James's Gate

Another good Irish restaurant opens in Boston, though with not-always-Irish food

Dining Out by Robert Nadeau

5-11 McBride Street, Jamaica Plain (617) 983-2000 Open Tues-Sun, 5-11 p.m.; bar menu on Mondays MC, Visa Full bar Handicap access via several stairs

I think we have a mini-trend here. Maybe two cases of spontaneous recovery wouldn't constitute a trend at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but here the cases are Irish bars in Boston, and the recovery is from the terrible British-imperialist legacy of overcooked, starchy food. So at least I'm hoping it's a trend.

The first Boston Irish bar with really, really good food was Matt Murphy's Pub, which opened a couple of years ago in Brookline Village. The second is James's Gate, in Jamaica Plain.

The unlikely setting is an ancient barroom just off South Street, closer to the Forest Hills T station than to the yuppier parts of "Jay Pee." The name is shared with the original Guinness brewery (founded 1759) at St. James's Gate, Dublin, still one of the largest breweries in the world. The place is arranged like an Irish pub, with separate entrances and rooms for the bar trade and for sit-down diners. Wooden doors close off the entrance to the restaurant room during the day and on Monday nights, but a bar menu is served in the pleasant pub room as well.

The restaurant part is devoid of Celtic cottage kitsch, but still communicates a feeling for the old country with wooden tables and bathroom doors labeled JACKS and BAN-JACKS. The walls are painted in ragged variants of gray and yellow, and the rotating art gallery features Jamaica Plain artists (the present exhibit features modern prints). It's a contemporary bistro under contemporary Irish auspices. The crowd mixes emigrants with neighborhood people of diverse ages and cultures, so James's Gate has the function, if not the precise human contents, of a neighborhood pub.

The best of the food, surprisingly, is the most fanciful. The standards -- clam chowder, shepherd's pie, fish and chips -- are good. But this kitchen also uses Italian and Mexican flavors, and it really shines on difficult platters like "grilled ginger-orange glazed salmon with steamed green-onion rice and grilled asparagus" ($11.95).

Among the appetizers, I was impressed with the equally complex vegetable quesadilla ($3.95), which is flavored mainly by caramelized shallots, and enriched with spinach and goat cheese. It's a sandwich made with thin wheat tortillas, here baked to a crisp and decorated with a crosshatching of some highly caramelized paste, which tasted a little like prunes. It has a lot of taste action per bite.

Clam chowder ($2.25 and $2.95) is reportedly homemade, and my cup certainly supported that notion. It had the clear sweetness of fresh clam broth, moderate milkiness, and lively undertones of onion and thyme. Also on the pub menu, as well as the restaurant menu, are Prince Edward Island mussels steamed in Thai sauce with shiitake mushrooms ($6.95). Unlike most mussels around Boston, these are entirely worthy: the shellfish are small but sand-free and sweet; the winy broth, with lemongrass and hot-pepper accents, is good enough to spoon up. And the mushrooms, which keep their texture and flavor in the cooking, are the perfect excuse to do it.

The "Gate plate" ($9.95) is a grander assortment of smoked salmon and trout, three kinds of cheese (our night: dill havarti, something Swiss, and smoked gouda), slices of a sweet wheat bread, a slice of dense pâté, and a ramekin of sauce (horseradish mustard next to a dollop of sour cream). This is the pub lunch writ very elegant indeed. Bread comes to the table hot and is heavily herbed: irresistible when the herb is rosemary, resistible when it's dill. Warm, sweet butter is the accompaniment.

Among the entrées, it was the grilled-salmon platter that impressed me most. Salmon now is almost all farmed, and it is different -- richer and blander -- than the wild salmon of the past. It is a fish made for the grill, but also rewarding in a strong sauce. The ginger glaze applied at James's Gate suggests Japanese teriyaki flavors, despite the lack of soy sauce, and it makes for an exquisite fillet. The rice underneath has the texture of a pilaf, and the difficult-to-grill asparagus -- pencil-thin at this time of year -- has its flavor intensified by the dry heat.

Right up there was the glazed pork-chop platter ($12.95) with lumpy mashed potatoes and an apple stuffing. The chop was the shape of a porterhouse steak, perhaps an inch thick and beautifully grilled. The dressing applied sage and onion flavors to what might have been fried chunks of apple. A lot of mashed potatoes have gone into this mouth since the dawn of the comfort-food revival 10 years or so ago, and the version on this plate was among the best, navigating surely between the Scylla of gluey texture and the Charybdis of too much butter. This was pure potato pleasure; it even elevated the chop's otherwise undistinguished currant sauce wherever it spilled onto the spuds.

The same potatoes steal the show atop the "Straight from God's Country shepherd's pie" ($7.95). This, like the similar version at Matt Murphy's, suffers only from overcorrection of the historic flaws -- the ground lamb is perhaps too lean, the carrots perhaps too undercooked. The dish is wholesome (and huge -- a bargain for the hungry marathoner) but might actually taste better with a little of the grease and cooking time restored.

Fish and chips ($9.95) is good, but not up to Matt Murphy's divine standard. The fish part is a couple of pieces of impeccable fried scrod, not overbattered, but just perfect. The skin-on chips are underdone, as fish-house fries sometimes are, which makes them limp and off-putting. On the plus side, the coleslaw is appealingly rough-cut and lightly dressed.

Both the Irish dishes and the fancy food call out for good ale, and taps include Bass, Samuel Adams (including the subtle new White Ale), and Bellhaven Scottish Ale. This and a selection of single-malt Scotch whiskies as after-dinner drinks suggests an admirable willingness to make peace with Protestant potables. It doesn't hurt that Scottish ales are dark amber and have something of the character of a light, dry stout like Murphy's. There is also a credible wine list.

Desserts need some work, judging by a dry chocolate cake ($3.50). The carrot cake ($3.50), though, is a keeper, with plenty of spice and an extra layer of cream-cheese frosting.

Service was entirely pleasant on three visits. The restaurant side is as loud as the bar side, and jazzy background music is not helpful, but a larger issue for some diners will be smoke. Patrons of James's Gate like to smoke, and the nonsmoking section is tucked into the back, separated only by a curtain. I think the legislated solution, which will ban smoking on the restaurant side of restaurant-bars, will help -- and then the bar side will be a smoking restaurant with much better food quality than most.

CORRECTION

Last week's Dining Out column gave an incorrect address for Grafton Street. The restaurant is located at 1280 Mass Ave.

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