Gary Bell

It’s always great to see a new idea catching on and Gary Bell’s underground restaurant is a unique dining experience that I had the pleasure of enjoying recently. Faoi Thalamh is a pop up restaurant which can appear in Dublin or Belfast or anywhere. It only happens occasionally as Gary has a day job at the Portaferry Hotel and Faoi Thalamh is only a sideline. Gary worked for some time as head chef at Thornton’s so I knew we would be dining well. I wasn’t disappointed and we enjoyed magnificent food complete with Hollywood special effects, live music and a diversity of dining companions.

Our meal commenced with poppadom nibbles. These were no ordinary poppadoms. They were  ’Fish Skin Poppadoms’which were exactly as described on the tin. They were a combination of deep fried fish skin and poppadom served communally on a timber platter and sprinkled with, what can only be described as, flaked salt. I take very limited salt but this flaked salt was exceptionally tasty and I had to stop myself from taking pinchfuls to eat!

Smoke and Mirrors

The next course was a pan fried king scallop served with a smoked  Alsace bacon mousse and baby spinach. But first we had the theatrical experience. Wine coolers were brought to the table and inside these was a mixture of dry ice and seaweed. The dry ice was activated by the addition of water and the resulting cauldron spewed out seaweed scented *air*. It worked well as an assault on the senses. We enjoyed a smell of the sea while we ate the delectable scallop which was served in a scallop shell, perfectly cooked and accompanied by a divine mousse. My mouth is watering with the recollection of it.

What followed was a salmon “four ways” experience. We were served with a platter which had pan-fried salmon, salmon ballotine and salmon roe. There was a little cream on the plate and we wondered if this might be some kind of salmon mousse to make up the fourth dimension. It wasn’t. The fourth way was salmon smoked live at the table (note the order of the words – it wasn’t live salmon smoked at the table!). The smoke box was brought to the table and we were all served a portion of the smoked salmon from a wooden spoon or fork. It was a novel idea and the smoked  salmon was beautiful. Apart from the fish eggs it was difficult to decide which of the salmon morsels was the best.

Carpaccio

Our next dish was beef carpaccio with horseradish cream, quails eggs with parmesan and herring roe. It was served on a bed of baby gem leaves, which in turn were set in a blanched half marrow bone, set on a bed of wood shavings! The wood shavings transported us to the farmyard! The bone marrow serving dish reminded us of that we were eating beef. Yet again our senses had been appropriately primed for the culinary experience. The carpaccio was sublime. The tastes and textures were perfect. A perfect balance with the horseradish was achieved resulting in the  optimum experience. The little quail eggs and roe looked and taste delightful too. My photo, unfortunately, isn’t great but you get the idea.

The entree was to be  crisp pork belly, dauphinoise potatoes, honey glazed carrot and thyme jus. However the carrots never materialised. It didn’t matter because I didn’t check the menu until I got home but I thought it was odd not to have a vegetable dish with the main course. But then again the whole evening was a new and different venture and I didn’t know what kind of limited space was available for cooking.  Once again, Gary set out to activate our senses. Prior to serving the main course he burnt bunches of thyme to infuse the air with a wonderful herbal aroma. The scent complemented the thyme jus that came with the pork. The dish was fabulous. The dauphinoise potatoes were orgasmic according to one of the other dinner guests. I wouldn’t have gone that far myself…. The pork belly was beautifully crisp and the jus, of which there was plenty, had a fantastic flavour and consistency.

The final course was described as “rich chocolate cake, fresh raspberries, walnut praline”. Not being a chocolate fan I was a bit worried about – especially if I didn’t like it. It turned out to be more mousse and less cake  - which was good. I ate it and I enjoyed it. It had a little chocolate ball on top which was beautiful – filled with something very tasty. The dish was good.  (I’m sure a real chocaholic might go overboard on the superlatives.)

