Recently Heather and I took a short weekend off together to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.
As most of you know, I love Irish Stew. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a place that serves it that isn’t called ‘Dan’s House.’
For those of you who don’t know, Irish Stew is lamb, potatoes, carrots, and leeks. Its unique flavor comes largely from the lamb and thyme, but from the leeks to some extent.
O’Dowd’s Little Dublin at Zona Rosa serves an Irish stew minus the leeks and with no detectable thyme, but they have added beef. At first I thought this was a good idea, but the problem is that the beef flavor runs wild over the lamb and crowds out the unique flavor. Overall the stew was a really great beef stew, but just a mediocre Irish Stew. While my palate was disappointed, my ego was gratified that my stew is better. I’m not saying my stew is more authentic, because I wouldn’t know, but I do think it’s better.
Heather, however, had some pork chops with mushrooms and a side of asparagus, and it was pretty amazing.
She also absolutely loved her bread pudding, both fresh and warm as well as cold from the motel fridge.
Our waitress, Jennifer, was very nice and we didn’t have to wait for anything.
Overall, O’Dowd’s was nice enough, but the high-backed seats were a little shallow and the place felt plain old American, and not the least bit Irish.
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