We previously called for a reservation and the lady on the other end of the phone disconcertingly proposed a dinner time of 6:30 pm. I admit is was a school night but thought the place must be very popular, well it did come recommended by an Irish friend.
After having had a pint of the famous black stuff in a local drinking hole and having approached the restaurant from the other side of the lovely St.Stephen's green we entered an elegant and simply beautiful Georgian house complete with 20 foot ceilings and a fireplace the size that you could roast a whole cow in.
We did notice though that at 6:30 we were the only people there and the place easily holds a crowd so we figured that the lady we reached on the phone for the reservation might had intentions to clock off early that evening.
We were given a lovely table by the window overlooking the Green and then something quite bizarre happened.
The waiter came and brough us the menues (both food and wine). He was dressed in a charcoal waiter uniform with a green shirt. I proceeded in asking for a recommendation on the wine.
Said waiter replied that the wine was the speciality of the somelier and he would call him immediately. He then exited the room.
A couple of minutes later the same waiter came back but he had changed his shirt to a red one. He approached the table and asked if we needed help in chosing the wine.
There are seldom in life moments where reality or the course of action takes such an oblique angle. The look on the face of my dinner companion was a mixture between puzzled, baffled and on his forehead you could see a frown forming into lines that one sometimes observes in the cooled off lava on the slopes of vulcanoes such as Vesuvius. For me the moment had an almost David Lynch flavour to it, (Twin Peaks...), whilst the eyes where darting around the room to check if we were not on candid camera.
Still we managed to ask for a nice bottle of red, which wine exactly, I confess, escapes me.
The waiter then thanked us gratefully for the good choice and left the room.
At that moment my dinner companion and me just burst out laughing. We both confessed that we had the vision of the waiter running out of the room proceeding to change his shirt and then re-entering the room, remeniscent of the good old black and white slapstick movies of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin.
The secret was then to us revealed.
Shanahan's on the Green is the only restaurant that I have been to in my whole life, and there have been a few, trust me, that employs identical twin brothers as waiter and somelier.
The lovely chaps are from Italy and the town of Pescara.
But lets turn to the meal and the quality of the food.
Shanahan's steaks are Angus and " cooked in a special broiler at 1600-1800 degrees farenheit to sear the outside and keep the inside tender and juicy".
We had the Filet Mignon medium rare and boy does that special broiler work. The outside was just perfect without being burnt leaving the inside with great texture, tender, full of flavour. Simply the best steak for quite a few years. 9/10
As sides we had:
- whipped pottoes with bubtter and chives, great texture lovely flavour with the chives, a tiny but too buttery for me. 8/10
- copper pot of creamed spinach (Bacon enhanced) - great, not overcooked, with the Bacon completeng but not overpowring too much. 8/10
All washed down with the lovely red in elegant stemware.
We were so full thatwe could only manage an espresso (very good) and as a nice gestures the Italian twins offered a glass of prosecco on the house.
Overall a great great evening in elegant surrounding with superb service and an absolutely fantastic steak.
So overall highly recommended both for business but also for a occasion with that someone special.
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