I really enjoyed the music which was performed by these lads -

The Musicians

Finally, the suggested donation for the whole evening was €45.00. This was incredibly good value for an amazing culinary and sensory experience. I haven’t been wowed by food for a while but this was a great meal.

A few notes –

I used a number of photos from their facebook page.

It’s a bring your own wine occasion.

The dining room is pretty basic.

On foot of a recommendation we decided to try the Pig’s Ear on Nassau Street in Dublin. The restaurant was awarded the prestigious Michelin Bib Gormand in 2011 so I was expecting great things.

The restaurant is spread over two levels and we were brought to a table on the second floor (third floor if you are American!). This dining room was much larger than the one on the first level. The floors were dark timber as were the tables and chairs. The room looked fine and had adequate space between the tables but, as it filled up, it became incredibly loud. This wasn’t helped by the fact that there were two noisy groups in the room.

We were given menus and offered water. The menu was very interesting and it took me a while to decide what to have. I settled on the crab mayonnaise (I noted, with amusement, the menu description of ‘handpicked Castletownbere crabs’- as if the chef had popped down to west Cork and plucked a few crabs out of the sea!). For my main course I ordered salmon which, for me, is an unusual choice. But having recently had fabulous salmon in an ordinary hotel Ballina Co Mayo I was prepared to give it a go in a “rated” restaurant. Mr W ordered some terrine and the milk fed lamb shepherd’s pie. I left the wine ordering to himself and he thought the prices were a bit high.

A small canvas bag of bread arrived at the table and a bottle of chilled tap water. We had difficulty removing the bread from the bag and the result was that the brown bread broke into pieces. The  starters arrived seconds after the bread only these starters were not what we had ordered. This caused a great kafuffle amongst the staff resulting in our orders being reconfirmed by the waiter. This did not augur well.

The correct starters showed up eventually and I was not impressed by the meagre portion of crab that I was served which was priced at over €10.00. The salmon was better although it didn’t match the Mayo salmon for flavour. The accompanying samphire was overcooked and, rather than add to the dish it took from it, the cauliflower and potato champ seemed to be devoid of potato. The potted  shrimp butter worked well with the dish and the flavours were good. The shepherds pie looked pretty but I didn’t taste it.

The noisy environs was really starting to get to us and we would have left only that we had been told the cheeseboard was interestingly presented. We ordered a cheesboard to share and we were presented with four reasonable portions of cheese, some oatcakes a small  bread roll with chutney baked into it and a handful of grapes. The cheeses were laid out alongside an explanatory note giving the cheese type, provenance and age. An excellent idea. The presentation was good but the cheeses were too cold.

All told our experience at The Pig’s Ear wasn’t great. Having eaten amazing meals in a number of other Bib Gourmand restaurants I have to wonder why this restaurant merited the award. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it and I won’t be going back. The bill came to just under €110.00 and, for that money, you can get a much better deal in Dublin city centre.

]]> http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/the-pigs-ear/feed/ 0 caitrionaw Pig's ear bread http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/the-wild-boar/ http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/the-wild-boar/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:42:41 +0000 caitrionaw http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/?p=2745 Continue reading →]]> I won’t mince my words about my recent visit here. I was stunned by how mediocre the experience was. We arrived at  about 2:45 on a Sunday afternoon when the main rush for lunch was finished. We selected our own table (it is a pub after all) and a waiter brought menus to us. We were ravenous and made our decisions fairly quickly so were not too pleased at the slowness of the order taking – there was plenty of staff and most of the other patrons were eating already.

My next disappointment was that the first items on the menu were not available on Sundays! Aaargh! My mouth was already watering for the “steak sandwich with caramelised onion, rocket and Bearnaise sauce” before I realised that it was not available on Sundays. Why on earth would any establishment give a menu that included food you couldn’t have? I settled for the alternate offering of a steak sandwich with French fries. Mr W ordered a special from the black board – bacon and cabbage with apple and mash.

