Old Storehouse Restaurant, Temple Bar, Dublin

The Irish folk music piped out of the Old Storehouse Restaurant into the cobble stoned streets of the Temple Bar Dublin caught my attention first.  The posted menu was certainly inviting with steaks, and salmon and stews.  There was a chill wind in the evening after a hot sunny day. There wasn’t the loud raucous drinking atmosphere that had pervaded other pub restaurants we’d passed. This place seemed to say we serve traditional  food and music and drinking’s okay, versus we have drinking here and drinking and drinking and some food and music too.
So we ventured inside to the sweet aroma of home cooking and the happy sounds of a couple of fine musicians with guitar and banjo and tenor voices, singing the old songs and the new. I felt I was hearing Stan Rogers and Gordon Lightfoot. However they’d lost their Canadian accents in exchange for pure Irish lilt.  The prettiest waitress sat us down and showed us menus.  There was a beautiful couple with two of the best behaved darling little girls sitting one table over. Another young couple beside us were obviously in love. The boy in a checkered shirt had that awkward look while the girl dressed for the night out was just a little smug.  All the while the band played.  Laura had been hankering for a burger and fries.  The Irish Stew with promise of lamb and traditional spices jumped right off the menu at me. My eyes could taste it and I could hardly wait to order.  A Chinese couple beside me had ordered the Irish Stew earlier. Their dish arrived with aromatic splendour and I watched with keen interest as the handsome dude spooned down some stew and almost swooned.  The band sang another Irish song about some tragic innocent thrown in jail for no reason. I imagined he might have stolen his neighbour’s Irish Stew.
Shortly though it seemed an eternity my Irish stew arrived and I too swooned with the first spoonful of broth and the succulent mint flavoured lamb.  The band sang Molly Malone. For the first time ever I didn’t steal french fries from Laura.  I was completely preoccupied with my Irish Stew.  I didn’t even mind that I drank coca cola and the Chinese bloke drank Guinness. I’d drunk my lifetime quota of Guinness.  And I’d need a few lifetimes to savour such Irish stew as they made at the Old Storehouse Restaurant.