Tom Doorley is impressed by Coast, a friendly restaurant in Waterford
The view from the diningroom of Coast was the Irish summer holiday in a nutshell. Sheets of rain swept across the seafront, the afternoon was prematurely dark and Tramore seemed bereft of human beings, only a Jack Russell promenading with grim determination. Actually, some would argue that Tramore doesn't look much more cheerful than this even in a blazing June, but I quite like it. It beats Bundoran and Bray and gives Youghal a run for its money. In one respect it's considerably superior, in that, in Coast, it has a proper restaurant.
I was under the mistaken impression that Coast was all drop-dead-gorgeous minimalist chic. In fact it's in a big Victorian seafront house of a sort I adore: high ceilings, tall windows and generous 19th-century proportions. The cheerfully mix-and-match furniture makes the diningroom just the sort of place I feel at home in.
Coast is a friendly place, drawing its customers mainly from Waterford city and points west (and now offering what is known in the business as a restaurant with rooms - or bed and breakfast, as it used to be known). There's nothing pretentious about Coast, and it has, by and large, very good grub. We went there on a family outing, which means that the two youngest members of the party fell with glad cries on the grilled chicken - and very flavoursome it was, too, served with decent chips. I had an e-mail from a rather fastidious reader that concluded with the immortal words: "Chips, Mr Doorley, for shame, chips!" In the real world a lot of people like a good chip, my younger daughters among them. What is wrong with proper chips? Served with a soft-fried free-range egg and some Heinz organic tomato ketchup, they make a perfectly good meal.
Anyway, enough of that. While the younger element enjoyed their chicken and chips, the rest of us explored more widely. There was a good salad of slightly under-ripe avocado and baby spinach in a lemony dressing, a very good smoked fish cake augmented with crab and minimal mashed potato, and a perfectly decent chicken salad with basil, chilli and glass noodles with a sharp dressing.
Fay Maschler, London's leading restaurant critic, recently begged for an end to Asian fusion food, and at least one recently opened establishment binned its star anise, fresh coriander and Thai fish sauce as a result. But she was talking about restaurants with pretensions to grandeur, not the likes of Coast. This chicken salad was fine.
Less fine was plaice with dauphinois potatoes, not because it's an unusual combination but because the accompanying dressing, if that's the word, included sugar. This made a very well conceived dish quite cloying, which was a shame. On the other hand, supreme of organic chicken with spinach, Parmesan and harissa oil was bang on the money. The chicken was packed with flavour and the oil was full of chilli fire, a combination that really worked.
Angus sirloin with French fries - yes, chips again - and bearnaise sauce was a bistro classic, the meat with excellent flavour, the fries thin and freshly made, the sauce rich and well infused with tarragon.
Desserts were exceptional, the star being vanilla creme brulee with buttery cumin-scented shortbread. Chocolate-chip cookies with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce, not to mention bananas with caramel rum syrup and shortbread, were not far behind. The younger diners had ice cream. With a bottle of Givry and a couple of excellent Illy espressos, the bill for five came to €134.50. Great value.
Coast Townhouse & Restaurant, Upper Branch Road, Tramore, Co Waterford, 051-393646, www.coast.ie
WINE CHOICE This is a short but delightful list, chosen with knowledge and nous. Our Givry 1ere Cru Clos Marolle from Pierre Ducret (€30) was proper, fleshy burgundy, soft and seductive.Peppery Château Vaugelas Corbieres (€20) is terrific value, as is the New World-style Foxwood Merlot (€20) from Languedoc (see Mary Dowey on p29). Balbás Tradición Ribera del Duero (€28) is ripe and silky with a touch of oak. Oddly, there's more white than red, including Sipp Mack Alsace Pinot Blanc (a keen €23), L'Hortus Blanc beating everything from the New World (€26), and Daniel Dampt's steely but ripe 2003 Chablis (€35). Tohu Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is probably not worth €40.
SCREEN TEST
Tom Doorley is back for the new series of The Restaurant, RTÉ's celebrity cookery show, on Tuesday, joining Paulo Tullio to rate the work of Simon Delaney, the Bachelors Walk star, in the first programme.
A new challenge for this series, which moves to Ernie's in Donnybrook, is a blind tasting that will test whether the critics can tell cheap wine from expensive.