Review: Molly Malone's

Shepherd's pie is a nicely engineered dish, built so the mashed potatoes never collapse into the meat. (Credit: Michael Hayman)

One minute it's the Newfoundland band Great Big Sea singing about green boats. The next it's Christy Moore singing a poignant song of revolution and liberation.

Sit in Molly Malone's Pub & Restaurant for any length of time and the soundtrack will reel you into a web of Celtic sounds — not just around St. Patrick's Day, but throughout the year.

Truth to tell, Molly Malone's is a fine Irish-American pub, a place for pints and politics, for whiskey and wooing.

The sprawling space is a cabinet-maker's delight. Everywhere you look, you're surrounded by walls and pillars of darkly glowing wood. Seating is a mix of booths and tables, with at least a few church pews strewn around the walls (fine to look upon, but perhaps not the most comfortable choice for a long afternoon of stout and chat).

The bar has a comfortable patina of age that can't be forged. And if you crave the lilt of an Irish brogue, well, you'll often hear it spoken here.

As a restaurant, Molly Malone's long has been a mixed bag — though the kitchen has certainly improved over the last couple of years.

Its strength is hearty blue-plate food — bangers and mash ($9.95), lamb stew ($10.95), mussels ($6.95) and the like.

A plate of corned beef and cabbage ($8.95) brings big, finely grained slices of tender corned beef, plenty of steaming cabbage and a heap of mashed potatoes. Add a couple of pints of Guinness or Smithwick's ($3.50) and you're well-set.

Shepherd's pie comes in a piping hot crock, topped with an enormous white mound of mashed potatoes. Tunnel through the taters, and eventually you find your way to a stout stew (literally — Guinness is the liquid base) of ground beef and vegetables.

It's a nicely engineered dish, built so the mashed potatoes never collapse into the meat — but it would look so much nicer if those potatoes were baked to a crisp finish.

More ambitious dishes sometimes fall flat. One night, a cod Florentine special ($9.95) was a grandiose disappointment — not so much a coherent dish as a conglomeration of elements that didn't work together.

The fish had a musty taste and texture that weren't concealed by simmering in cream. That cream combined with a bed of white rice in a runny, unpleasant soup. Colorful golden stalks of fried asparagus, bright red cherry tomatoes and dark green leaves of simmered spinach didn't help; rather they made the fish itself seem an even whiter shade of pale.

Still, potato-leek soup ($2.95/$3.95) had a fine, buttery texture that Goldilocks would have loved — neither too thick nor too thin, but just right.

A "Dubliner" burger ($8.95) was hefty, cooked to order, served on a sufficiently sturdy bun and dressed with attractive fresh ingredients. Accompanying fries and an order of beer-battered onion rings ($2.95/$3.95) were lackluster, but the staff certainly knows how to stuff a mushroom. Baked mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat and topped with a garlic sauce are hearty and rich ($8.50).

On a chilly evening, the non-smoking section, with its vast stone hearth (gas-burning) is a fine refuge — and a good place to sip Irish whiskey or sample the house-made desserts like apple pie ($4.95), nicely filled with firm, spicy fruit, or bread pudding ($4.95), thick and moist, with a bare hint of alcoholic perfume.

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