Seasalt
Telephone: 028 437 25027.
Address: 51 Central Promenade, Newcastle, County Down, Northern Ireland.
Rating: 14.5/20
Before us the windswept reaches of Dundrum Bay; behind us the cloud-capped humps of the Mountains of Mourne. The promenade of Newcastle, County Down, was slick with rain. The bright lights and fuggy warmth of Seasalt cafe, sandwiched between Thorntons The Chemist's and the Strand Bakery, seemed ineffably inviting.
Seasalt is a place of no pretensions. It was full of families with babies, and families without babies and cheerful people who talked to each other. There were those who came in for a bowl of chicken laksa noodle soup, and others who came in for chicken and fresh tomato, or smoky bacon and Cashel Blue panini, and others still who wanted scrambled egg on baguette, which costs less than £5, and those who wanted no more than chowder with salmon, smoked haddock and prawns, which hits a princely £5.95.
And there was Fitztucker and I, who came in for roast aubergine, tomato and goat's cheese soup with bread for £2.50, and a warm salad of smoked haddock, bacon, croutons and poached egg for £6.50, and fried Ardglas turbot with new potato mash, roasted shallots and red wine reduction for £9.50 - only Fitztucker had to make do with trout, because I got the last of the turbot.
Food may be cheap, but it is only good value if it is good, too. The food at Seasalt was good, some of it very good. It is a long time since I have had such a fine piece of turbot, as taut as a drumskin, the flesh close-knit, with a sweet, clean flavour. The cumulus of mash on which it rested was properly mashed, not refined and puréed, and was full of butter. The reduction carried the fruity flavours of shallot. The salad was similarly well made, assembled from high-grade ingredients and topped with a perfectly poached egg. The soup, too, was a nice balance of ingredients. I might have wished that it had been served in a cruder goo than the smooth purée form it took, but I don't suppose too many people would have eaten it in that form.
The bill for the two of us was £35.90, because we had some vanilla cheesecake and tiramisu as well, but then, because Seasalt is a bring-your-own-bottle place, Fitztucker had had the foresight to bring along a fine bottle of something white and Spanish, the name of which escapes me. What has not slipped through the grating of an increasingly infirm memory, however, is the sense of comfortable pleasure that Seasalt gave me that day.
The Morning Star
Telephone 028 9023 5986.
Address Pottinger's Entry, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Rating: 14/20
In fact, it seems that Northern Ireland specialises in cheery, uncomplicated, tummy-warming places. The Morning Star pub in the deliciously named Pottinger's Entry turned out to be another refuge from a strife-torn world. It was a place of high ceilings, of booths and snugs and regulars and geniality. Cigarette smoke and chat hung in the air.
"Guinness," I commanded the capable fellow behind the bar.
"Chilled or normal?" he asked.
"Oh, normal," I said. I am very much a normal man, because chilling Guinness, while speeding up the drawing process, seems to accentuate the acid, metallic, astringent qualities of the stout at the expense of those rounded, fuller bodied, chocolatey flavours that I prefer. Anyway, it was good to be asked which I preferred, and even better to drink.
Above the bar was a galleried dining room, where, if we had wanted, we could have had seared crocodile and kangaroo with pepper salsa, or grilled haddock with dark rum and banana, or spiced Thai vegetables en croute in puff pastry.
But we did not want. You take your life in your hands if you opt for dishes of that sort in places such as the Morning Star. No, go plain: Strangford mussels with white wine and garlic; roast Antrim pork with Bramley apple sauce and stuffing; smoked salmon, steak and chips - these are the kind of dishes the wise will stick to in the Morning Stars of this world.
I stuck to smoked salmon with tomato and caper vinaigrette and wheaten bread, and a 12oz sirloin steak with chips and more salad. Fitztucker stuck with the mussels and the pork. And we were rewarded for our simplicity. The mussels were fat and sweet, and the juice in which they gaped was full and creamy. The pork was juicy, tender and rich in fat, across which the apple cut. Alas, there was no crackling. The salmon was lightly smoked and generously cut, the dressing beautifully judged tobalance the natural opulence of the fish. The steak was a fine piece of meat, finely butchered, finely hung and finely cooked. As were the chips, though they were not in the Blumenthal class - none are, to be frank, and I'm not sure they'd have fitted the place, anyway. Still, for a total of £55, including a bottle of decent Australian red, why should I complain?
There are far too few places such as the Morning Star left in our cities. In our passion for gloss and glitter, the confident virtues of well-practised tradition tend to get lost. And any place that serves Guinness at two temperatures deserves to be treasured.
