Restaurant economics
Now just one of those institutions is open for business and it’s morphed into a gastro pub.
The second, neighbouring pub has become a corner shop — available to let — and the Magdalen laundry closed in the 1970s. Unlike the inmates of the prison, the women held in this institution had committed no crime, rather they had offended the strictures of the day. They were described in the 1911 census as “ex pupils residing, plain workers, laundresses, binders or needle workers”. But they were prisoners, too, and, unlike the criminals just over the wall, they had to work for more or less nothing. The grimness of their lot, and the social fetishes that judged them, puts scratching a few paragraphs about a meal shared with a loved one into a context that provokes wonder at fate’s cruel randomness.
Considering the idea of a gastro pub as a fetish works as a link and is a reasonably accurate description of how high stools and beer mats have been usurped by menus and napkins. Changed — if not modified — drinking habits suggest this idea will be with us for a considerable time.
Annie’s crossed this Rubicon many years ago and has sustained a reputation for decent food through several reinventions. Today, they describe the style of their food as “bistro” and, strangely, their location as being in the heart of Cork City.
They do not offer individual menus but refer customers to a blackboard where the options are described. Neither is there a wine list, just a ceiling-high blackboard describing the origin and category of the wine and its price but not its producer.
We arrived with good appetites and after a few minutes craning our necks like Oisín Kelly’s Two Working Men marvelling at the scale of the nearby County Hall — modest as it seems — we picked from the wall-hung blackboard.
DW chose a grilled mackerel and salad starter and though she enjoyed it, I thought the fish a tad too close to overcooked. I had black and white pudding with kassler and a poached egg. The presence of a few leaves made this a handy way to have a minor full Irish without the lard police — DW — intervening. Though the poaching of the egg dishonoured the hen, the starters died a quick death — we were so hungry we’d have licked the blackboard clean.
For mains, DW chose loin of pork with spinach and a dish of vegetables. The meat was, like the mackerel, cooked to the edge overdone and depended on patatas bravas and tomato sauce to bring some little moistness to the dish.
I was delighted to see lamb tagine with couscous on the blackboard. This is one of the world’s great dishes, blending fruits, nuts, spices, and lamb or mutton to create a dish of great richness and character. Annie’s described theirs (on the web site and blackboard) as Moroccan tagine of slow braised lamb shank, prunes, apricots, toasted almonds, and sesame seeds. Unfortunately, like the geographer who described 89 Sunday’s Well Rd as being in the heart of Cork City, this description was well off the mark. There was hardly a sliver of either apricots or prunes, though there was a scattering of almonds. What should have been a complex set of tastes and textures was neither. I’m not certain either that the meat and sauce spent long enough in each other’s company to form a successful relationship. Sadly again, the couscous was ball-bearing hard and the portion miserable.
The desserts were not a success either. A chocolate fondant and a Bailey’s cheesecake were far closer to death than a life assurance salesman might like to see a client.
The wine however was wonderful. A bottle of Amarone della Valpolicella della Tenuta Sant’Antonio 2007 at €45 had all the richness and complexity the tagine did not. That it cost just €2 less than the two starters and two main courses underlined again the insanity of restaurant economics in Ireland.
