Burgers hit the mark but I’ve another favourite champion chip team...

THIS week finds me in an unusual place for a restaurant critic. Indeed, I can’t recall anyone else ever reviewing Captain Americas in a national newspaper, but I may be wrong. This Grafton Street institution has been part of Dublin life since 1971.

Captain A’s (as we used to call it in my student days) has become part of the Press Up group that – amongst many other restaurants – recently opened The Grayson on Stephen’s Green and the Devlin Hotel (with mini-cinema) in Ranelagh, and took ownership of Elephant & Castle in Temple Bar.

But am I here because of the change of ownership? Well, indirectly, yes. You see a few weeks ago I praised the chips at the Dalkey Duck, while mentioning that they were bought in, as is the case in most restaurants.

This surprised AllTheFood.ie who, on Twitter, encouraged those establishments that make their own chips to put their hands up. And quite a few did, including the Press Up group who said that all of their restaurants – the better part of 20 at my last count – make their own chips on the premises. They also told me about the potatoes they source specially, ten tonnes of them a week.

So, I had to try them and as I was having something of a craving for chicken wings, Captain A’s seemed the obvious place to go.

It had not changed since I was last there over ten years ago except that the food was better. It’s American diner stuff, so don’t go expecting subtlety. It’s busy (there was a queue down the stairs on a Thursday evening, before seven o’clock), a bit rubbed at the edges after all these years, reasonably priced and the staff are lovely.

Harnessing the assistance and appetites of a grown-up and a teenager for this visit, was a good idea as, having wolfed down a considerable number of chicken wings (crisp, well sauced but needing more chilli heat) I was not going to manage a hamburger. And hamburgers are what Captain A’s has always been about.

Big mozzarella sticks, breaded and deep-fried would have been much better given more time and heat; they were more Plasticine than oozy cheese. And the raspberry dipping sauce would have been happier in a sundae.

Hamburgers, however, were very good: the meat element substantial and opentextured with good chew. The bacon and cheese version was splendidly savoury in a simple, caveman-like way; the Frenchie (sic), a curious tribute to Gallic gastronomy, was almost a meal in itself: there was a lot of melted cheese (Emmental, I think) and garlic mayonnaise. It came with a stack of frankly not very good, rather greasy onion rings.

But these were good burgers: messy, tasty, atavistic. And the chips? I’ll come back to them in a moment.

Ice cream and chocolate sauce was pedestrian to say the least, but a sundae with lots of crushed cookies was ace. Again, it appealed to the primitive in us; we felt that some of Mr Trump’s rallies might be fuelled on this stuff.

Okay, the chips. I am sorry to say that they were a disappointment. The flavour was fine but the texture wasn’t. The first duty of a chip is to be crisp on the outside and fluffy, up to a point, on the inside. These were simply not crisp.

However, we had a good time at Captain A’s despite a few flaws. With a couple of cocktails and a bottle of wine, soft drink and bottled water, the bill came to not much over €100.

Next day, I sought out a branch of Press Up’s Wowburger chain and was impressed by the hamburger (although I still think Bunsen do the best in town). However, the chips were perfect. Literally. Yes, crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside. I did something I have not done in ages: I finished them all. With a Coke Zero, this came to €12.85.