Thanks to RyanAir’s ridiculous fare system, I was able to procure a return flight from Birmingham to Dublin for roughly 90 CDN dollars. After quaffing pints of Guinness in the city for a few nights, I boarded a train for a taste of the real Ireland. First stop: Kilkenny; home of Smithwicks and hurling.

Kilkenny is stocked full of tourist B&Bs, pubs and nightclubs. Students from both Dublin and Waterford descend in the hundreds on the High Street on the weekends (and get absolutely ruined). As such, almost every pub or restaurant has accommodation attached above it. This includes curry houses like the Mezah Tandoori Restaurant.

Eat at any curry restaurant in the western world and the music in the restaurant will inevitably be one of two things: a) Traditional Indian Tabla Drum and Sitar or b) Indian Tabla Drum and Sitar-infused Techno.  This is apparently not the case in Ireland. No. On entering the restaurant, I was greeted by sounds of the harp, with the tune being familiar to myself and fans of “Waking Ned Devine”.  The Parting Glass is an Irish requiem in which the singer metaphorically mourns that he has to rise and leave the party early (presumably for the afterlife) and demands one final pint with the friends he leaves behind.  I could only hope that my curry would not be my parting meal. Incidentally, in a more bizarre twist of musical fate, the next song on the muzak system was Smooth Operator by Sade, also on harp.

Just weird.

Like the music, the staff at Mezah Tandoori are strikingly different from most curry houses. The restaurant is run by Malays. Both Malaysia and Singapore, are overrun with influence from India. There are giant East Indian communities in both Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The odd thing about this scenario was that the staff at this restaurant appeared to be more of the Chinese brand of Malay. I hoped that the masala influence would be strong enough for my liking.

I was presented with a welcoming pappadum and then ordered a mango lassi. This may be the best mango lassi I’ve ever had, if not the coldest. When I say it was cold, this is not to say that it was offensive to my sensitive gums and rot with ice particles, but rather, it was served in a chilled mug. Kinda like at A&W (See future review of Mango Chubey Chutney on a Stick). The Malays were winning me over.

I decided I would try the Chicken Dhansak despite a mediocre performance at Puspa previously. Luckily, the dish tasted exactly as it did at Chutney and my Dhansak faith was restored. Oh yeah!!! (Insert Massive Kool Aid Man Smashing through your wall here). The dish was spicy and packed with cilantro. I also got a coriander naan that didn’t really do much for me or the dish. It all sort of equated to emptying the gunpowder from a bullet into a canon. The dish certainly didn’t need any more coriander and I probably should have spent the extra Euro on pints of Smithwicks.

I really wanted to give this place a 10. However, somewhere in the bylaws of Dodgycurry.com, there’s a rule that says, if the curry duo are split up, no perfect score can be given. Sort of like that episode of the Simpsons when Abe Simpson is part of  the Flying Hellfish and can’t unlock the stolen Nazi artwork until all of the rest of the members die off. Or maybe not. Mezah gets a nine.

Not at the Restaurant:

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