Tom Doorley
reviews Café Fresh, Dublin
There are certain constituencies, I find, that are more likely than others to fire off angry e-mails. Northsiders and vegetarians, for example, appear to be particularly chippy; or perhaps I should say that these groups just happen to include tiny but deeply sensitive minorities.
I made one fleeting reference recently to a part of the Northside being, well, rather like the Southside and I had a flood of messages saying things such as "ooh, you were brave to cross O'Connell Bridge!" Which is a bit much, considering that I spent my early youth in Drumcondra just around the corner from Bertie (there's another utterly useless press cutting for the Taoiseach's office).
Admittedly, I did move south fairly rapidly, and it eventually became such an ingrained habit that I now only have about 25 miles more to go before I end up in the sea at Ballycotton. This, I suppose, undermines my Northside credentials.
My vegetarian credentials are probably worse than useless. You see, I am not a complete carnivore; I am more than happy to avoid meat for days on end. But to the true vegetarian, being a part-time vegetarian is like being slightly pregnant.
Undaunted, I am going to observe that vegetarians, by and large, now look as if they are in rude health. Whereas when I was a student, the average vegetarian had a complexion that suggested they were being blanched in the dark and were not long for this world.
There are plenty of vegetarians who love good food and who probably have a copy of everything that the inspirational Denis Cotter of Café Paradiso has written. But there are plenty of vegetarians who will eat anything provided it is meat-free, usually with a grim and joyless determination.
I repaired for lunch to Café Fresh the other day for the simple reason that I'm a huge fan of their gamazio, the Japanese seasoning which is, essentially, very lightly ground toasted sesame seeds mixed with salt. Vegetarians look away now - it is by far the best seasoning you can put with roast chicken.
Anyway, this was not the most inspired decision of recent weeks. I had forgotten that many dedicated vegetarians play fast and loose with foodspeak and my "paella" was a very curious affair. Not least in that it contained no rice whatsoever but was bulked up instead with that grain called quinoa, which its fans tend to pronounce "keen-wah". "Quin-o-a", in my jaundiced view, looks unpleasant and it tastes bitter. I'm told that the flavour is improved by toasting the wretched stuff before you cook it, but life, frankly, is too short.
Anyway, the grains were augmented with broccoli, mushrooms and peas. The broccoli (actually calabrese) had developed that pungent, sulphurous smell that all brassicas develop when overcooked and the peas had taken on a dull, lifeless shade. I have to say that I found this dish curiously repellent.
The accompanying salads, however, were good if rather heavy-duty in a you-can-never-have-enough-fibre kind of way. There was finely shredded carrot in a lovely, sharp dressing and a combination of beansprouts and peanuts with coriander leaf and the odd lentil which was crunchy and pleasant.
I preceded this with a generous bowl of root vegetable and thyme soup which would have been more accurately described simply as "parsnip", without any reference to my favourite perennial herb. I have to say it reminded me of how good organic chicken stock makes an unbeatable base for soups.
Apricot and almond cake was moist, pleasantly chewy with dried fruit and iced with enough sugar to make the average wholefood fanatic hit a dizzyingly glycaemic peak. Coffee was okay.
With a small bottle of Evian, the bill for this lunch came to just over €20.
• Café Fresh, Top Floor, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, Dublin 2, 01-6719669, www.cafe-fresh.com
Drinks choice
There's Lorina, the traditional French lemonade which avoids artificial colouring and sweeteners but is packed with good old empty-calorie sugar; and Evian mineral water which, given the distance it has to travel, has a bigger carbon paw-print than Ballygowan, Tipperary or de Braam, surely? There are curious looking bottles containing liquids fortified with ginger and ginseng and the like. And more herbal teas and decaf teas and rooibos teas than you could shake a stick at (if you have a stick and feel so inclined).