In the search for a reasonably-priced meal, it's hard to go wrong with Coppinger Row's lunch deal, writes CATHERINE CLEARY
A late great friend had an inner thrift fairy she called Vera Value. Even as the cult of Sally Spendthrift took a grip on the rest of us, her Vera moments were small and funny triumphs over a world that was out to fleece us. Value is a good way to look at the search for a reasonably-priced meal.
Cheap food is everywhere. Cheap bad food. But good restaurants have never given the diner a better deal. Vera and Victor Value are in charge these days and the restaurant that doesn’t cater for their needs will lose out to the competition.
Coppinger Row sounds like a place Dickens might have written about, but it’s a small busy restaurant on the pedestrian side street in Dublin of the same name. Brothers Marc and Conor Bereen are the owners and by the time you read this their new venture, the Damson Diner in the nearby South William Bar will have opened, adding yet another new restaurant to Dublin’s busiest eating quarter.
But I’m here at the mothership restaurant. When it opened, Coppinger Row was a sapling in an open space, its only other match was Le Gueuleton, both revolutionary for their time. Now there are half a dozen lookalikes sprouted around it.
It’s a metro-tiled wooden floored room with metal angled lamps, a bar and an open kitchen where you can watch the busy chefs. The best thing is their lunchtime deal when a €10 note will get you the “menu del dia”, a main course and dessert.
The back of the restaurant has a cosy book-lined feel to it. The front is buzzier and all the better to be seen in. Outside they’ve beefed up the exterior tables with a more solid awning, blanket, heater and wall arrangement.
Today’s tenner special is a venison ragu with linguine, Parmesan and rocket, with a dessert. Frankly it’s too good a deal to give the lunch menu more than a passing glance but in the interests of reviewing we go on-menu to order the €11 plate of garlic and chilli prawns and get one of my favourite side dishes in town, the bowl of green beans with mustard mayo, at a cost of €3.75.
This makes green vegetables as moreish as a bowl of chips. Their flavour is reason enough to gloss over the fact that green beans aren’t exactly in season round these parts in November. Lightly steamed or boiled and then buttered, they are best eaten with fingers, three-at-a-time, dipping one end of the clump in the yellowy mustard mayo.
Jeremy’s gambas are fine but there’s a little too much oil on the plate. Some good bread on the side would be a welcome addition to the dish.
The beans are as delightful as always. And my bowl of venison is exactly what it should be, simply stewed tender meat, juices flowing around solid strands of pasta. In the mix are some cherry tomatoes, roasted to bursting, and a few broad beans. Fiery fresh rocket tops it off with fresh texture and bite.
It’s a proper lunch in gorgeous restaurant for the price of a soul-sapping sandwich experience.
The dessert, which we share as a true Vera and Victor would, is sensational, a gritty, zesty, lemon polenta cake which, I’m guessing, had a lemon syrup poured on top after it came out of the oven. It’s a cake that simply begs for a caffeinated partner so we dilute the value with a couple of coffees, reasonably priced at €2.50 apiece.
Cheap deals often have what I call the waterbed effect. When you sit on your profit margin in one spot, it pushes it straight into another. If you resist the add-ons the daily lunch special in Coppinger Row is one of the best ways you can spend a tenner in town.
Our lunch came to €32.75 with two coffees and an orange juice
Coppinger Row
Dublin 2, tel: 01-672 9884
Music: As laid back as you’d expect Facilities: Fine
Food provenance: Pork from Jack
McCarthy in Kanturk, Co Cork, organic veg from Goldriver Farm in Aughrim
Wheelchair access: Yes
Coeliac options: None specified, but plenty of dishes appear gluten-free
SECOND HELPING . ..:
Mayfield Deli and Eatery in Dublin’s Terenure has just started a Friday and Saturday all-night menu of €25 for three courses, €22 for two and €15 for one. Mayfield Deli and Eatery Terenure Road North, Terenure, tel: 01- 492 6830 .
I’m in danger of banging on about The Fumbally too much but nothing can be written about good value food without naming the €5 Fumbally eggs scrambled with Gubbeen, tomatoes and brioche as the best snack in town. The Fumbally, Fumbally Lane, Dublin 8. In Rathmines, Little Jerusalem is a wonderful Lebanese restaurant with a bring-your-own bottle policy . Little Jerusalem, 3 Wynnefield Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Nepalese restaurant Vagya offers an early-meal of €14.99 for three courses with a bring-your-own-bottle policy. They’re in the Sunnybank Hotel on Botanic Road in Dublin’s Glasnevin.
In Cork city the Gourmet Burger Bistro on Bridge Street offers a €5.50 portion of chicken wings and an organic beef burger for €7.95.
In Galway Sheridan’s Wine Bar is a great place to eat cheese with a glass of wine or two. Sheridans Wine Shop Upstairs 14-16 Churchyard Street, Galway.
