Patriot games

By Paul Reidinger

JAMES NAPPER TANDY , an 18th-century Irish patriot, has achieved a rare sort of immortality: he is mentioned by name in the great Irish anthem "The Wearing of the Green." Perhaps in part for that reason, he has also achieved another sort of immortality, as a namesake for pubs. "Napper Tandy" in some form or other is an expression to be found emblazoned on Irish public-house signage from Heidelberg to Long Island to San Francisco, where our very own version, the Napper Tandy, opened earlier this spring in a space too briefly occupied by the splendid Lorca.

Fed chair Alan Greenspan may have succeeded in warding off the specter of deflation in the grand realm of macroeconomics, but his writ apparently does not run to the roiled world of San Francisco restaurants, where a certain glum downmarket drift is unmistakable. While there has been some upscalish action in the past few years (Limón and Chez Spencer spring to mind as bringers of style to once-forlorn or misused settings), the stronger pattern seems to be that a distinctive restaurant fails, to be replaced either by nothing at all or by a concern more humble and, presumably, more durable.

It is no criticism of the Napper Tandy to point out that its food is a world apart from Lorca's inventive pan-Iberian menu. On the other hand, the place looks the same inside: high ceilings, deep red and green walls with glints of gilding here and there. This is the hermit-crab effect, an as-is switch of occupants, and I suspect it accounts for the dissonance a Lorca lover might feel in visiting the Napper Tandy. The visual cues are virtually unchanged, one's expectations tilt accordingly, and then there is the shock of pub grub.

A fair fraction of the Napper Tandy's pub grub, to be sure, is worthy, and all of it comes in portions that range from large through vast to staggering. In this inflated scheme of things, a small plate would be, for example, a meat loaf sandwich ($6.95) the size of a pair of fists, served with tomatoes, onions, and a stack (also fist-sized) of crispy, golden (but underseasoned) home fries. Equally petite (I dabble in irony) is a Clare corned-beef sandwich ($6.95), served on toasted rye instead of a baguette but accompanied by the same stack of potatoes. Such starch! I thought. A wealth, a world of starch. Dr. Atkins must be rolling over in his grave! Some of us find it very hard to say no to french fries, but I did end up eating the meat loaf (tasty, dense, a bit crumbly – too much lean meat?) while leaving most of the bread behind.

No such anticarb, antibloat strategy is possible, or necessary, with what is probably the best dish on the menu, an Irish stew ($9.95) ladled into a broad white bowl that could easily be set on a pedestal and used in the garden as a bird bath. The stew itself is simple: chunks beyond number of slow-cooked, tender lamb bobbing in a gravylike sauce, with plenty of potato quarters and whole baby carrots for company. Thankfully, there is no sideshow of rice or fries, which helps damp the possibility of starch overkill and also lends a certain spare elegance to the presentation.

A similar nimbus of elegance hovers around another Irish, or Anglo-Irish, standard, shepherd's pie ($9.95), a crock of ground-beef stew, dotted with baby carrots and green peas and fitted with a cap of mashed potatoes. We found the stew to be pretty good; the underseasoned potatoes lackluster, a barrier to be breached. Odd, really, given the importance of the potato to Irish culture.

The less immense main courses are enhanced by some form of ancillary starch. In the case of the pastie ($9.95) – the wonderful pastry sandwich (stuffed with vegetables or chicken) beloved of Welsh coal miners – the extra oomph consists of french fries. These were quite as bad, limp and pallid, as the crisp lunchtime fries had been good. Was there an issue with the deep fryer, or was there some stress-related rush in the kitchen? The rice pilaf accompanying the chicken marsala ($10.95), on the other hand, was tasty and light, as was the chicken itself – boneless pieces bathed in a mushroom-wine sauce. (The orderer of this dish, it must be said, confused "marsala" with "masala" – the latter being the term used in India for "spice mixture" – and was briefly disappointed that he was not served some sort of curry chicken. He got over it, I am glad to say.)

On successive visits we were told that the day's soup special was cream of tomato ($2.50 a cup). I have fond memories of cream of tomato soup; on cold winter days my mother would sometimes warm some up for me – after opening a can of Campbell's fetched from the pantry. The Napper Tandy's version powerfully evoked those memories, if you see what I mean. On the other hand, a slice of amaretto mousse cake ($3.95), though ethereally light, not only sufficed to gratify the sweet teeth of four stuffed adults but had the muted sugariness and slight roughness of shape one associates with house-baked goods. It was a subtle jewel – an emerald, perhaps?