Severe Jam Damage

Saturday night I was out with ex-coworkers in a last blast to the company. Also we had a bit of cash in the social club coffers so used it up on food and drink in Diep le Shaker. A few of us met up in the Pembroke beforehand and the rest waited in the bar of the restaurant where they ordered cocktails.

The organizer had booked us in for the ‘Taste of Phuket’ menu which involved a buffet of somewhere upwards of 10 dishes. The restaurant is small and intimate although our seating arrangements weren’t terribly good. One large round table (8 top) shoved together with a smaller round 4-top does not make for much room for 15 guests – especially those unlucky enough to be seated in the odd curved space between the two. In addition the tables were at the back of the room beside the kitchen. At times I thought that a few on the other side of the table were going to end up with a plate of crispy duck all over their heads.

The service was fine although perhaps a little too attentive as the waiter was around every five minutes to refresh our glasses. All well and good except that the second bottle of Shiraz appeared to have some horrible tangy aftertaste that the first bottle did not, but it was too late to save anything as the waiter had already topped up our glasses with the second bottle. If it had been a smaller group I would have asked for fresh glasses. Also we never did figure out what accent the Maitre’D was trying to imitate.

The food itself was good, although with ten-plus dishes it was hard to tell which might be your favourite. There was simply too much choice. Crispy fried duck with plum sauce and pancakes, chicken, beef and prawn satay. Spring rolls, fish goujons and Chicken Pandan - cubes of chicken baked in lime leaves (‘Don’t eat the leaves’ warned our waiter.) The main course was even more meat-laden. Roast duck with pineapples and plum sauce. A hot and spicy prawn and scallop curry that snuck up on those who dared to try it. ‘Sure that’s not so bad’ was heard a couple of times and five minutes later there were gasps for water. The always popular green chicken curry, a beef curry of some sort, a spicy vegetable thing, another seafood curry with mussels and prawns, and a yellow prawn curry. Served with noodles and rice (steamed or fried.)

A third course of crispy banana fritters served with ice cream –which many had to chase around the plate - and a coffee finished the meal. Our booking was for 7pm and we were supposed to be out of there by nine for the second seating, but the staff let us finish off our meal and stagger wearily away at about 9.30.

Kudos to them for putting up with us.

Or the exact opposite of ‘Free Dublin.’ Yes, as I mentioned in the previous post it is very easy when you are not working to find ways to spend money. Buying a new laptop for instance, like the very one I am currently tapping away on. I picked it up on Friday and have been messing about on it for the weekend. Now all I need to do is get broadband in and I’ll be laughing (more money.)
Other ways to spend money are to go to the cinema, and at a tenner a pop (plus ‘corn) the coinage in your wallet soon disappears. I went to the cinema a couple of times this week, catching matinees of ‘You, Me and Dupree’ and ‘A Scanner Darkly.’ I wasn’t asked for a student card so obviously my wrinkles are getting worse.
Food is also a way to spend more money than you may have wanted. On Wednesday night I met Priscilla for a bit of food and ended up in La Taverna di Bacco in the new ‘Italian Quarter’ on the north side of the Millennium bridge. I would have been happy with a platter of meat, bread and cheese but somehow we found ourselves ushered upstairs to the proper ‘restaurant’. The menu was one page, containing 4 or 5 starters, 4 or 5 pastas and 4 or 5 meat courses. I ordered a soft cheese strudel with onion marmalade and Priscilla ordered the Smoked Goose to start. The strudel was nice although it was a good 50 minutes before our orders came through. We were drinking a bottle of wine and had been chatting away so it was only when the table beside us received a basket of bread that I realized we’d been sitting with no food for so long. Eventually the waitress returned with a basket of bread for us, but it was another 20 minutes or so before our starters came out. The strudel was quite nice, and I tried some of the smoked goose, which came thinly sliced and to my palate tasted fairly bland. There was another interminable wait for our main courses and the waitress apologized that there was a problem in the kitchen. At this stage there were only 4 tables of people, so a ‘problem in the kitchen’ meant it didn’t look good for anyone coming in for food for the rest of the evening. Anyway eventually our mains came, I had ordered sea bass which was served topped with some rather watery ‘sauteed’ potatoes, what appeared to be half a bushel of dill and a handful of pine nuts. I scraped the toppings off to find the fish was only half cooked. One side was done perfectly, it flaked away from the skin. The other side was translucent and slimy.
‘If I’d wanted sushi I’d have gone to Aya’ I muttered. By comparison Priscilla’s beef was cooked to perfection. Overall the meal, with the delays and the half cooked fish was not worth the money we paid. I’ve been to a few of the other places down in that area and they are much better both service and foodwise. Overpriced… definitely. If you are in the area I suggest you try one of the other places.

