Dining Review

Kathy Mader

Muldoon’s Irish Pub, on Newport Center Drive next to Big Edwards Theater,

has long been a staple for the St. Patrick’s Day crowd. In fact, it is

required if you truly plan to celebrate that day like only the Irish can.

However, feel free to sample their extensive beer and Irish whiskey

selections as well as their Irish/American fare any other day of the

year.

For 25 years Muldoon’s has filled every definition of an Irish pub, from

its dark wood and dimly lit interior to its bricked courtyard patio

complete with trees and heat lamps. Spotlighting bands such as the Young

Dubliners only helps to authenticate Muldoon’s reputation.

You can’t have a restaurant in Southern California without succumbing to

some of the local influences, and Muldoon’s is no exception. For while

they offer Irish stew ($8.25) and pub onion loops ($4.50), they also

offer chips and salsa, chicken wraps, and tuna sandwiches ($7.50). Their

tuna sandwich is one of my favorite things to order. They make it with

fresh albacore and easy on the mayonnaise.

While you think of a pub as sort of a working man’s lunch place,

Muldoon’s is really a Newport working man’s lunch place, as it is

moderately expensive. But the food is fresh and genuine, from their small

loaves of soda bread, full of currants and rye, to their hearty wheat

bread, served with whipped butter.

There has been discussion in my office as to whether Muldoon’s serves the

best burger in town, and the majority says yes. Either way, their macho

burger ($8.40) with jack cheese, sliced avocado and a grilled Ortega

pepper, and their B.B.C. burger ($8.45) with cheddar cheese topped with

tangy barbecue sauce and bacon, is pretty much all you could hope for in

a burger.

The Jack Muldoon grilled chicken sandwich ($8.95), basically the macho

burger with chicken, is a nice, satisfying alternative and the single

most ordered item in my office.

Of course you can order corned beef ($8.75), shepherds pie ($9.95) and

bangers and mash ($8.95), but Muldoon’s is famous for its fish and chips

($9.50).

Catch them for lunch on a Wednesday, when you can enjoy all you can eat

fish and chips complete with malted vinegar and salt. Fresh tartar sauce

and pub fries are also served on the side, but the vinegar and salt show

your commitment to tradition.

Oriental chicken salad and the grilled chicken breast salad are good, but

Pat’s Cobb salad is what I mean when I say salad: resplendent with blue

cheese and bacon.

Muldoon’s offers several daily specials for both lunch and dinner, and

they range from fresh salmon pasta to pork tenderloin and lamb chops. If

you go in for lunch, ask for Patty to be your server, she is great.

Dinner at Muldoon’s includes porterhouse steaks ($18.95) and filets, both

served with a twice-baked potato. Mrs. Murphy’s pot roast ($16.95),

Gaelic chicken and Old Bushmills breast of chicken ($15.95) -- a breast

of chicken simmered in Muldoon’s award winning Dijon sauce -- fish and

chips, and shrimp and chips are also available on the dinner menu.

What about dessert you ask? What exactly do the Irish eat for dessert?

Well here at Muldoon’s the Irish eat hot apple pie with caramel sauce and

whipped cream, chocolate sundae with toffee crunch, and a traditional

Irish trifle -- sponge cake with a splash of sherry, homemade custard,

strawberries and cream.

The Daily Pilot has been really good about covering Muldoon’s special

occasions, so keep your eyes open for upcoming events. From Dec. 15-24,

Muldoon’s is celebrating with a Dickens Irish Christmas, complete with a

wait staff in period costumes and specials like roast duck, brisket of

beef, and a holiday special, wassail -- hot spice wine -- to warm your

bones. Gingerbread will also be on the menu.

Throughout the year on Sunday nights, Muldoon’s showcases different Irish

bands, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights you can hear varying

other kinds of music. The pub is open until 1:30 a.m. daily except Monday

so it makes for a great after-movie place to have an Irish coffee, or

just a plain cappuccino, while you listen to music on the patio. Again,

they have heat lamps.

So next time you just can’t think of a place to eat, pray to St. Patrick

and ask him to remove the locusts from the farmland in your brain, and go

to Muldoon’s. It’s an Irish pub if there ever was one.

Muldoon’s Irish Pub

WHERE: 202 Newport Center Drive (next to Edwards Big Newport theater)

WHEN: open at 11:30 a.m. every day except Mondays

HOW MUCH: Moderately expensive

PHONE: (949) 640-4110