Restaurant review: You can't lose at this Co Down gastropub where quantity and quality go hand in hand
The quality of a restaurant in Ulster used to be measured by the weight on the plate. In some more remote parts and in some towns where they should know better, this is still the case. Foreign visitors, particularly Italians, would report back in surveys how much they enjoyed their visit to Ireland but — mama mia! — those lunches and dinners, were these meant for wrestlers, heavyweight boxers and weight lifters? The sheer volumes of spuds, meat, vegetables and gravy — piled in a rough pyramid — provoked anxiety and depression in many of them because the thought of having to eat their way through all this was just too much.
And yet, this pile-it-high approach was always intended as an expression of generosity and hospitality — a desire not to let your guests go hungry. I'm convinced it is a throwback to the Great Famine and the profound traumas caused by seeing so many die of starvation, which developed a fear in us of not having enough food and became a generational memory passed on to the present day. Irish mammies would put a priority on volume.
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