I’VE ALWAYS LOVED Rathmines. It’s where I had my first taste of independent adult life as a be-permed 1980s student and it still has that buzz of a proper Dublin village, a place where you could live happily without ever needing to head “into town”. Many a dingy student basement is now a swanky glass box, but Rathmines still has the vibrant feeling of a mixture of ages and cultures, making it a bit more like London than Dublin.
Unlike its posher neighbour Ranelagh, Rathmines is more of a café strip than a restaurant republic. Pizza and cappuccino joints are legion. Little Jerusalem is the village’s Palestinian and Lebanese restaurant, down a side road beside Slattery’s pub.
One of the nice things about this place is it has a bring-your-own-bottle policy. On the night we go there, we’re ravenous by the time we arrive and we tip our chilled white into glasses enthusiastically. The menu produces lots of “mmms” from Trish and Liam and I could happily eat everything on it.
The hunger pangs grow when the burnt-paper smell of grilled aubergines wafts over from the kitchen. It’s underneath a massive extractor that has back-lit photographs of food overhead. It gives the place the look of a fast-food takeout (and they do take-out) but don’t let that put you off.
Tables are generous and there are lovely paintings on the wall, two huge framed kaftans and lots of knick-knacks on the shelves. The menu is long, filled with vegetarian options and starts with the dish that gets this year’s prize for translation malfunction: Foul Madammas. (It’s a fava bean paste with garlic, chilli and lemon.) There are plenty of mezze or snack-size portions that are perfect for the mixture of hunger and curiosity. There is a vegetarian mezze plate (€10.99), which Trish and I opt to share as a starter, while Liam goes for a starter of Lebanese flatbread with minced lamb (€6.99).
The waitress is friendly and patient as we dither over the order. Nothing arrives with any great speed, which is unsurprising as there seems to be a lone cook on duty. This leaves us plenty of time to down more wine, catch up on conversation, and try to keep my notes legible as the wine hits a very empty stomach.
Liam’s bread and lamb dish comes with onion, garlic and tomatoes and is pronounced “incredibly tasty”. Our generous plate of mixed vegetarian dishes is full of good things. There’s a gorgeous hummus, very smooth, with plenty of garlic and perfect with the fresh, doughy flatbreads. Two falafel are deep-fried golfballs of flavour, although a little on the salty side.
By now we’ve cracked open the screw-top on the bottle of red wine and they’ve given us a bottle of water with fresh mint leaves and lemon slices in it. Liam’s keeping up the meat theme for his main course with Mashawi Mushakla, which has a chicken, lamb and kofta (meatloaf) skewer with hummus and a tabbouleh or bulgur salad and more naan bread (€14.99). The lamb is difficult to cut and has the consistency of old boot leather, but tastes surprisingly delicious.
We’ve ordered the Foul Mudammas (€5.99), a Batata bil basal wal thom, or shallow-fried potatoes (€6.50), a Shakshoka, which is a vine tomato, garlic, chilli and egg dish (€6.99), and a Baba Ghanoush or pureed aubergine with tahini, yoghurt, olive oil and lemon (€6.99). They’re all moreish and tasty in the best fried food way. The potato dish presents with an uninspiring oily brown appearance, but is great. The Shakshoka is effectively curdled egg in a rich tomato sauce, again surprisingly fantastic, and the two combined are gorgeous, although they do taste a little like a late-night brunch. The only slight disappointment is the Foul Mudammas, which while far from foul is a bit too mealy, needing a bit more garlic and lemon to give it bite.
I try a Qatayef (€4) for dessert, which is a folded over pancake stuffed with nuts, coconut, cinnamon and soaked in rose syrup. It is as tooth-achingly sweet as it sounds but at the size of a slightly-oversized fortune cookie it’s not too overpowering a portion. Two good espressos at €2 apiece round off the feeding frenzy.
Little Jerusalem is a sister restaurant of the Silk Road Café at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle. Apart from one night of the year, when it opens in the evening for Culture Night, the Silk Road is a daytime venue. It also has larger dishes so a visit there will probably not allow you to taste quite such an array of good things in one sitting.
Little Jerusalem manages to be cheap and cheerful but also romantic and relaxing. There were plenty of people of all ages there the night we dined.
We couldn’t find many places where you could buy a chilled bottle of white wine for a last-minute visit, so if you’d like to be sure of having something lovely to drink you might want to plan ahead and bring something from your own fridge.
Dinner for three came to €72.94
Twitter.com/catherineeats
3 Wynnefield Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6, tel: 01-4126912
Facilities: Basic but very clean
Music: Middle eastern
Wheelchair access: Yes, but restricted room in the restaurant
Food provenance: None
Coeliac-friendly:Not specified, but without the bread many dishes would be wheat-free