On the bus there was a woman sitting in front of me reading a copy of Good Food. She skipped past the article featuring Gordon Ramsay and hovered over the Gary Rhodes article about seasonal veggies. I’ve noticed that Gary Rhodes always has the same sort of ’smile’ on his face in every photo. He’s a bit Dorian Gray isn’t he? Anyway she flipped past the ‘perfect pasta’ article and some other thing about how to make yer pastry stay flat. Now before you go all indignant on my ass and start talking about reading over people shoulders etc, I really couldn’t help but see what she was reading as she was one of these people who held her magazine up so that people three rows behind could see what she was reading. Anyway I digress.
She flipped to a page with the glaring headline ‘How we learned to cope with our childs’ terrible allergy!’ And there was a lovely photo of the family looking all healthy like.
‘Ooh’ I thought to myself ‘So what is the terrible allergy? Is it something like peanuts? Or maybe it’s something they can’t get away from like sugar or starch?’
But no, there in a little purple star was a note saying ‘All recipes are gluten and dairy free’. Ahh so the kid is lactose intolerant and has coelaic, big bloody deal.
The recipe (and quite frankly, the point of this post) was for ‘Meat Ragu with Polenta.’
Now I have a number of friends who I would consider to be serious foodie people. If you can eat it without incurring illness chances are they have tried it. But I don’t think that ANY of them like polenta.
For me the word ‘polenta’ is far too close to ‘placenta.’
Also I know of no way to make it even vaguely appetising. You see chefs struggle with it all the time on ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’.
‘Yar’ drawls the student from Yorkshire. ‘Oi’d ‘erd so much about it, I thought you cud shew me a way to cook it.’
And the chef is left to boil it and pour it out onto the plate like some sickening Italian porridge. Cos really that is all it is.

So yeah, polenta along with coleslaw and porridge - Foods of the Damned.

Well obviously I was busy with other things but here is a quick list of the books, music and other stuff that absorbed me on holiday.

Books:
War Reporting for Cowards - Chris Ayres: I picked this one up at the airport and pretty much finished it by the time I landed in Toronto. It’s pretty standard travel writing stuff. Chris Ayres was an embed in Afghanistan in 2003 and writes about his ‘Nine Day War.’ Witty in parts he doesn’t dwell on the reasons for the war, but rather how he got there and how soon he can get out.

Sideways - Rex Pickett: One muggy evening when we were too exhausted to even speak to each other we sat on the porch drinking cold beer. Mrs H was reading ‘The Quiet American’ and I picked up Sideways. I haven’t seen the movie but I knew the general gist, the basic American Road Trip story. To me the book seemed oddly uneven. The first part seemed manic, almost ‘Fear and Loathing’ with Cab Sauv. Driving, swigging wine and lots of shouting. I didn’t like either of the characters, Miles was an alcoholic and in denial about it and Jack was - not to put to fine a point on it - a prick. I couldn’t understand why either of these men were friends and it was not explained in the book. All they did was fight about wine, women and everything in between. There didn’t seem to be any reason for either of these men to hang out together and that quite frankly grated on me.

Someone comes to town, someone Leaves Town - Cory Doctorow: Yep, that bloke from Boingboing. Okay I also bought it cos the cover art is by Dave McKean. (Holy crapola I’ve definitely become a geek. I’m buying books for the cover artist now!) I read this one on the way home and it read like a Nano novel. The plots were thrown around like dirty clothes on the spin cycle. All it was missing was a few Ninja Pirates (Nanowrimo joke.) But it did have monsters, angels and murders. The one driving (and pointless) plotline was about getting Wifi into Toronto’s Kensington Market, and pretty much the whole book hung around that. Considering that Doctorow is an uber-geek and the King of Boingboing the technical shit was pretty poor, and rather outdated. (Think Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon - okay you can stop now before your head explodes.) It really should have been tighter. The ending tied up absolutely nothing, or at least there were still a few strands left hanging.

