The Dubliner, Washington, D.C.

As you might well imagine, those of us with law school backgrounds and litigation experience are good at exploiting loopholes in rules. I've been worried about how I was going to get my traditional corned beef and cabbage in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day on Friday this year, given that Friday is a Friday in Lent, hence a "meatless" day (not to mention my Lenten vegetarianism); then I remembered that Sundays in Lent are feast days, not fast days. That means that if someone has "given up" a food item for Lent, he or she may eat that food on Sundays—in fact, some people insist that you must eat the food so that one is not fasting on a Sunday. Well, that solved one problem. But, was it too early to be celebrating that great American celebration of the Irish? Of course not! To bolster my case, I note the fact that the annual D.C. St. Patrick's Day parade was at noon Sunday, marching about a mile down Constitution Avenue. Therefore, your Honors, I submit to you that not only can I eat corned beef on a Sunday in Lent from the Church's perspective, it would be unconscionable for me to fail to celebrate the saint on a day when thousands of people marched in a parade in his honor!

Thus, Eugene and I went to dinner last night at The Dubliner.

The Dubliner is an Irish pub and restaurant in the Phoenix Park Hotel right by Union Station here in D.C. The noisy bar was packed with post-parade revelers listening to Irish folk singers and drinking Irish beers, but we were able to get a table on the patio of the restaurant after only a short wait.



As one might imagine, they have a beer list with quite a few Irish beers both in bottles and on tap. Eugene, being the beer expert among us (he went to college at Seton Hall, a Catholic school), chose a couple of pints of Smithwick's, a dark, smooth beer, for us during our meal. I thought it tasted like beer (can you tell I'm not a beer person?). Eugene liked it, but said he prefers the stronger flavor of a Guinness (which is a beer I don't like).

We wanted to sample a number of different dishes, so we opted to split things rather than order individually. This turned out to be a good decision, since The Dubliner has large serving sizes.



We started with the Irish oak smoked salmon. This was a large serving of actual Irish salmon smoked with Irish oak wood, then cut in very large, thin slices, which I found to be very pleasant and to have an excellent texture, flavor, and freshness. It was served with big pieces of Irish brown bread and traditional accompaniments such as capers, minced red onion, cream cheese, and then slight departures from tradition with slices of tomato and hard boiled egg instead of the chopped varieties of those.



Our main course was—what else?—Irish corned beef and cabbage. This large entree included boiled potatoes and carrots and sauteed cabbage, all cooked so they were just barely past the al dente stage rather than having been stewed soggy from hours of boiling, and quite a healthy serving of thin slices of corned beef. Now, usually when I prepare corned beef, I find it difficult to cut it into thin slices and I end up with larger, very tender chunks and pieces. Here, though, the beef is not boiled to the point of falling apart; they get very distinct slices that were still a bit chewy and required a knife to cut instead of being fork-tender. This drier version was good though unexpected. The corned beef was served with a parsley cream sauce and a little cup of grated horseradish.



While The Dubliner has a menu full of Irish entrees, dessert selections are much more Americanized: New York style cheesecake and Key Lime pie were the headliners. We asked our waiter for more Irish options, and he suggested the Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake or the bread pudding with Irish whiskey sauce; we went with the bread pudding. And, it was a good choice. The pudding was dense and flavorful and there was a good quantity of creme anglaise over the top. I didn't really taste any Irish whiskey in the sauce, but that was okay. Bushmill's was running a big Irish whiskey promotion at The Dubliner, so we almost got Irish coffees after dinner, but we decided not to since the rain had considerably cooled off the outdoor temperatures and we were getting a bit chilly.

This is a picture of our waiter Michael, who says he's a second generation American Irishman. All of the wait staff was attired in black trousers, white shirts, and green and yellow striped ties.

I liked The Dubliner a lot, especially being outside on the patio. Our table was right along the building under the awning, so we just moved both chairs up against the building and the two little brief rainshowers didn't bother us a bit. I don't know, however, if I would like it as much inside, since, in Irish tradition, it was rather dark and crowded inside, and the amplification system for the folk singers inside was turned up pretty loud.

If you're looking for Irish food for St. Patrick's Day, I'd encourage you to go to The Dubliner before or after Friday, since this place will be so crowded Friday night patrons will be packed in tighter than sardines in a can.