RESTAURANT REVIEW – Kinara Kitchen

Here I am again, back on the Cote de Ranelagh for the third time in six weeks. I make no apologies, it’s where much of the new restaurant activity has occurred during the last twelvemonth. This time Bangles and I were at the Kinara Kitchen, sister ship to the admirable Kinara in Clontarf where I’ve had a good number of enjoyable meals over the years.

We had secured a table with some difficulty.  The voice at the other end of the phone spoke with all the world-weariness of a man who’d just finished a stint of double shifts as a chicken farm neck-wringer. “Yes, I can give you a table for seven o’clock (huge sigh of reluctance). I want it back by 8.45.” As a frequent diner out I’m used to receiving this response but not with such positivity. Usually the serving of a notice to quit is a signal that one should open negotiations and so obtain a reprieve till at least 9pm. But not this time, his tone told me.

Still, it suited both of us to eat early and we were outside Kinara Kitchen at 7pm prompt. The owners (who also have Kajjal in Malahide) have given the décor a contemporary twist and there’s no sign of the red-coated refugee from the Raj who used to loiter outside the door at Clontarf. The dining room is split level. The back half, already full, was, far as I could tell, a conventional dining room. The front section had that layout I hate; a full length bar and a line of tables alongside the wall opposite. It gives a critic but a slight chance of judging the ambience without wrenching neck muscles and reinforces claustrophobia. Yes, I know it’s the restaurant architect’s favoured solution for dealing with a narrow space and, yes, I know it’s aimed at bestowing that ‘New York diner’ look. But it doesn’t work for me.

Kinara is a Pakistani restaurant. I’m not sure of the differences between Pakistani and Indian cuisine, other than you rarely, if ever, find beef in an Indian restaurant. Madhur Jaffrey told me that the cuisine in the states either side of the border share culinary techniques, spicing and materials. A Manchester-based Indian chef I knew was of the opinion that vegetarian food is more highly developed in India than in Pakistan. I haven’t seen the menu at Kinara Clontarf recently but, perusing the one in Ranelagh, gained the impression that it had been tweaked slightly. It had a more ‘toney’ feel somehow, as though adjustments were made for the D2-4-6 clientele. Later, on the net, I checked and discovered my feeling was incorrect. The two menus were near identical.

Kinara Kitchen has, for an Indo-Pak, an unusually high regard for things piscatorial; over half the array of starters were fish or shellfish. Taken with this, Bangles and I waded in. Her ‘Kakrabh’ – pan-fried crab claws delicately flavoured with garlic, yoghurt, spices and a tandoori masala sauce were sympathetically spiced, cooked to absolute perfection and there were plenty of them so I did not pass up the opportunity to cadge a couple. Greedy guts me could also not resist the lobster tail – at €15 the most expensive starter by a distance. Alas, this disappointed. The lobbie was tough as a diver’s wetsuit and as  rubbery. An arthritic diner could have put the flesh to good use as a finger exerciser. The spicing was  of the infernal kind, which I  don’t mind but the flavouring seemed, as Bangles remarked, “inappropriate”, the searing spices and sour tamarind and paneer sauce masking any flavour the crustacean might have.

When it came to a choice of mains, Bangles claimed the Mughul Khopra, tasty chunks of decently-textured chicken breasts cooked in garlic, ginger and mustard seeds with a tomato and coconut sauce and coriander. I fancied a lamb dish with plenty of accompanying sauce for this reason, picked the Gosht Rogan, Kinara’s version of a traditional ‘curry shop’ staple. Described as ‘lamb with tomatoes, onions and garlic with a touch of yoghurt and garnished with fried onion and coriander’, the meat was plentiful and the saucing rich but not cloying. Both dishes were well put together from good ingredients. The accompanying nan and pulao rice were very good indeed. We took a dhal tarka as a side dish and this was a massive disappointment, being watery and flavourless.

At this stage we were feeling positive about Kinara Kitchen. The cooking was uneven, for sure but the best was very good indeed. Then an incident took place that served to sour the evening. A waiter or maybe the maitre d’ (at least not the pleasant girl who’d looked after us up to that point) came to table and said “Do you want dessert? If so you have fifteen minutes to eat it.” There are ways and ways of saying “Sorry, don’t want to rush you but we’ll need the table back soon” and on a scale of 1-10 this was about minus 12. Clearly, this was the curmudgeon I’d spoken to when I made the reservation.

We took dessert out of sheer cussedness. Earlier, I had waxed nostalgic about Manchester’s ‘Curry Mile’, remembering with affection the Indian sweet shops where you could buy a pick’n’mix box of assorted halwa, umpteen flavours, plus jellabi, rasgulla, gulab jamun and other treats. Great for late night snacking with a glass of dessert wine. And, lo and behold, there was gulab jamun(my preferred spelling of a number of options) on the carte. Gulab jamun is a dough consisting mainly of milk solids, rolled into balls then deep fried and soaked  in a light sugar syrup flavored with cardamom seeds, rosewater, and sometimes, saffron. The best are almost ethereal but  Kinara Kitchen’s had the solidity of Auntie Mabel’s plum duff. (if anyone’s interested there’s a great demonstration of gulab jamun making here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ1qos__ZrA  ).

The meal, including a bottle of quite decent Vermentino, cost €112.05 ex-service. We paid the bill, pushed our way through the smokers outside and headed back up the strip, hoping the bar staff in Birchalls would extend a warmer welcome. I glanced at my watch. It was 8.45 precisely.

Food ***

Wine **

Service *

Ambience ***

Overall **

Kinara Kitchen, 17  Ranelagh, Dublin 6 Tel: 01 4060066