Ed eats

The Dubliner
Spinola Bay,
St Julian’s
Tel: 2136 7106

Food: 6/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

I’m fine with new year resolutions as long as they apply to other people. I can’t see why an arbitrary day in the year should be the right time to modify my behaviour. If I suddenly realise I need to improve on something, then I should probably act upon it right away. What if my epiphany about errant behaviour strikes in February? Should I wait until the end of the year to do something about it?

What’s even more tragic is being roped into the resolutions of others. I was dragged out of my cave to go on a long walk by a young lady who reckons she gained a kilo over the holidays. That’s like drinking two pints of beer without a visit to the gents. There’s a kilo right there and it is one that has never caused me any concern. But she is stern and convincing and determined so my underlying laziness withered when faced by the fierce waggle of her admonitory finger.

Out I trundled and we walked for miles and miles until I had to check my maps app to make sure we hadn’t run out of planet to walk on. Good thing the earth is round or we’d have skipped right off the edge. Just when I thought I’d run out of excuses to stop walking and call a cab, this clever young lady casually mentioned a pub we could stop at for a refreshing drink. Resolve flooded through me like cold beer flows into a pint glass and I made the extra effort.

The Dubliner was the oasis she had in mind and, as I leaned on the bar to finally order a pint, I resolved never to submit to the same torture again. I finally found a resolution I can safely stick to. Walk straight to the pub. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.

The walk to the edge of the planet and back had whipped up quite an appetite and the sight of the menu was a welcome one indeed. I felt like I could eat everything on the menu and, given sufficient miles of walking without actually going anywhere, I probably would. Finally I whittled my choice down to their beef stewed in Guinness or their lamb shank braised in Guinness. The torturer was now, quite evilly, eyeing the bangers and mash, but eventually settle for the steak and onion pie. She wanted mashed potatoes instead of fries though, because that was why she’d looked at the bangers and mash in the first place.

By this time we were joined by the better half, who had had the common sense of driving instead of walking. She quite predictably opted for the ‘famous’ rib-eye, served rare. We ordered pints of beer and cider at the bar and this is when one places their order for food. There is no waiter service at the ordering stage. You’re in a pub. That’s what the bar is for.

At the bar was a young man who ran the show in the good tradition of proper pubs everywhere. He is efficient, polite, will engage in minute banter, and is friendly enough to make the world feel like a more welcoming place, if for a short while. With his demeanour, his accent, and the perfect pubness of the decor, I felt like I’d stepped into a pub that would normally involve quite a lot of boarding passes and security checks to get to.

There is wood panelling all around, warm lighting, and that harmless kind of background music that does what it should and stays in the background. TVs looked suspiciously like they’d be showing plenty of football and rugby when the time is right. This place is the closest I’ve got to a pub in Malta recently. Too many of the pubs I remember have turned into soulless, shiny clones of each other and walking into a proper pub, serving a proper pint of Guinness, and selling real pub food was enough to win me over quite quickly.

I’d eaten beef stewed in Guinness a few times before, all of which when visiting Ireland, and it is a dish that I’m quite keen on

In the end I went with the beef stew. I’d eaten beef stewed in Guinness a few times before, all of which when visiting Ireland, and it is a dish that I’m quite keen on. There is something homely about it that warms you to the core and it quite naturally pairs well with the black liquid I was sipping. I’d never cook with a wine I won’t readily drink, and this applies equally to beer.

Our food was served within 10 minutes, a mercifully short time in the state I was in, and I liked the way it looked. All portions were generous and plated to look the part. The steak was surrounded by peas and chips in the true pub tradition. The pie was getting acquainted with the mashed potato that it wasn’t quite used to having as a neighbour and was also served with a bowl of gravy on the side.

My stew was also quite impressive, with a neatly garnished tower of mashed potato in the centre rising through the deep, brown liquid like a monolithic tribute to comfort food. I quickly stuck my fork into the liquid and nabbed a piece of the beef, swiped the fork sideways to pile on a little mashed potato and popped the whole thing into my mouth.

Now you can imagine that this kind of stew takes hours to reach its tenderness, for the flavour of Guinness and other magical herbs and spices to permeate the meat, and for it to reduce to its beautifully viscous consistency. Served in 10 minutes it had been blitzed until the temperature at the core matched that of any respectable branding-iron. And the bite-sized furnace burst in my mouth causing damage that I will not describe, lest any readers feel squeamish.

I’m not writing this as criticism to the kitchen. It is half an admission of blinding stupidity on my part, for which I have paid already, and half a warn-ing to anyone who orders a stew at a pub. Let the thing cool, no matter how ravenous.

I had to wait for the food to cool so I turned to that of my companions. The steak isn’t a huge cut but is priced at €16 and tastes easily as good as what you’d normally pay an extra tenner for. The charring on the outside is intense, the inside was rare, and the flavour and texture of Irish beef did the rest of the job.

The pie was also quite lovely in the way pub pies should be. The pastry was earning compliments from my torturer and she is quite the baker herself. She deconstructed it and gave an approving nod. The gravy was, well, gravy. Which means it added a guilt-ridden flavour to every-thing it touched, making both pie and mashed potato a slightly happier event than they’d been without it.

In the end, my stew turned out to be less homely than what I’d sampled in its country of origin, even if it had bits of carrot in it to make it feel a little more like it had been prepared at home. It did the job of curing hunger and keeping my pint company, and was so generous that I couldn’t get round to finishing it.

The food bill was for €34, half of which were accounted for by the steak. It is quite possible to eat a decent amount of pub food and drink half a pint of beer for €10. In a country where we’re used to being robbed when paying for food, I considered this very good value. The pub is welcoming, cosy and comfy. It also fed us, watered us and put smiles on our faces. And isn’t this what we walk into a pub for?

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