All the food thats fit to eat

WRITERS should go to Reuters, where the 'changes hum on wires, and where the food is delivered to the table, clickety-clack, with all the inspiration and efficiency of a typewriter or teleprinter. Journalists do, in fact, go to Reuters, since it is literally around the corner from the offices of the Irish Times, around only two corners from the Irish Press, and just across the river from the Irish Independent. And, cleverly, the owner has paid some tribute to at least two of these newspapers by reprooducing historic issues as outside decoration to the menus. Customers can read how "Humanity's Outlaw," the Kaiser, sunk the Lusitania and "murdered" 1,400 people; and how his successor to the title and the power invaded Poland and precipitated the second world war.

The newspaper atmosphere is reasonably well done. Galley proofs hang on the walls, front pages of historic papers detailling historic events decorate both floors in the same way as pigs decorate Solomon Grundy's in Suffolk Street. And there are signs to show where editors and reporters sit, and where copy should be delivered.

I have seen worse attempts at style. Pimply copy boys have been replaced by nubile girls, dressed in tight black trousers and white T -shirts with "Reuters" in red across their breasts. They carry their order pads like reporters' notebooks, and give to food and drink all the urgency of news. What could be better? In unguarded moments they can be made to smile, even blush . . . Resttaurants can be forgiven much for that.

But, as the editor said, "Quit stallin'. Girnme the facts." Under the newsprint, Reuters is an ordinary, straightforward eating house with a limited, sensible menu, a short list of six wines, aperitifs, a red and white house wine, and it is open seven days a week, from 11.30 in the morning until midnight on Sunday and one o'clock in the morning on every other day.

An evening meal for two, with wine, and including £1.00 tip, came to £12.57. Corn on the cob, a bit dry, was 70p. Prawn Cocktail of frozen prawns in too sharp a sauce was £1.25. A good sirloin steak, cooked as ordered, was £3.35, but with added baked potato at 35p and garlic crouton salad at 45p this put the main course up to £4.15. Several other houses around town include salad or potato or both, and make their main course self-contained. There are several that are cheaper, too.

The 'American Extra' hammburger dish is a bit more selffcontained, with its garnishings, and costs £1.80 for the halffpound portion of goodish beef, reasonably well cooked. The quarter-pound portion is £1.35.

The apple pie-always a test in a restaurant- had too much gelatine and too little flavour. The "Coupe Journalist" looked awful enough to be persuasive eating for many Dublin journalists, but was in fact quite refreshing. The house wines, red and white, at 60p the glass, were reasonable to taste and the white is readily on supply welllchilled.

Reuters is crisp and efficient, as it should be. Like yesterday's news it is not memorable; but like today's it is serious. It is part of the welcome phenomenon of new eating places that are persuading people back to the relaxation of eating out. It is guilty of one dreadful stylistic lapse: a nonnstop diet of dreary, awful pop music. Mr Julius Reuter made better use of his wire ...•