Before going into Nancy Hands on Parkgate Street for lunch I had to nip into Ryans pub to change a £20 pound note to pay the taxi driver. There was a distinct air of gloom about this grand old pub - plates of sandwiches covered in clingfilm lined up on the counter, two joints of meat standing by with no one in a hurry to carve them, a few men sitting up at the bar having lunch, staff busying themselves as best they could. But it was all a bit sad. We took the change and left feeling guilty about not buying a drink, but relieved not to be eating there.
Nancy Hands, just a few doors away, must be taking most of the lunchtime trade in this neighbourhood. Apparently it's a scrum here on Saturday nights when half of Castleknock descends for pints and a bite to eat.
We had no difficulty getting a table. You can have soup and a hot dish or two downstairs in the beery gloaming or upstairs, past the loos and the smell of Jeyes fluid, to the carvery restaurant, self-service by day, waitress service by night.
The whole place is decked out with the usual dizzy array of pictures, stained glass, framed photos and bits of decorative junk that we've come to expect in brand new Irish pubs, but in this case it is done with a bit more flair.
Proprietor Martin McCaffrey, whose family owns the Hole in the Wall pub, likes his art and has donated his own collection of Markey Robinson paintings to the pub. These are hung two and three deep along with the obligatory Knuttel or two. There are some nice original Guinness posters too, and a stunning hanging lantern over the stairwell, but the best feature of the pub is all the reclaimed timber, the doorways, floors and balustrades that came from granaries and old schools and, no doubt, from churches all over Ireland.
The clientele looked to be mainly local business people and one group had reserved the best couple of tables in front of the huge semi-circular window overlooking Parkgate Street. When we arrived sunshine was flooding through the window making it much brighter and cheerier than your average fake Victorian pub.
When we left it was lashing rain outside, and in the grey afternoon the room looked warm and welcoming with its polished pine tables and coloured lamps. We had lingered over some particularly good office gossip as opposed to fine food or wine.
Why is it so hard to get a decent meal in a pub like this where there is obviously no shortage of money? The kitchen has all the stainless steel cookers and gleaming surfaces that you would need and presumably the food they buy is as fresh as it gets, but what's on offer is another boring old carvery where the mashed potato comes in scoops and the cabbage is yuck.
Photocopied pages tell the day's specials and it's all there in front of you behind a short counter with the usual bains-maries of vegetables and roast potatoes simmering away.
Various joints of meat were sitting under lights along with a pile of what looked like escalopes. These were potato and vegetable cakes, and I went for one with some chopped cabbage and - oh, the taste of winter's creeping in - carrots and parsnips. The potato cakes were very good - crisp and herby on the outside and light and fluffy with a hint of curry inside.
Elaine chose chicken with a sweet chilli sauce and watched large chunks of chicken breast in a lurid red sauce being ladled onto some rice. But first we were having turnip and bacon soup. It came in good big white bowls with a choice of soft white or tomato and herb bread rolls.
You pay for the lot at the end of the counter and, since the plates are not covered, you either bolt the soup down quickly or let the main course go cold.
I asked the chef to keep our plates in the oven and he gave me a slightly exasperated look but he did it all the same. The soup was hot and wholesome with a good flavour of bacon against smooth pureed turnip.
Elaine hated her chicken dish. It was, she said, "tepid, rubbery and really horrible" and the rice had hardened around the edges. The chef swopped it without a murmur and she had potato and vegetable cake for herself.
Some of the staff are Australian and the service is deliberately relaxed, or so I had read in their publicity material.
Certainly our waitress wasn't intrusive and, if anything, the service was on the casual side which is fine if you know how things work but annoying if you don't.
We saw people having wine glasses of wine and ordered two white wines for ourselves. The glasses really are big and the wine was well chilled but, boy, did it need to be. For a bar that boasts about its wine list, this house wine was pretty terrible. If there was a choice of house wines we certainly weren't told about it.
We shared a chocolate jaffa mousse for dessert and it was very pretty - the pale chocolate mousse wobbling on a pool of clear orange sauce that really did taste of the orange bit in a jaffa cake. This elegant little dessert just didn't fit with the carvery food but maybe the restaurant still isn't 100 per cent sure where it's going.
At night the menu is far more elaborate with Japanese sauces, risotto and steak with Jameson whiskey featuring. We sat on over two not very good cappuccinos in expensive cups.
You appreciate the relaxed staff at this stage of lunch. We were allowed to sit on and watch them sort through a huge box of flowers that had come from the market.
Again there's a bit of style there - the waitress told us that they change the flowers every few days and only the best and freshest are used.
With a large bottle of Nash's mineral water, two cappuccinos and wine, the bill came to just under £30.
Nancy Hands, 30-32 Parkgate Street, Dublin 7 (01 6770177). Open seven days
