EATING OUT: In Dublin's brilliant - but unpronounceable - new restaurant, the bill is a pleasant surprise, writes Tom Doorley.
Well, there goes the alternative career option: opening a simple, French bistro doing exceptional food at fair prices and being swamped by pathetically grateful diners. The country has struggled on for decades in the absence of such dining facilities.
But, alas, no longer. The barely pronounceable L'Gueuleton, meaning a feast of many courses, has done it. Right down to the very short, entirely French wine list, the superb coffee, the first-class bread. And the notion of drawing no distinction between starters and main courses.
This new restaurant - attached to Hogans bar, and barely a month in business - is manifestly not the brainchild of a focus group. It's far too original. Dublin restaurateurs are, by and large, a timid bunch. They play it safe, and few would offer such dishes as snail and roquefort pithivier or duck egg mayonnaise with celery salt and watercress. Certainly not at €10 and €3.50 respectively.
The first thing you will notice about L'Gueuleton is the smell. The nostrils are assailed by a rich odour of good cooking, warm, savoury and slightly smoky. The open kitchen actually has an apéritif-like effect on the appetite.
By far the most expensive item on the menu, grilled sirloin steak with bearnaise sauce, watercress and chips (not "frites" or "fries", note, but chips) weighs in at €24 and heaven knows what in sheer avoirdupois. The one that whizzed past me in the hands of one of the briskly efficient and friendly waiting staff seemed to overlap the plate.
Watching various dishes passing over the kitchen counter - blanquette of lamb, rigatoni with braised oxtail, roast beetroot with Puy lentils, French beans and goats' cheese, to name but a handful - I realised that I would be quite incapable of managing more than two courses.
Toulouse sausages with choucroute, Lyonnaise potatoes and watercress is a dish that I find very hard to resist. There needs to be something seriously seductive on a menu to deflect me.
It came in a deep dish, the sausages plump, brown and smoky from the chargrill, moist inside and impeccably textured. The chunks of spud, more braised than browned, were entwined with lots of softened, sweet onion and seasoned generously with flatleaf parsley. Properly Lyonnaise.
The watercress, slightly wilted by the heat of the dish, was still crunchy, peppery and attractively different. It's good to see this stuff making an appearance as a vegetable rather than as a garnish. I mean, of all the watercress sold in Ireland, how much of it is actually eaten?
Choucroute is not big in Ireland, possibly because it doesn't approximate to our idea of cabbage - boiled, sulphurous and softened. Choucroute is, essentially, a spiced pickle of finely shredded cabbage. The pickling retains the crunchy texture of the raw vegetable and suppresses its urge to self-destruct in an orgy of whiffy decomposition, even when served hot, as it was here.
Jelly and ice cream. When did you last see that outside a children's menu? At L'Gueuleton this dish is a triumph. It comprised a startlingly subtle celery ice cream (it would have taken me a long time to identify the flavour had I not been told in advance), the best cinnamon ice cream I've ever tasted (fragrant and intense) and a bizarre but wonderful gingerbread ice cream. This contained chunks of sticky, chewy gingerbread and was coated, on the outside, with crisp crumbs of pain d'épice. Little cubes of sharp and refreshingly unsweet jelly came in three flavours: cosmopolitan (vodka and cranberry), apple and orange.
With three glasses of wine and a double espresso (at a refreshing €2) the bill came to €31.50. This is not just one of the best-value places to eat in the entire country, it also does some of the best, down-to-earth food. And as far as my alternative career is concerned, it's back to the drawing board. u tdoorley@irish-times.ie
L'Gueuleton, 1 Fade Street, Dublin 2 (01-6753708) is open Monday to Saturday for lunch and dinner.
WINE CHOICE Two super wines for €18 a bottle or €4.50 a glass? It's true. The grassy Domaine Grauzan Sauvignon and spicy Pelican Bleu Grenache/Syrah are probably the best house wines in Dublin. This short list, put together by Simon Tyrell, is full of gems. Domaine Alary Cairanne, both white and red, is €29, the highly unusual Domaine des Baumard Vert de l'Or (a Verdelho from the Loire) is €27, Domaine de Bertagna Hautes Côtes de Nuits Villages in the ripe 2002 vintage is €39. Pineau des Charentes, grape juice fortified with Cognac, makes a glorious digestif at €4 a glass. There are eight "grands vins" very fairly priced between €69 and €95.