The New York Times, Wednesday, October 11, 2000

. …Our Dublin favorite, I am bound to admit, was a homely storefront café called the Mermaid opposite City Hall, with plain wood tables and floors, high-tech lighting and whitewashed siding. Sneak chic you might call it. We went for brunch, and all the London and Dublin Sunday newspapers were spread out invitingly on the windowsills. The food was no less inviting, just the kind of imaginative but unpretentious stuff you're hungry for - comfort food updated.

Everything came in big, handsome white bowls. I had moist, tender smoked haddock from Frank Hederman, Ireland's top smoker, with creamed horseradish and mashed potatoes, a perfect mixture of smoky, sharp and bland flavours. Betsey had eggs Benedict, made not with the usual Canadian bacon but with a thick slice of five-spice ham, cured by Ed Hick, whom the McKennas' guides call Ireland's best pork butcher, and a tart rocket salad.

We could not resist just a bite (five or six, to be honest) of the day's special, a notably silky slab of pan-fried wild Irish salmon, with pepper hash and sorrel mayonnaise. As a matter of fact, that could have been the theme song of our sojourn: we found it hard to resist wild Irish salmon any day any way. But better that than another Guinness.