So Here We Are…

in Nashville, smack in the middle of Tennessee. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think about food in these parts I think of country ham and red eye gravy, fluffy hot biscuits, and chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and white cream gravy. So for our first meal, we go to a restaurant where a chef from Ghana by the name of Majic is cooking Irish pub food. Welcome to McNamara’s Irish Pub.*

“Ah, some favorite Irish bar moments: A toasty feeling on a blustery day; noticing upside down Paddy’s Whiskey ready for a quick pour; watching a pint of Guinness take a little rest as it cascades on the way to a creamy head. McNamara’s does a nice job of creating these moments…. The place is the creation of Sean McNamara, a well known name in Celtic music circles. He’s been singing Irish music for years in bars all over Nashville….

“The building works remarkably well in the Irish pub mode. It’s been home to a couple of restaurants and even a funeral home at one time. Now the wood floors (and) warren of rooms do it justice as an Irish joint…” (nashvillerestaurants.blogspot.com).

“… The first thing you notice when you walk through the door is the very earthy feel of the place itself. McNamara’s Nashville is furnished in hardwood floors, well-worn wooden furniture, and antique lighting. The whole place is warm and inviting. Makes you wanna take your shoes off, kick up your feet, and order a brew. Just don’t actually kick off your shoes, it wouldn’t go over well” (hvmg.com).

“McNamara’s Irish Pub and Restaurant…is really, really Irish. So much so that Ireland of the Welcomes, a Dublin-based publication with a worldwide distribution, named McNamara’s to the No. 1 spot on its list of ‘Top 10 Irish Pubs Worldwide’ earlier this year.

“’We had a ‘call to action’…which asked readers to write in nominating their favorite Irish pub in their own locality, or one anywhere in the world that stood out for them,’ says Shauna O’Halloran, the magazine’s editor. ‘McNamara’s received a number of entries and was one of the first entries to arrive, too!’ (Ed. Note: I read somewhere else on-line that this “contest” did not include pubs in Ireland. Just a minor little point.)

But wait, there’s more on the awards front: The pub also made the Huffington Post best-pubs list on St. Patrick’s Day…. On the food front, (McNamara) credits Chef Francis ‘Majic’ Gyelbi with another bit of cred, that of a spot on Urban Spoon’s Top 100 family friendly restaurants. What’s more, the pub’s also been featured on ‘Eden’s Eats’” (Joe Morris at nashvilleledger.com).

The menu includes all of the items you would expect at an Irish pub—Corned Beef Bites, Scotch Eggs, Irish Potato Soup, Ploughman’s Lunch, Irish Bacon & Egg Butty (sandwich), Shepherd’s Pie, Corned Beef & Cabbage, Fish & Chips, Irish Stew, and Bangers & Mash. And what better way to start your meal than with a Guinness black and tan?

(Black and Tan is a beer cocktail made from a blend of a pale beer [usually pale ale or lager] with a dark beer [usually stout or porter]… The "layering" of Guinness on top of the pale ale or lager is possible because of the lower relative density of the Guinness [wikipedia.org]).

After much deliberation (and much sipping), we arrived at a plan. We would order one fish and chips with slaw and one bangers and mashed and split each. And with the bangers, we had the choice of one additional side and ordered the Guinness-battered onion rings.

While the menu didn’t specify the variety of fish that would be on the plate, I strongly suspect from the large flaky pieces that it was the traditional cod. The three large pieces were coated in a beer battle that was so crisp that it was almost brittle. And it remained so for the duration of our meal. The fries were the larger steak variety which are not my favorite but which were good nonetheless. And the slaw was outrageously good. (We’ve been on a real roll when it comes to cole slaw.) It was roughly shredded and hinted of a flavor addition that I couldn’t identify. Our server told us that she would try to find out, but since she never reported back, perhaps Majic wouldn’t share his secrets.

Bangers and mashed are one of Chuck’s favorite pub foods. “You can probably start a fist fight in Ireland over sausages. Some folks have a fit if you call them Bangers, which is an English description used because of the meaty tendency to explode if the links have too much water in them. Other folks in Ireland don’t seem to mind at all about the name, as long as the consistency is correct. Bangers have more breadcrumb filler than the traditional American sausage. This gives them a fine, smooth texture. McNamara’s features a decent version, with a light char and moist consistency…” (nashvillerestaurants.blogspot.com).

I liked the bangers more than the other two items on his plate. I found the skin-on mashed potatoes to be a bit dry—but then I am not a great judge of mashed potatoes.

It was the onion rings that I found most disappointing although, in the interest of full disclosure, Chuck liked them more than I did. I found that the Guinness provided an almost too sweet flavor and that the batter was applied much thicker than I like.

As Kevin (Top O' the Mornin' To Ya) O'Connell at nashvillenewzine.com said: “Let’s be honest. If you’re not already Irish, at some point in time you’ve wished you were or pretended to be. Being Irish is like being rich. Not all of us will get to be, but we don’t mind trying to live like they do from time to time…”

We spent an hour and half being Irish and got to share a good 4.0 Addie lunch.

To review the role of Adler, Kitty Humbug, and the Addie rating system, read the November 14, 2011 blog.

*If you didn’t recognize this as a direct rip-off of Guy Fieri, you’re not watching enough Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.