The food arrived in good time. Neither of us were visually stunned by the offerings. The bacon was a large, thick slice and looked most unappetising. The portion of mash was meagre, as was the serving of cabbage. Mr W was not too impressed. My steak sandwich wasn’t much better. First of all it was an open sandwich i.e. it was a piece of steak atop a half slice of baguette. I had to ask for a steak knife in order to cut it. And the chips were the thin type that you might get in a fast food restaurant. All in all I was not happy with what I got. My expectations were probably high because I have eaten a few times in the adjoining Box Tree and have been very happy with the offerings there.

I wasn’t pleased with the bathroom facilities either. My first impression was that I was in some country pub in the last century at a time when merely having an indoor bathroom was chic. The ladies’room doubles as the wheelchair bathroom but that wasn’t the problem. The room looked like it hadn’t be mopped down for some time. It didn’t help matters that the soap dispenser is located in such a way that all the drips fall directly on the floor. There was a small pile of congealed soap on the floor and it looked like someone’s cat had been sick.

I was quite disappointed with our experience and I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to eat here.

]]> http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/the-wild-boar/feed/ 0 caitrionaw http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/mayfield-deli-and-eatery/ http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/mayfield-deli-and-eatery/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:33:45 +0000 caitrionaw http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/?p=2726 Continue reading →]]>

The Mayfield Eatery

After much procrastination I finally made it to this establishment for lunch. It was almost two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and the place was buzzing. We were lucky to get seats. Five minutes after we arrived people were queuing! This bistro is located in a premises formerly occupied by Christy’s Butcher Shop at the edge of Terenure. The old tiles have been left on the wall as have the rails from which the cuts of meat would hang. But now all that hangs from these rails are spare chairs, notices and ornaments. The tables and chairs are an eclectic mix and, overall, the fist impression is that this place is a cross between a New York Deli and a Parisian Bistro.

The Lunch menu was very interesting. There was soup and sandwiches available for €8.50 or, for €5.50, you could have just the sandwiches. The sandwiches on offer were no ordinary run of the mill things. There were ones available with ciabatta, foccacia, germagrain or bagels. The fillings sounded fantastic too. But I wasn’t in the mood for sandwiches.

The hot foods on offer included lasagne, fish cakes, chicken curry, asparagus pie and sweet potato and butternut squash tagine.  These all sounded delightful too but I wasn’t in the mood for hot food wither. I flipped the menu over and found some salads on offer on the rear. Now, strangely for me, I was in the mood for salad and I settled on ‘The Honey Roasted Pear Salad served with Grapes, Croutons, Bacon, Leaves and Cashel Blue Dressing’priced at €9.00.  My dining partner ordered the  ’Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash, Tagine, Chickpeas, Apricots served with flat bread and rice’on offer for €9.50.

We didn’t have to wait too long for the food to arrive. My salad platter looked great and was accompanied with a couple of slices of tasty brown bread. There were plenty of grapes and croutons but very little bacon and the Cashel blue sauce definitely lacked flavour. The pear was not chopped, or sliced, as I might have expected but was served in wedge form. I wasn’t wowed by this salad. Serves me right for not ordering something mores seasonal!

Fortunately the taster I got from my dining partner saved the day. The tagine tasted absolutely amazing and I would definitely return just to try it. It was a lovely orange colour with a generous scattering of flaked almonds atop it. It was pleasing to both the eye, the palate and the olfactory receptors.

We looked at the dessert menus but were not tempted by the wide variety of cakes on offer and so we just ordered two americanos which were excellent (not too big) and keenly priced at €2.30. The bill came to €23.10 and, while my salad didn’t delight me, I definitely would go back to try something different.

]]> http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/mayfield-deli-and-eatery/feed/ 0 caitrionaw The Mayfield Eatery Mayfield Bill http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/pay-as-you-please/ http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/pay-as-you-please/#comments Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:28:09 +0000 caitrionaw http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/?p=2694 Continue reading →]]>

Pay As You Please

We were in Killarney on New Year’s Eve to meet someone off the train. We went early in order to mooch around the town for a while. Of course we were there at lunch time and I remembered having heard of a restaurant where you paid what you thought the food was worth. A quick search of Google and we managed to locate the premises in New Market Lane.

