Tom Doorley is impressed by a Dublin tapas bar
It doesn't often happen, but sometimes restaurant reviews occur spontaneously. I find myself eating somewhere for reasons other than filing a critical analysis for The Irish Times. Perhaps I just want to spend a brief period browsing and sluicing with an old friend, or, more frequently, I'm simply hungry.
It was the former reason that brought me to Havana, the tapas bar on South Great George's Street, in Dublin. Although my critical faculties were not firing on all cylinders, being more concerned with just chatting and getting fed, I finished our modest meal with an unusual sense of well-being and satisfaction.
This surprised me, as I had eaten a particularly gruesome meal in Havana Mk I, the original of the species, when it had first opened, several years ago, on Grantham Street. All I can say is that Havana has come on by leaps and bounds.
Don't run away with the idea that these are the best tapas north of San Sebastian. They are not, but the food is decent, the staff are friendly and they serve the kind of grub that people who don't demand meat and three veg will relish. What Havana provides, and what tapas are all about, is food for grazing rather than a full-blown meal.
When I arrived my steely gaze lit on ranks of sherry bottles. My optician recently told me that I am "very good for my age", and although I sometimes struggle to read numbers in the phone book I had no difficulty identifying the bottles as being La Lidia manzanilla, from Garvey, the bodega founded by a Wild Goose in the 18th century.
I adore manzanilla, the slightly salty and bone-dry fino sherry from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a satellite of Jerez. I love it so much that my first act, on my latest visit to Spain, was to order, in a carefully rehearsed phonetic phrase, "manthaneea, por fabore". I got a cup of chamomile tea.
Anyway, my first act on arriving at Havana was to do the same, but in English. The result was more positive but - oh, the tragedy of it - the manzanilla was not chilled, because, apparently, they cool it down only for the world-weary sophisticates who flock there in the evenings. I was like a hungry dog from which a juicy bone had been snatched just as he was becoming droolingly Pavlovian.
"Would there be any way," I inquired of our very helpful waitress, "that you could stick a bottle of the stuff in an ice bucket for a few minutes?" And, God bless her, she did. The upshot was that we got two champagne flutes of lightly chilled manzanilla halfway through the meal (and halfway through our half-carafe of Chilean red). But I'm not complaining. It was only gorgeous.
As for grub, we ordered a Havana Platter and a plate of Pinchos. The platter featured, among other things, some ace anchovies, really good Serrano ham, olives and what appeared to be young Manchego cheese. The pinchos - Basque tapas, essentially - are a bit of a blur at this stage (as I say, I hadn't intended reviewing), but I know they featured both fried chorizo deglazed with red wine and some Russian salad. The Spanish can't get enough of the stuff - spuds, peas and carrots bathed in mayonnaise - so this was an unlikely but authentic touch. And there were a few meatballs in tomato sauce. I seem to remember some crossover with the platter, but, again, I'm not complaining.
Shocking as it may seem, we felt we could still manage a little something. So we ordered a portion of beef stew to share. It was delicious: tender meat in a curiously creamy and slightly spicy sauce with bits of potato and carrot. It mattered not a jot that, like the meatballs, it had been reheated.
Our waitress, as if confessing a terrible crime, reluctantly admitted that Havana doesn't do flan Catalan - or caramel custard, as we call it in these parts - but we shared a very agreeable portion of tiramisu, a dessert the Spanish seem to like every bit as much as the Italians do.
With two bracing double espressos, two sherries and half a carafe of red wine, the bill came to €62.
Havana, South Great George's Street, Dublin 2, 01-4005990, www.havana.ie
WINE CHOICE Generous flutes of dry, tangy La Lidia manzanilla, at €4.25, are a joy. Otherwise, the tiny wine list is rather more than adequate. Our half-carafe of San Andres Cabernet Sauvignon (€11.25) was chunky and pleasant. You can have a bottle for a very reasonable €16.95, a glass for €4.50 or a tumbler for €5. Oaky Pere Ventura Tempranillo, from Penedès, is a good buy at €17.50, Argentinian Trapiche Cabernet is sound stuff at €19.50 and you can have Pesquera Crianza, from Ribera del Duero, for €32 (this being the winery that Robert Parker says makes "the Pétrus of Spain"). Fresh, zingy Con Class Verdelho-Sauvignon is a snip at €19.75, and Campo Viejo Reserva Rioja (€23.50) is perhaps the best buy in the reds.