Ma Nolans Restaurant Review
Friendly Irish pub with good food, live music & big screen sports
Located smack bang between the opera and the market place at Cours Saleya, Ma Nolan's is in a great spot for sitting back with a pint of the black stuff and watching the world go by. It's also a stone's throw from the beach, which is where we were when we had a sudden urge for a burger.
It's not the fanciest of places, if you can picture just about any ex-pat Irish pub in the world then you'll know what to expect. The interior is reasonably cosy with a central bar surrounded by stools, sofas and big screen TVs for the live sports - they show all the big games - and a stage for music nights.
The menu serves all the usual pub grub, cooked breakfasts, fish and chips, etc, as well as some tasty-sounding salads and side dishes. We stuck with our original plan of burgers and went for the Ma Nolan's special and the falafel burger, with bottles of Bundaberg ginger beer to wash it down.
Despite the terrace being very busy we found a couple of seats beside the bustling street, our order was taken straight away and our food arrived pretty quickly. The Ma Nolan's burger is a towering stack of two ground beef patties, smoky bacon, sauteed mushrooms, mature cheddar cheese, caramelised red onion, tomatoes, pickles and relish in a sesame seed bun served with chips. The beef patties were cooked medium with a slightly pink tinge in the centre, well-seasoned and very tender - as well as being fairly massive. The toppings were delicious and did more than just fill a post-swim gap.
The falafel burger was also a good choice - no hungry veggies at this bar. A large burger of chunky chickpeas, fresh herbs and plenty of garlic was topped with pickled red onion and salad - again served on a toasted sesame bun with a hearty pile of chips. The only improvement would have been to cook the falafel a little longer so that the outside crisped up a bit more, it looked a bit of an unattractive beige blob, but it tasted excellent nonetheless.
Again, presentation-wise, a bit of salad or coleslaw on the side of the plates would have elevated the appeal of both dishes no end, but I guess they're there to be eaten not to win beauty contests and they both filled that function admirably.
A quick scan of the tables around us suggested that the other dishes on the menu were just as good - everywhere we looked people were tucking into hearty steak pies and generous portions of delicious smelling battered fish. Prices range from 5.90€ for soup of the day up to 23€ for a sirloin steak with onion rings, chips and all the trimmings.
At 14.90€ the Ma Nolans burger isn't the cheapest in town but it'll certainly keep you full for the rest of the day; the falafel burger was just 10.90€, which isn't a bad deal for a good lunch in one of the most central spots in Nice.