The room is small and furnished in a shabby-chic way. Some of the tables were old school desks complete with inkwells. The chairs were a mixed lot too and some of them were quite comfortable formal dining chairs. An old black and white vampire movie was projected on one of the walls. And on the opposite wall was the open kitchen area.

We were greeted by a very friendly young man who showed us to a table and gave us menus to look at. There was not a lot on offer but the place is small and with no fixed price I didn’t expect a huge menu. There was soup of the day (parsnip and apple), a few different bruschettas, three different types of pizza, some salads  and a dish of the day which I have already forgotten! We ordered  pizzas. I opted for the  bacon, mushroom and thyme one and Mr W chose the Serrano ham, rocket and Parmesan  one. We asked for tap water which was served, chilled, in a bottle. They don’t sell wine but you can bring your own.

Sample Menu

The pizzas arrived within fifteen minutes of our ordering. The base was thin and crispy with some bubbling of the dough (all good!). The tomato sauce struck me as being a bit to runny but it tasted fine. The topping was sparse enough there was a hardly one medium-sized mushroom on the pizza and the bacon was pretty meagre too. Mr W also thought his pizza was a bit short on the toppings. The flavours were good. We weren’t supplied with cutlery – just pizza cutters – or napkins. Seeing as the pizza sauce was so runny this was a major drawback.

To finish Mr W ordered coffee and I asked for a hot chocolate. The coffee came in a big cafetiere and there was easily enough for two people. I also received a very generous jug of hot chocolate and an enamel mug. I wasn’t too impressed with the mug as memories of burnt lips on camping trips flooded my mind. I only half filled the mug and I was very tentative when drinking from it. Fortunately the mug didn’t conduct the heat too much and I survived the hot chocolate without any medical emergency.

Unfortunately I didn’t notice one of the most novel dishes on offer. Soup in bread. It wasn’t until I was halfway through my pizza that I noticed it on their blackboard. I was cross that I missed it especially when I saw it being served to another customer.

Soup In Bread

 The decision on what to pay involved much debate. We had eaten pizza recently in Skinflint Dublin  and the pizzas cost a little more than ten euro. We thought we’d pay ten euro for each pizza even though if we’d had such meagre toppings in Dublin, at that price, we would have been quite unhappy. We thought €2.50 for each drink was fine considering we only wanted one cupful of drink. In the end we left twenty five euro in the box to and also a tip. In hindsight I think a tad we were too generous.

This ‘Pay As You Please Restaurant’is a novel concept and definitely worth supporting. The local community appears to have embraced it as a lot of the customers were repeat visitors and many of them were of more mature years.

(Photos from Pay As You Please Facebook Page)

Eden

I didn’t have my reviewer’s hat on when I dined here recently with my in-laws. However, I remembered later that Eden is listed in The Dubliner – 100 Best Restaurants so I had to rethink my decision. So here goes…

Mr W and I were the first to arrive. We decided to wait in the reception area  for the rest of our group and  I ordered a Gin and Tonic to sip while we perused the menu. It took a bit too long for for my drink to arrive. When it finally appeared it was lifeless and dull without a bubble in sight.

Once the full group arrived we were shown to our table and a friendly waiter described the specials of the day. The soup was tomato and fennel and there were two special main courses -one venison and the other being stone bass. Not being familiar with stone bass I asked for more information. I was told it was a deep water fish and that it was wild,  not farmed. I wasn’t too convinced. I know all about sea bass, which is a lovely fish, but I worried that stone bass might be to sea bass as rock salmon is to salmon. So I decided against it.

