The Boardwalk Bar and Grill, Lapps Quay, Cork

Review

The Boardwalk Bar and Grill, Lapp’s Quay, Cork. In what is now regarded as the centre of Cork’s new dining scene, The Lapp’s Quay Quarter is where it is at. Right in the middle of this re-generation is the Boardwalk Bar and Grill, occupying a large corner site close to the Clarion hotel, and overlooking the Lee with The Elysian tower further down the quays, looking down on the city like a silent sentinel.

The Boardwalk is a large premises, and like it’s name suggest it is half bar and half restaurant. There is a really long bar that snakes around towards the back while the décor is modern contemporary with lots of dark wood and leather seats. Tables are well spaced and glass wear and linens are very high quality. This is an un-ashamed American style steakhouse, jumbo shrimp cocktails and steaks meet cocktails and pints.

The menu features steak and seafood, and starters have such intriguing options as Alaskan king crab – Gordon Ramsay dived for one on his last C4 series - iced jumbo shrimp cocktail and Atlantic mussels alongside more prosaic choices such as seafood chowder, calamari and confit of pork and balck pudding. The prices are reasonable for the choices, ranging from a little under €6, uot to €17 for the king crab, but most of them are between €7 and €8.

Main courses follow a similar bent – there a a number of grilled fish dishes, such as grilled halibut of yellow fin tuna steak, some lamb or chicken dishes and a big selection of steaks - fillet, t-bone and sirloin – in a variety of sizes, all cooked in a special charbroiler. These are the wonderful invention the good steakhouses use, they cook the meat at between 1600-1800 degrees, and ensure a perfect result every time, but they are expensive, so not all retsuarants use them, but for example, Shanahans in Dublin do. The steaks all come with a coice of sauce on the side (BoardWalk special steak sauce • Roasted garlic & chive butter Hollandaise sauce • Creamy roasted black peppercorn • Béarnaise sauce • Cashel blue cheese butter .) and side orders including my favourites with steak, handcut chips and creamed spinach. Main courses reange from around €15 up to €35 for an 18oz on the bone T-bone steak, but in fairness you could ffed a family of four for a week on one of them!

There is a very tasty dessert menu, if you can stil eat after the steak, and good coffee. The Boardwalk is on target to become one of Corks staple venues for food. All the ingredients are there and the menu hits the right notes with what people want from a restaurant now, good food and service with value for money. There is an early bird menu available every day, up until eight early in the week and between five and seven Thursday to Saturday, three courses for €22.