A local restaurant in Blackrock, Dublin scores on value and volume, writes Tom Doorley
Neighbourhood restaurants are different. By and large they are the sort of places where you are happy to go, on a fairly regular basis, because they are - as Edmund Hilary said of Everest - there. Some food is worth travelling for, some justifies a brisk walk.
Down here in north-east Cork our neighbourhood restaurant is exceptional in that it's worth a major detour. We are fortunate that Buggy's Glencairn Inn, across the border in Co Waterford, is just a few miles away along winding boreens. We could walk, but it would require sensible shoes and rather more energy than we can normally summon; but it would be worth it for Ken Buggy's exquisite fresh fish, simply prepared, and his hand-cut chips served in neat little nests fashioned from the Financial Times. Buggy's is an off-beat little gem.
When we decamp to our Dublin bolthole we are lucky enough to be within delivery distance of the Bombay Pantry in Glenageary, where the takeaway food is some of the best Indian in the country. As a result, the temptation to eat out is minimal.
Dublin neighbours, however, speak highly of Papa's, an Italian joint alongside the Wishing Well pub, just off Newtownpark Avenue in Blackrock, so we decided to give it a try on a recent family excursion to the Big Smoke.
You always know when you're in a neighbourhood restaurant. Everybody seems to be a regular and, in the case of Papa's, it seems almost like a club. Possibly with an initiation ritual.
The really bizarre thing was the way that customers moved about under the baton of the owner. As inner tables cleared, he directed diners to them from those at the front; in order, it seemed, to present a busy, but not entirely full impression to the passing trade. The regulars are obviously more biddable than me.
What can I tell you about Papa's - other than that the name is terrible and that the owner has a deadpan sense of humour that can be rather alarming to the uninitiated? We got the impression that even the most enthusiastic regulars had to force a smile at being ordered to clear their plates on pain of doing the washing-up.
Well, portions are generous. Our teenager needed a starter and it was humungous, as bruschetta with fresh tomatoes goes. The bread was good, and it was covered in the chopped flesh of four or five flavoursome tomatoes. Yes, flavoursome. I know it sounds odd. Generally speaking you have to grow your own to get a tomato that tastes of anything at all. The rest of us picked at a decent selection of meat antipasti.
Our youngest always reacts to Italian restaurants, like an old warhorse sniffing cordite, by ordering spaghetti Bolognese, a dish that is often patently disgusting. Not so here, however. The sugo al carne was the real deal, the pasta was al dente and there was lots of it. Plus masses of grated Parmesan.
Our second daughter had a fillet steak, cooked rare, with chips. It seemed fine to me and she cleared the plate. As steak and chips go, it went. I was reminded of the old Pont cartoon showing a languid mother and father, long finished their meal, sitting with a very small gym-slipped daughter who is picking the last edible fragments from her plate. "Waiter," says the father. "Bring her another duck."
Our eldest demolished a chicken breast cooked in a jacket of breadcrumbs with lots of creamy mushrooms. Again it seemed fine to me, but she kept singing its praises, acutely aware, as always, of having an embarrassingly picky father who wants to find fault with everything. Who, me? Alright. Guilty as charged.
The grown-ups had veal pizzaiola (in breadcrumbs with a tomato sauce) and tortelloni with prosciutto. Both are trattoria classics. The tortelloni were stuffed with minced San Daniele ham and breadcrumbs, bathed in a creamy sauce with strips of the same meat. It was a rib-sticking dish and really rather good, if curiously sweet. The veal could have been virtually any meat, given the breadcrumbs and the sauce, but it was perfectly pleasant.
With two Cokes, a bottle of mineral water and a bottle of house red, the bill came to €119.75 including service. Not too bad for a large amount of proper food. And the children got lollipops.
I wouldn't walk the boreens for it, or even hoof it up from our bijou Monkstown residence, but Papa's is not a bad restaurant and I can readily understand why it's full of happy regulars. u
Papa's, 22 Newtown Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin (01-2780933)
WINE CHOICE The list is 100 per cent Italian, as it should be, and seems to offer pretty decent value. House wines, Trebbiano and Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, are €16.95. We ordered the Montepulciano but got the chunky and juicy Porta Palo Rosso di Sicilia for the same price. Fattoria Tolosa Chianti Colli di Senesi is €24.95, a Cannonau di Sardegna is €23.50 and Resta Salice Salentino is €24.95. Fashionable Gavi di Gavi from La Scolca is €30.95 and there's a blend of Chardonnay and Sicily's interesting Grillo grape for €27.95. The dearest wine is a co-op produced Amarone at €49.95.