There were six of us dining. The orders for starters included eden smokies, crab salad, chicken liver mousse and my own order for pumpkin risotto. Three of us opted for the venison as main course, two ordered hake and there was one order for steak. We ordered a couple of bottles of  Crozes-Hermitage as well.  We nibbled on bread from the complimentary basket of bread while we waited for the starters to be prepared. I’m still wondering why the bread was so described on the menu. The Eden is pitching to a market that expects the bread basket to be included and there is no need to make a feature of it being free. That said, I had a slice of delicious, fresh tomato bread.

The starters arrived and the Eden smokies were served in square gratin dishes. Nobody had bothered to wipe away the melted cheese that dripped down the edge  of the dish so marks are lost for presentation . The pate looked delicious and the crab salad was pretty on the plate too. My risotto was very good and I really enjoyed it. The rice was creamy with a bite to it, the pumkin was cooked perfectly and I really liked the sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds that was added to finish the dish.

The mains arrived. The venison came rare – and at this point I remembered that we had not been asked how we would like it to be cooked. In my experience to date  I have almost always been asked how I’d like it done or I’ve been told that how ‘chef’likes to serve it. It didn’t bother me, I am happy enough to eat rare venison. It was a pleasant dish, not outstanding. The meat was tender enough and it was served with a kind of potato cake which had a large, whole carrot on top of it. Very rustic looking. The hake eaters really enjoyed their dish. In fact one of them had eaten hake very recently at Fishy-Fishy in Kinsale and he deemed Eden’s dish to be the superior one. That is quite a commendation.

I couldn’t manage dessert but some of the others ordered raspberry parfait and the cheeseboard and we all had coffees.

In summary I would have to say that The Eden has seen better days. It doesn’t help matters that there is a building site right beside it but the restaurant interior is drab and in need of a refurb. The formica topped table that I sat at had a chip gone out of it and the underlying timber was exposed. It wasn’t pretty (or hygienic, I’d imagine). We also sat very close to the kitchen area and we could see, and smell, what was going on. Every now and then some deep fat fryer steam wafted in our direction and I was worried that I would come home stinking of chips. It can be interesting to see ‘the theatre’of a kitchen but nobody reeally wants the ‘backstage’experience which is what I experienced on the night. Perhaps, when Meeting House Square is returned to the City of Dublin,  Eden will invest in an upgrade.

]]> http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/eden/feed/ 2 caitrionaw Eden http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/skinfllint/ http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/skinfllint/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:30:13 +0000 caitrionaw http://caitrionaw.wordpress.com/?p=2664 Continue reading →]]> I got two tweetseats at this ‘pop-up’restaurant recently. A group of four of us arrived so we made up a table of both freeloaders and paying customers. Skinflint is another of Joe Macken’s pop up ideas (like Crackbird) and serves, mainly, pizza and also a daily meatball offering. (Menu).

It was three thirty on a Sunday afternoon when we arrived and the place wasn’t a bit busy. The room is basic, which is part of the popup concept, and the tables are made from old doors with legs fitted and topped with a sheet of glass (or possibly perspex). The server showed us to our table and popped the ‘tweetseat chicken’in front of us! It didn’t take too long for us to make our decisions. I ordered the lamb meat balls with pink peppercorn mash and celeriac salad. The others ordered the vonie, the susie and the simply red. I ordered a lemonade and Mr W ordered a beer (Howling Gale from Eight Degrees Brewing). When our server delivered our drinks she tried to coax us into ordering starters. In my opinion she should have done this when we ordered our food and not as an afterthought.

I sipped my lemonade while we waited for the pizzas to arrive. They weren’t too long coming and they broke from tradition by being rectangular (ish). They looked really good and I was jealous. My bowl of meatballs topped with mash and topped again with the celeriac slaw did not look as pretty!  It was odd to be served with just a spoon to eat  my meal. I managed fine but I would have prefered to have been given a fork as well. The celeriac slaw was really tasty, the rest of the dish was OK – certainly not amazing. The pizzas were enjoyed and given the thumbs up all round.

