It was the great Cork chef, Seamus O'Connell, who first opened my eyes to the virtues of grey sea mullet. Giving a demonstration last year at the Cork Show, O'Connell praised the mullet as being "as fine as sea bass" - quite a compliment given the exalted nature, not to mention the exalted price, of sea bass.
And O'Connell is right. With his recommendation lodged in my mind, I said "yes" when the waiter in Clonmel's Mr Bumbles restaurant said: "The fish of the day is grey sea mullet with a tomato and dill sauce." When it came, perfectly cooked in a light dusting of flour, with the sauce of softened tomatoes and the fresh herb resting underneath, it caused me to think that there are other things, apart from lamb shanks and tripe and pigs' cheeks, which we simply do not value highly enough, but which are superstars in their own right.
And grey mullet is a superstar. The flesh is convincingly firm and moist, the whiteness of the centre of the fillet giving way to a slight tinge of grey-white at the skin. Mind you, these two fillets of fish had been blessed with the good luck to have been cooked perfectly, a factor which was characteristic of my entire lunch at Mr Bumbles.
Mr Bumbles is a bustling, bistro-style place, just across from the new centre of shops on the edge of Clonmel's extremely confusing town centre. Painted bright green outside, it is quite a landmark. Inside, it is arranged on various levels, with the walls painted in pastel shades and an array of indoor plants arranged here, there and almost everywhere.
I first became aware of the restaurant last year, when a talented local cook, Mark John Anderson, had charge of the stove. Anderson has now gone to London, and in his place Stefan Wroblewski and Kieran Trainor run the kitchen of the restaurant, which is owned by Declan Gavigan. They run it mighty well, producing simple food cooked with exactitude, and it's a formula clearly much appreciated by the locals of the town, who thronged the restaurant the day I was there.
Little about its appearance inspires you to believe that Mr Bumbles will be anything better than so many standard eateries in our provincial towns. A blackboard outside announces that it is open for everything from breakfast through to lunch, afternoon tea and then dinner, seven days a week. The building also operates as a B & B.
The menu is straightforward, with burgers and club sandwiches on offer alongside sirloins and specials such as chicken and bacon. You might, in fact, imagine you are in one of those hotels which announces "Good food served all day", an expression which conceals the reality of freezer-to-microwave food.
But Mr Bumbles is very different to that. The cooking here has a trueness and an inventiveness which makes for real food, the kind of cooking which is all the more inspiring for being found in a simple, unpretentious, middlemarket restaurant.
My starter of mushroom fritters, for example, was slices of field mushrooms coated in an ethereal batter, with a smashing garlic mayonnaise and a scattering of sliced chicory. It was delightful, the dish so well achieved that you could have forgiven them if they had announced it in the pretentious modern style of "tempura of mushroom".
The grey sea mullet came on its own on the plate, along with a side-dish of vegetables: cooked red cabbage, carrots, broccoli and an especially good mash. In true Tipperary style, there were enough vegetables to feed a local football team, but volume here had not been used to conceal lack of skill or quality. The red cabbage was cooked perfectly, ditto the carrots (nicely toothsome) while the broccoli only fell down as it had been slightly overcooked for my taste (broccoli can be toothsome and a little more).
It is worth dwelling on the fineness of the vegetables, for this is an area where restaurants in the middle market traditionally fall down, cooking the misbegotten tubers and veg early in the day before zapping them into a microwave at the last minute. These, however, were real, with real flavours, the result of considerate cooking.
But, of course, they paled beside the grey mullet, cooked perfectly, with a lovely, light, sharp-sweet sauce to match. This is a noble fish, and I can only attribute our disdain of it to the fact that the fish has a reputation for browsing in unattractively muddy water. But this fish was fresh and lively in flavour, and I shall certainly be buying it to cook in future.
Dessert was a smart confection of rice pudding brulee, a little column of rice pud bruleed with a blow-torch. Again, the cooking left nothing to be desired.
There are many fine restaurants in Ireland with dynamic and dedicated cooking, and many fine chefs working at the cutting edge. But what we do not have are enough simple, unpretentious restaurants in the middle market, places where we can go for lunch or dinner and know that the food will be genuinely and honestly cooked, will demonstrate care and skill, and will be enjoyable and affordable.
Mr Bumbles is just such a place, and should serve as a prototype for anyone whose ambition is to produce good simple food for local people.
Mr Bumbles, Richmond House, Kickham Street, Clonmel, Co Tipperary 052-29188. Open seven days, breakfast to dinner. Major cards. Lunch prices £5£10, dinner from £15, four-course set dinner, a la carte main courses £8-£16.