SoHo

Warning – reading The Guardian can damage your sense of well being. Last Friday’s lead article had America’s foremost intelligence agency predicting that the continuance of western democracy cannot be guaranteed. Gloom-ridden, I envisaged a back-to-the future Europe ruled by a triumvirate of Maggie Thatcher, Stalin and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. Page 2 informed me I had irreparably impaired my kids’ mental development by trundling them around in a front-facing pushchair. As if all this wasn’t stressful enough, I chose to have lunch at SoHo.

The South Great George’s Street premises were formerly occupied by The Cornerhouse Grill which always seemed to have pretensions – or, more correctly, aspirations to be seen as a sort of ‘Shanahan’s Lite’. Alas the service was dire, the cuisine tiresomely average and the prices gastronomic verging on astronomic. The Dublin dining public failed to see the point. I’ve been told that SoHo is a re-badging but this I have been unable to verify.

The name SoHo conjured up memories of my Sixties’ stomping ground, London WC1 and I would far have preferred that colourful mix of Italian deli and porno peep show to the bland brown canteen that is SoHo D2. An attempt had been made to cheer the place up by sticking liquorice allsort floor tiles on one wall. Another wall was adorned by a giant photograph of a Middle America family at prayer: Dad, an older version of one of those guys who come to your door flogging packaged religion; mom, a Sarah Palin lookalike; icky daughter, the girl next door you hated when you were a kid; there was a son too, my view of him obscured. I bet he’s a right smug little bastard. They were seated around a table groaning with festive treats, centrepiece of which was a fat ham (or was it a legless turkey) festooned in bizarre fasion with pineapple rings. Finally, it dawned on me. SoHo is taking a stab at being ‘an American diner’, right? Else, with its starters, tapas, burgers, salads and multinational mains that included fish and chips, jambalaya and Italian sausage, a sort of ‘all things to all people’ eatery.

I called for a glass of wine to sip while I was studying the menu. My German Pinot Gris cost €8 and came in a small glass filled almost to the brim. Why?There are endless cheap, serviceable correctly-shaped wine glasses around. The wine within had all the charm of battery acid. My crab cake starter took the best part of 25 minutes to arrive, three small balls, speckled with some seed or other. The interior was an unappetising beige and, flavour wise, the dish didn’t exactly shout “ I’m a crustacean, get me out of here.” The cakes were accompanied by some slightly-too-vinegary dressed salad leaves and a sharp salsa made with ice cold tomatoes.

I took another glass of wine, this time a Barbera d’Alba, €9, served in identical fashion to the Pinot. The Barbera was cold, steely, unyielding as Mr. Scrooge’s heart. I know I am always choking off restaurants for taking the easy way out and procuring all their wines from the major players but at least the major players do have wines of merchantable quality. Everything on this wine list was European and most, obscure to the point of perversity. Where’s the commercial sense in stocking a Gascon Ugni Blanc Colombard? The two wines I tasted were woejous, maybe I was just unlucky. I’d love to have taken it up with them but there was no one around who looked remotely like a sommelier. Prices were not cheap either – a Loire Sauvignon Blanc for 42 has got to be a piss-take surely?

I don’t really know why I chose that clapped-out old banger, pork belly, of which there are more plates around town than there are pictures of Roseanne Davidson. Probably because I figured they couldn’t bugger it up. Wrong. The trick when you are cooking this part of the pig is to get shot of the fat, of which there is a humongous amount. Here it formed a solid strata, gluing together two layers of meat that tasted mildly of five spice or star anis and not much else. It came with ‘sauerkraut’ which, intuition told me, might not be sauerkraut at all, which is fermented, but common white cabbage, laced with a sweet/sour glaze. I swapped the included roasties for chips, sorry ‘fries’, that were strangely gritty on the outside and suet-textured within.

Against my better judgement I took dessert, crème brulée, which again took a long time to arrive. The glaze was as thick as Mr.Magoo’s lenses and the crème trapped beneath, no better than harmless. A watery tepid espresso sent me away rock-bottom despondent. Not even the Guardian’s double-page spread detailing the collapse of oil prices – this is Man City’s transfer kitty, remember – could depress me further.

All the while the staff maintained this curious routine of walking in single file, slow and trance-like, in an anti-clockwise direction around the central stairwell. It put me in mind of some sort of obscure religious observance and I felt guilty for disturbing their devotions by asking one of their number for the bill.

I really hate dissing new restaurants. But SoHo isn’t just a couple of houses short of a village, more a cardboard shanty town movie set. On the day I visited there was no evidence of ‘hands-on’ management, little of competent cheffing; I found the décor depressing, the fare on offer boring. Worst of all, SoHo just didn’t crackle like a new restaurant should. Where were the essential ‘three p’s’ – pride, professionalism, pizazz? Without these ingredients, there’s no point in even turning round the sign on the door.

The damage: €52.25 for 3 courses, 2 glasses wine and coffee.

Verdict: If you’ve got this far you’ve got the picture, what else can I say apart from: toilets are unisex, plentiful and clean; almost everything else needs revision.

Rating *1/2 (one and a half)

SoHo, 17 South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2
Tel 01-7079596