We decided not to bother with desserts and we asked for coffee. I requested an americano and was informed that they only had filter coffee. I was hugely disappointed as I had an amazing coffee in this very room when it was the home of the original Crackbird.  Mr W also declined to have filter coffee. Within ten seconds the server was back to inform us that we could have espressos as there was an espresso machine. How odd was that! My understanding is that an americano is simply an espresso with some extra hot water. Clearly someone in Skinflint needs to learn this.

How To Make an Americano

In summary the pizza eaters were happy, the service was mediocre and the product knowledge was limited. It is cheap -ish.

The Chart House

Mr W loves this restaurant and we visited here recently. It is one of the few restaurants in Dingle that opens during the winter months. We hadn’t dined here for a long time and we were delighted to see their new menu (new to us, anyway!). Their signature starter of Annascaul black pudding and apple wrapped in pastry is gone from the menu much to Mr W’s disappointment. But I was very eager to try the replacement starter of black pudding hash, poached egg and hollandaise sauce.

When we dine in Dingle we generally try to eat fish because, after all, it is a fishing harbour. However, the night in question was extremely cold and wintry and we needed something more warming and hearty than fish. I ordered the ‘new’black pudding starter and himself went for one of the specials - breast of pigeon with polenta and salad. For mains I ordered a slow cooked rabbit stew and Mr W opted for venison. We decided to try a German Pinot Noir which proved to be very drinkable and well priced.

Some lovely bread was delivered to the table. We weren’t told what the bread was and we forgot to ask but we enjoyed it regardless! Since our last visit I noticed that they have invested in some beautiful new water jugs from Annascaul Pottery. Our jug was a rather expensive piece too as the price tag of €59.95 was still stuck to its base!

Our starters arrived and my black pudding offering was very prettily served and the pigeon looked really good too. I hadn’t expected such a tidy dish as my mental image of a ‘hash’dish was of a more casual, messy affair. I’m glad I didn’t get what I was expecting! What I actually got was a lot prettier and very tasty too. The only improvement I would make is to use a little less black pudding in order to balance better the egg/pudding proportions. It was a bit dark for photographs – but I’ve posted this one.

The main courses arrived. My rabbit stew came in a large bowl with two portions of rabbit, a generous serving of slightly sweet sauce and some potatoes. The rabbit was loose on the bone but not falling off it. I didn’t have to work too hard to get at all of the meat. The portion of wild venison was very generous, tasty and beautifully cooked. (Thanks Mr W – for sharing!). A dish of seasonal vegetables accompanied the main courses.

I couldn’t manage dessert but himself ordered bread and butter pudding which we shared. It came with homemade ice cream which was absolutely delicious. The pudding was gorgeous too – it definitely was not made with supermarket sliced pan! We finished with two lovely coffees. The bill came to €109.30 before service.

The Chart House has been awarded the prestigious Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand recommendation on numerous occasions.

To begin I ordered chilli scallops which, when served, were like rubber bullets. The chilli sauce was way too hot and we should really have been advised of this when ordering. I can manage a fair bit of heat but this was excessive. Had the scallops been soft and succulent, the chilli would have destroyed them.

For my main course I was tempted by the retro offering of steak rossini and I ordered mine to be cooked medium. It must be over twenty years since I had this dish, indeed it must be just as long since I’ve seen it on a menu and I was looking really forward to it. Further disappointment followed… the steak was overdone and a bit chewy. The ‘pâté’turned out to be a little sliver of liver (chicken perhap?). If it wasn’t liver then it was a foie gras so heavily fried that, by some alchemy, it turned back into liver. It was served with sides of dauphinoise potatoes and seasonal vegetables which were fairly bland.

My dessert of strawberry pavlova redeemed the situation a little and the coffee was reasonable. Our hosts paid the bill so I don’t know what it amounted to but I certainly won’t be rushing back to dine here.