Great food, amazing prices – it’s no wonder Green Nineteen is always packed
I THINK I can say I like everything about Green Nineteen apart from their pot roast chicken with root vegetables. I like the fact that the restaurant is not actually green (which makes spotting it from a car quite difficult: oh look, its white!). I like the young, friendly staff, the ice cream machine churning away in the window, the prices, the bright space, the buzz, even the coffee.
Let’s get the pot roast out of the way. The chicken breast (why not the far cheaper, juicier and tastier thigh?) was pleasant enough but it came with a cooking liquid that managed to be both flavourless and bitter, and the chunks of celeriac tasted of mould rather than celeriac. It weighed in on the just-about-edible side of horrible and if this were one’s only experience of the Green Nineteen kitchen you could be forgiven for wondering why the hell this place is always full.
But look around. See those vast triple-decker sandwiches with mountains of hand-cut chips and marvel at the €8.50 price. Observe the happy faces, the people who clearly like to linger, from young mothers with buggies to arty-looking old men in black polonecks, and young turks in sharp suits who think it’s smart to leave the top shirt button undone.
They all come here because the food is cheap and very straightforward and the staff are nice. And despite the similarity in prices, it neither looks nor feels like a self-service cafe in a department store.
I lunched there with two of my daughters. The eldest lives on vegetables and pasta, not because they bring great joy but because, being a student, this is the cheapest way of surviving. And so, in common with our early ancestors, meat is an occasional treat for her. Not on those rare occasions when a woolly mammoth is brought down in the London Borough of Lewisham, but when she can afford to go to the butchery department in Sainsbury’s. Or when she is eating with her parents.
Her corned beef was impeccable: plentiful, thickly sliced, moist and succulent, served on a bed of good, buttery mash and some decent cabbage that had not been boiled to perdition. This was a very sustaining tenner’s worth.
The youngest’s fish and chips were good too although, as she said, there was a lot of salt. The haddock was encased in crisp if salty batter, the chips were real and crisp and well browned and the garlic mayonnaise was properly garlicky.
And then there was my pot roast chicken of which I have said enough already. A kitchen that can do good corned beef and decent fish and chips should be able to manage a chicken stew. Here’s an idea: chicken legs, thighs (or leg and thigh in one piece), a bit of chorizo, chickpeas and a dash of paprika. Leave to simmer and serve with a wedge of lemon.
Cheese is available only in the evenings (how very un-French we are) but because there were no desserts available they managed to get some for us to share. There was pecorino, Gubbeen and Saint-Agur (I reckon) with slices of poached pear, and caramelised walnuts and cubes of mebrillo, the Spanish quince paste. So simple, so utterly delicious with a glass of Minervois.
And then a couple of big but properly strong cappuccinos and a perfect macchiato, all served with a sliver of dark Valrhona chocolate.
It's easy to think, especially if you have been away, that all restaurants should do this. But at the risk of sounding like Uncle Monty in Withnail and I, we live in a land of all-day breakfast rolls and flow-wrapped muffins, industrial coffee and margarine-spreading sandwich bars, mini-bottles of Chilean plonk and processed cheese slices.
Green Nineteen does sherry too. Not a completely infallible index of a decent restaurant, but always a very good sign. Our bill for three came to €65 including two glasses of wine and lots of mineral water.
tdoorley@irishtimes.com
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The wine range is changing, but for the moment, our Moulins des Nonnas Minervois (€6 a glass, €28 a bottle) is organic and meaty. Torres Celeste Ribera del Duero (€35) is soft, rich and oaky. Millsreef Riesling (€32) is a good, dry Kiwi wine with a bit of citrus character.