Subtle, yet robust

LIFE’S celebrations can take on a rhythm of their own.

They are marked out at their own special place in the pattern of the turning years.

For the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to consider a night at Moycullen’s White Gables as a brightness in my year, an indulgence during a few days fishing on the magnificent but threatened Corrib.

I can hardly call it an unavoidable tradition just yet, but give me time.

This year the experience was as good and reassuring as ever. Even on a night early in the week the restaurant was almost full, testimony to the food and a Neighbourhood Nights scheme which ran through May, offering three courses and a glass of wine for a hard-to-argue-with €30.

A pair of wind-burnt, stiffish anglers with a good appetite might often be easily pleased but my friend — TB — and I, have battled with more than enough bar-counter steaks — not always winning either — to appreciate good ingredients treated professionally, with the kind of care that celebrates dishes endorsed by tradition and time.

TB started with pâté and a salad. His portion would have done a lot of people as a main course. The salad was glasshouse-dripping fresh and the pâté was robust, rich and packed real taste.

I had a regular on the White Gables’ menu, French onion soup. This subtle dish has often seemed an easy option for chefs in a hurry and they can miss out on the layered, deep sweetness that defines this deceptively complex soup.

Simple does not always mean easy and chef Kevin Dunne and his team did it more than justice. A very good start.

Though there are plenty of options on the à la carte menu — tiger prawns in chilli and herb sauce, monkfish, bass, scallops Mornay and a seafood platter — we were conventional in our choices. Substance was far more important than infusions, froths or anything that needed the kiss of life bestowed by a jus. It was a night for food, not frippery.

TB had roast duckling in orange sauce, a dish too often defined by the kind of dreariness and toughness that points to a long wait in a warm kitchen, but this was excellent. Moist, tasty, a more than ample portion all enhanced by a good sauce that blended sharpness and sweetness like only a good citrus-based sauce can.

I, almost shamefully in a restaurant so close the our Atlantic seaboard, had fillet steak with bearnaise sauce. Like an army, anglers march on their stomachs, at least we tell ourselves we do.

Fillet steak can often seem like a wallflower at a dance, nothing wrong with it at all, but nothing to inspire, either. Like the onion soup it can go very wrong in a slapdash kitchen and its great qualities are lost, luxuriant tenderness sacrificed to haste and unsympathetic cooking. But the standards of the house brought out the very best in this delicate cut of meat and it was enhanced by a good sauce. All excellent.

Vegetables are always fresh, well-cooked, varied and abundant and this night was no exception with a simple fried aubergine being especially nice. Almost enough to convince a fella to swap the fishing rods for the garden hoe but not quite.

Neither TB nor I pick our shirts from the slim-fit section but these two courses were so satisfying and filling that desserts would have been a bridge too far, but experience tells me that they are good.

Our wine, Luigi Bosca Reserva Malbec 2007, was Argentinian and had the kind of backbone that has allowed so many of its compatriot props thrive in professional rugby. It was not outdone by the rich duck and steak and would appeal to premiership carnivores.

Kevin and Ann Dunne have run White Gables for over 20 years and have survived by setting and observing high standards. Many of their competitors could learn a lot by watching the calm, alert and attentive front-of-house staff go about their business in lovely rooms a world away from the busy main street just outside.

White Gables is a jewel and deserves all the success that comes it way. If only the fishing could be as consistent.