Mangetu

‘Fusion’ is one of those words capable of multiple meanings in a culinary situation. Fusion is what happens when you inadvertently lower a hot pan on to a plastic chopping board. It’s also a word used to describe the confluence of two or more national cuisines on one plate – chicken vindaloo with spaghetti, to give an extreme example. Sometimes the results of this mix’n'match approach can be more like ‘confusion’. Fusion can also used to describe a restaurant that juxtaposes the culinary styles of different nations. An early example of this was the peculiarly Dublin phenomenon of ‘Irish-Italian’ or ‘Italian-Irish’ restaurant, so common in the 1980s. I suppose the theory was, if one or more of your party wouldn’t touch stringy stuff with red sauce they could get a cremated steak or a plate of stew. Latterly, the term ‘fusion restaurant’ is met most often in an Asian context.

When I am bored out of my tree – being a Renaissance man with myriad interests it doesn’t happen that often – I boot up the ‘pooter’ and look up a site called menupages.ie where there are listings of restaurants, complete with menus, wine lists, etc., supported by a wealth of reviews supplied by diners and, by and large, a bunch devoid of critical faculties. Platitudes abound and it’s hard to find a review that doesn’t contain the word ‘lovely’. The biggest sin a restaurant can commit is to serve ‘moderate portions’.

Georgina Campbell’s Guide, menupages.ie is not. More ‘Bridgestone Lite’ compiled by the breast of chicken-eating classes. Still, the site does perform a useful service as a listing; the more so as the webmeister and his team, commendably, keep it up to date. Koh, for example, only open a couple of weeks as I write, is already up.

Delving into the site I came across a restaurant I hadn’t heard of. Called ‘Mangetu’, it was listed as ‘Asian Fusion’. I googled to see if it had a site of its own and came up with a restaurant in Bromley, Kent, UK which I subsequently found to be in the same ownership. You are told that the name is, in effect, a double pun. ‘Mangetu’ is the Japanese for ‘full moon’ and the French for ‘eat everything’. On a point of information, it doesn’t; as spelt, ‘mangetu’ means ‘eat yourself’. I know one or two food writers who, if they were chocolate, would do just that!

I rang and booked a table for two. Mangetu is located in what, if memory serves me right, used to be a print shop in Haddington Road, adjacent to J.J Smyth’s where they serve one of Dublin’s better pints. The interior, a bright room, had been delightfully made over in minimalist Japanese style. The place was over half full, not bad for a new restaurant in mid-week.

I had been looking forward to the Asian fusion aspect. I have had but slight contact with Vietnamese cooking. And while I don’t touch sushi or sashimi unless they present me with the fish’s DNA, I love what the Japanese do with noodles and spicily-sauced meats. Cantonese? Yes please. But scrutinising the menu, it was hard to come to a conclusion other than Mangetu was primarily a Thai with a slight nod in the direction of the rest of the continent. A chat with the manager confirmed this. I was given the impression that there might be a small tug-of-war going on between management and the (mainly Thai) chefs who were resisting any incursion into their territory.

We ordered a soup, my inevitable tom yum goong, good but a tad underpowered, plus two starters. Sibella’s chicken satay, of which I scammed a skewer, was as good as we’d ever had, the chicken full of bounce and flavour and the sauce perfectly composed. Beautiful presentation too, with a pandanus leaf wrapper. I had the Thai fish cakes, flattish discs with the texture of latex. They were probably authentic as hell; just vile to eat.

With the manager’s endorsement I took the beef Penang curry which was right on the money, the beef itself being tasty, tender steak. Sibella made a bit of a bodge of things by being swung away from her first choice in favour of whopping, juicy tiger prawns. Despite assurances that the accompanying sauce was not overly hot, it proved to be a bit of a fire bucket. Rice, both fried and boiled, was perfectly cooked. My pak choi (Oriental cabbages) were slightly overdone.

For dessert we took an assortment of fruit, again prettily presented on skewers. My espresso, not helped by the eccentric cup it came in, was run out a bit long, a bit thin – what coffee heads call ‘under-extracted’. The wine list was constructed from three suppliers’ ranges, with a few bottles that Thai food would do nothing for. We took an inoffensive Verdeho from Rueda, Blanco Nieva, a wine currently working its way round town, average price €27. Here, it was €29.50. The waiters were a bit quick to top up our glasses but apart from that I have nothing but praise for the staff, particularly Noemie and the manager, Colette, who certainly made us feel welcome. She didn’t charge for the offending crab cakes, nice touch. All in all, a restaurant that should please all except hyper-finicky Thai heads who might want a tad more light-and-shade in the cooking.

The damage: €100 ex-service for soup, starter, 2 mains, veg, 2 desserts, bottle of wine, espresso

Ambience: ****1/2

Service ****

Quality ****

Value ****

Overall ****

Mangetu, Unit 1 Victoria House, Haddington Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Tel: 01 667 8753