the foobar zone

Fallon & Byrne is the latest in up-market eating experiences. Situated in the old telephone exchange in Exchequer Street, Dublin, there are three floors of gastronomic delights. There is an extensive wine cellar in the basement, and a restaurant on the first floor. The ground floor hosts a high quality delicatessen, with rows upon rows of temptation. Every time I go in there, my eyes engage in an orgy of indulgence, and to date I haven't managed to escape without at least a small quantity of delectable fare.

All things considered, it's not that expensive either. Now, I'm not going to pretend that it's the cheapest joint in town or anything, but given the quality of their products and their city centre location, it's a pleasant surprise to see that they aren't into price gouging. Good on them. We need more of this in Dublin.

Last night wifey and I tried out their restaurant on the first floor. It's a large, noisy affair, with lots of suitey types and Beautiful People, all glammed up to the nines. Crisp table linen too, which is nice, as was the spotless glassware on the table. I'm tired of eating in places where people frankly don't know how to wash glass properly.

Our waiter ushered us to a table well situated for wifey's and my favourite sport: people watching. A pre-prandial drink, perhaps? Budvar and water, please. Yes, they have a small selection of beer, which includes several of the regulars, and one or two quality lagers.

Between us, we ordered a pear, walnut and roquefort salad for starters, their chocolate marquise for dessert, and two main courses: a rabbit dish and a ratatouille with artichoke and aubergine. I had a glass of red - a 2003 teroldego, which is slightly unusual italian grape variety. We weren't trying to skimp on expense - it's just that when eating out, we normally have either a starter or a dessert each. Otherwise you end up leaving the restaurant feeling bloated.

The salad was good. It's a tried and trusted combination and works quite well, even if no-one is going to say that it's highly innovative. The chocolate dessert was very good - it was a slice of thick, rich chocolate mousse, served with pistachio sauce and finished with a crisped orange slice in cream. Altogether quite excellent, and all of the flavours really worked well together.

Which leaves the main courses. The rabbit dish was elegantly prepared, but disappointing. The tiny quantity of rabbit was wrapped up in a spring-roll style affair, which did nothing but obscure any taste which it might have had to start with. The elegant swirls of various types of sauce didn't help. The artichoke dish was worse; the ratatouille was uninteresting, and the overcooked artichoke was filled with a bland and textureless aubergine mousse. It was complemented with a forlorn pair of potato croquettes and some french beans. Nothing was seasoned properly, and what few flavours were left didn't really do anything for each other. We mentioned this to the waiter, who was extremely polite about it and said that he would mention it to the kitchen staff.

Nothing irks me more than when someone is served a bad meal and when asked by the waiting staff whether they liked it, they lie and say "yes, yummy, lovely and wonderful", and then whinge and bitch about the meal as soon as his or her back is turned. If a restaurant serves a poor quality meal, it's doing them a disservice not to tell them about. It's difficult to get a good indication of customer satisfaction if the customers just tell you porkie pies all the time.

The service was first class throughout. The waiting staff were pleasant, courteous and professional, and the management took the ratatouille off the bill without being asked or it being suggested. We would have paid, but it was a nice gesture which was well appreciated. The bill came to €59.25 and in appreciation of the high quality of service, we left a €10 tip.

After the dinner, we nosed around downstairs for a few minutes and picked up some greek pine forest honey, tamari soy sauce and a tin of leaf tea (all tasted today and found to be very fine). Did I mention that it's not possible to leave this shop without buying at least something?