I won’t try and curry favour with anyone... or ever charge for a review

IHAD a chat on Newstalk during the week with Ivan Yates, the hook being a claim by the Irish Food Writers’ Guild that bloggers and ‘influencers’ are in danger of putting restaurant critics out of business.

The best food bloggers will pay their bills and write dispassionately about what they experience; however, for every one of them there seems to be dozens of scoundrels who demand free meals in exchange for ‘exposure’ One restaurant operator told me recently that he had had a phone call from someone with 2,000 followers on Twitter. He was offered a tweet with picture and positive comment about his food for €1,000. Needless to say he declined, but clearly this kind of nonsense does pay.

There are several websites that charge a fixed rate for what they call a ‘review’.

So, obviously we need transparency. All of the meals you see me reviewing here have been paid for by me. These expenses are then covered by the Irish Daily Mail.

Restaurants don’t know that I’m coming. When I’m eating, I keep a careful eye on what’s happening at surrounding tables to ensure, as far as possible, that we’re not getting special or additional attention. Most restaurateurs know that most critics want to be left alone.

In addition to writing about restaurants here, I have a website, tomdoorley.com. The way it works is that every restaurant that I think is worth recommending is listed there (or will be; it’s always a work in progress). And they are listed, with a short description and a link to their website, for no fee.

Restaurants that make the grade to be listed in the first place can then pay an annual sum for a much bigger and more detailed presence on the site – and that’s how tomdoorley.com is financed.

How do I choose where to review? Well, first of all, my editor doesn’t tell me, I decide for myself on the basis that I’m constantly looking for good food, at all levels, and so I don’t go looking for trouble.

I use the bush telegraph, Twitter, friends, the unofficial food network and, yes, even press releases have a function. Sometimes the first I hear of somewhere interesting is, my chagrin, when another critic writes about it.

How did I choose this week’s restaurant? I was walking along Dame Street and I was hungry. Paolo Tullio always said ‘never review when you’re hungry’, but he had a more generous appetite than mine.

I was also vaguely thinking about Indian spices and coconut milk and such things. So, when I found myself outside Kathmandu Kitchen, it seemed like a good idea to go in. So this review started with an impulse.

How was it? Fine. Or grand, in the Irish meaning of the word; in other Englishspeaking societies this translates as OK. It was neither very bad nor very good. It was straightforward, not cheap but not dear, served with good grace.

In detail? Well there was a starter called Kathmandu Mix for one which comprised a small tube of minced lamb kebab, a vegetarian samosa and some pieces of chicken breast in the form of malai tikka, the latter being the best part: moist chicken in a spicy, creamy sauce featuring cheese.

Then there was the Gorkhali Sakahari Sizzler (sizzling is big here) which comprised myriad vegetables cooked with cottage cheese and ‘Himalyan spice’ in a clay oven, according to the menu. It was pretty underwhelming when it had cooled down enough to eat; there was rather too much charring which does little to enhance the charms of green peppers. The spicing seemed rather lost in an excess of oil.

I thought I ordered Thakali Tarkari of lamb, a curry involving, inter alia, coconut milk, but I may have been mistaken. The distinctly chewy lamb came in a sauce that seemed entirely innocent of coconut in any form. In terms of taste it was… grand.

With a Cobra Indian beer and a large bottle of mineral water the bill came to €55.79.