RESTAURANTS:The Chester Beattie Library cafe has the best of flavours from the Middle East and northern Africa, writes Tom Doorley
WHEN I THINK of north African cooking, two things spring to
mind. The first is the clever tendency to put fruit and meat
together in tagines, and the second, odd as it may seem, is dukkah,
the spice mix into which you dip your bread, having first moistened
it with a little olive oil.
The taste of it always puts me in mind of The Alexandria
Quartet, that rather impenetrable work of Lawrence Durrell's. If
you, too, have found it heavy going, you could always try
The Levant Trilogyby our own Olivia Manning. It's shorter
and lighter, but still redolent of the real Egypt.
Durrell's Antrobus stories, about life in the diplomatic
service, are very funny by the way, but I digress.
Considering that this is the African issue of
The Irish Timesmagazine and that the weather was glorious
and I had missed breakfast, I found myself hankering after the
tastes of north Africa the other day.
And so I wandered off to the Silk Road Café in the
Chester Beattie Library. There was a welcoming smell of turmeric in
the air and my already healthy appetite was sharpened. It was only
while I was queuing up and eyeing the grub that I realised that
this establishment is more about Middle-Eastern than north African
cooking, though many of the spices are similar. I know it's a
terrible thing to say, and probably quite hard to argue when you
get down to the nitty-gritty, but there seems to me
to be some areas in common with north Africa, certainly in
regard to favoured spices. At least this was the argument going on
in my head, because I had decided that what I was seeing and
smelling was far too good to abandon. And so, I found myself
kicking off with a couple of falafel, the spiced, deep-fried balls
made from mashed, dried broad beans, with some exceptional hummus
which tasted, very correctly, of tahini, the glorious sesame seed
paste of which Irish cooks are generally a little shy. And there
were seasoned, toasted seeds on the side. Gorgeous. I chose a
marinated chicken breast in a vivid yellow yoghurt-based sauce.
This is where that pungent whiff of turmeric was coming from.
Spicy, sharp and salty, it was a damn good dish. As were the
salads.
There was more hummus (which I asked for), an attractively
textured combination of raw carrot and sultanas, and a rather
multicultural combination of chickpeas and mung beans dressed with
a nicely deep and earthy soya sauce.
It's not often you can say that a restaurant or a café
smells good, but here the aromas are actually seductive. Not just
the spices, but also the coffee. There are few places where I order
a regular coffee because regular coffee regularly turns out to be a
variation on the theme of dishwater. Not so here. My nose didn't
deceive me. The coffee was first rate and so were the little pieces
of baklava that cried out from the counter until I gave in. Some
involved almond, some pistachio, some sesame, some fig.
They were mighty sweet, but properly homemade. I can see why
the Silk Road Café is always packed at lunchtime. Even Senior
Counsels from the Tribunal are known to eat here, which is odd when
you consider that they are paid enough to have their sangers flown
in from Poilâne. But the more successful class of barrister
has always had a nose for good food, and a bargain, I suppose. It's
good to know that some - even a small fraction - of what we tax
payers are shelling out finds its way here.
One final point. In a city where the average menu is so dull
and predictable that it's hard to maintain the will to live beyond
the starters, it was good to stand in line at the Silk Road
Café and have to struggle with the choices before me.
Including a mini-bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which went well
with the chicken, and a 500ml bottle of water, the bill came to
just over ¤25 for far too much food for one person. I'm a
divil if I miss breakfast.
Drinks choice I think I can detect the hand of a teetotaller
here. Stick with the little bottles of Carmen Sauvignon Blanc and
Merlot. They may not be wildly exciting, but they beat Sutter Home.
Otherwise, there are lots of juices, smoothies, even beer, and a
bewildering range of teas