him that at least a small section of the Czech population had eyes to see the filth and taste buds to know that what they were being served was not fit for human consumption, so Lofty and I endured one of the worst dinners we had ever eaten. With this in mind, I had prepared a vegetable quiche for dinner, because there are bad restaurants and filthy pubs aplenty in this part of Dublin and we wanted to avoid a repetition of the old experience at all cost. The cost of that, it turned out would be €85 including tip, because surely enough he came and wanted to have dinner at a traditional Irish restaurant. We don't know any, though. Why would I pay over the odds for a stew or a roast if I can make an equally nice one at home at a fraction of the cost? Anyway, we relied on the write-ups from various websites and ended up heading to The Shack in Temple Bar.
At first we had feared that, given the area, we were going to end up in a tourist trap, but that fear did not become reality. Although the decor is slightly cheesy and a small bottle of Guinness costs €5.40, the food was quite good and the service impeccable. Our friend ordered Irish stew, which came with thick slices of walnut bread and, in his opinion was very tasty. I had calamari and chips - very nice, albeit slightly too greasy - and Lofty opted for a sirloin steak that was very tasty and grilled almost to perfection. It was slightly overdone, but in the chef's defence I should mention that Lofty likes his steaks blue, a state that is rarely achieved in a restaurant. We also had two deserts - a cherry tart and a slice of banoffi pie - both of which were quite tasty, although a bit light on the fillings. Including two bottles of beer, the bill came to €75 - very reasonable for the area, the atmosphere and the quality we thought.
Christine at 11:40 pm
