Another Pub, but with Solid Food

We were finally at the end of the Ireland trip, with just one more meal to go before it was back to the hotel to pack, sleep, and get ready to fly out the next day. While we’d eaten at a lot of great places, we had agreed to not revisit the same place twice if we could help it. There were plenty of restaurants we would have loved to go back to, but that will have to be for another time, should we ever happen to find ourselves in Dublin again.

Instead my wife and I elected to find another simple place that we could settle into and just enjoy without too much thought or worry. Dublin is absolutely dotted with pubs every which way, most of them serving their own variations on traditional Irish food (even if the locals may or may not agree that what everyone else thinks is “traditional Irish fare” is actually traditional fare), so all we had to do was find a pub with a couple of items that sounded good and get ourselves one last proper Irish dinner.

The pub of choice that last night was Tuck Reilly’s, yet another pub along a strip of road that we’d taken to calling “food row”. There were restaurants all along the street, on both sides, in a number that really outpaced just about any other road nearby our hotel. I have to think that was because there were a ton of houses and apartments nearby, and all the locals wanted quick food right nearby their abodes. Whatever the case, it made finding food on a night such as our last one in Dublin quite easy.

The atmosphere inside Tucker Reilly’s was just about what you’d expect from any pub in town. Polish wood floors and walls, low music playing in the background, and a few televisions on the walls showing a rugby match. It was the exact experience we’d hoped for, that iconic Irish pub feel, and the restaurant nailed that. Thankfully they also nailed the food, which was all around pretty darn good.

My wife and I ordered their Traditional Irish Beef Stew (see? traditional), which was slow-braised prime Irish beef, root vegetables, thyme gravy, creamy mash. Before the entree came out, though, we also got a side salad of mixed greens with carrots, radishes, and onions in a light, sweet vinaigrette. The salad was great, cool and refreshing, with the right bit of vinegar bite to it. After a few days of eating heavy food, and with one more portion of heavy food coming our way, this salad was like a breath of fresh air. It was great.

The stew was amazing. It was rich and hearty, with a very tasty, but not all that salty, brown gravy. I’ve commented before that the Irish don’t really seem to season their food all that much, with every meal being tasty, but not overly salty or heavily seasoned. The stew was similar. It had a low-cooked, smoky flavor to the meat, and the gravy was solid and tasty, but in comparison to an American gravy this was neither too salty nor too heavy. It was warm and nice and complimented the beef well.

The beef was really tender, as you’d expect from the slow cooking it received. Not too fatty, and plenty flavorful on its own, it was complimented well by the root vegetables, primarily carrots. They brought some sweetness to the meal, which is probably another reason why the gravy didn’t taste too salty. And then with the whipped, creamy mash on top, it really felt more like a pie than a stew, and that’s not a bad thing. It was a properly hearty meal that really gave us that nice taste of Ireland we’d wanted all along.

Overall this was a solid meal. We might have only had one major item from the Tucker Reilly’s menu, but it was a good one that won us over. As has been the comment I’ve made several times before about the food on this trip, this was a restaurant I would go back to again, if I lived near it (or if they were established near me). Really, what this whole trip made me long for was more good restaurants in my area that I could regularly visit. Dublin was packed to the gills with restaurants I would go to again and again, Tucker Reilly’s among them, and it was sad for us to have to leave and come back home.