Music:
The Sadies: Saw these guys in the afternoon at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and they were really cool. On stage one brother looks like Nick Cave and the other has a sort of scruffy Bob Dylan thing going on. You can listen to some of their stuff here

Food:
A&W: Okay, forget McPuke’s and Bluergher King. If you are gonna go fast food A&W is the only way to go. I had a couple of TeenBurgers (or three) while I was there. SO MUCH BETTER than the rest. Question: They have a Teen, Momma, Poppa and Grandpa burger but what happened to Grandma eh?

Mrs H’s Grilled Salmon: She bought a half a wild salmon for under a tenner. (We’re on an island famous for salmon and it’s not that cheap!) Stuffed with dill, lemon and garlic butter then grilled on the barbecue for an hour. Absolutely delicious. Also, her homemade guacomole kicks ass.

Bison Burgers: Tastes like beef. Apparently they are now farming Bison for meat. The burgers were DAMN good.

Something jogged my memory there and it started me thinking about my grandmother and all the wonderful food she used to cook. She was a Wexford woman so she wouldn’t have been holding with that ‘Dublin Coddle’ shite. As a matter of fact, to this DAY I have never eaten coddle. I remember her kitchen as a bright sunny room and always, always smelling of goods things…

■ Blackberry Jam made from blackberries in the back garden. Eaten while still warm from the pot, with the biggest spoon we could find.
■ Colcannon with hot floury spuds and soft curly kale mashed through with tons of butter and salt.
■ Warm Apple tart, with the pastry lattice on top. Even better if the pastry had leaked a little and the apple juices had hardened and crisped on one end of the pie.
■ Sponge Cake with jam and cream dusted with icing sugar.
■ Fairy Cakes for Sunday tea, I remember the table would be crowded with plates of cheese, ham, pickled onions and beetroot and the cakes were off to the side waiting for us to finish. Sometimes the fairy cakes were butterflied with a strip of buttercream icing down the centre.
■ Minced roast beef sandwiches. She had an old fashioned meat mincer the kind that clamped to the side of the table, we had the fear of god put in us that the thing would mangle our fingers if we went anywhere near it. Pink Floyd’s video for ‘The Wall’ where the kids were thrown in the grinder gave me nightmares for years afterwards.
■ Yorkshire pudding a big one that was baked in a pie dish and sliced, it had a spongy sort of texture that was brilliant for sopping up the gravy and juices from the roast.
■ Potato cakes made from leftover boiled potatoes, flour and egg. They were rolled out flat and fried, served up with a scrape of butter.
■ Gravy that was a meal unto itself.
■ Loaves of soda bread that she cooked in a stove so old she knew exactly to the second when the bread would sound hollow.
■ Cabbage rolls stuffed with pork and seasonings. These were made for special occasions, christenings, communions etc.

In addition to all that I can also remember her elbow deep in Guinness and sultanas making the Christmas pudding, or buying silver balls for someone’s wedding cake. I would sit on the counter beside her ‘helping’ although in reality all I did was wait for her to offer me a tasting spoon. No wonder I didn’t eat my dinner.

So it really was a ’spoil ourselves rotten’ type of weekend. Myself and my travel companion decided - despite having both brought sensible footwear to deal with the cobbled streets - instead of doing the touristy things we would spend our time in the restaurants, cafes and pubs of the town. The crappy weather helped our decision, however due to some ill advised drinking on the Friday night, our Saturday was a bit of a shambles. The two of us were barely able to make it to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning, and the dolls room in the Museum of Childhood gave us both a case of the shivers - wait till you see the photo. But, our shambolic ways did not stop us from sampling the delights of a few hostelries.

Our meals included the already aforementioned Duck with Gratin dauphinoise, Venison with black pudding drizzled in chocolate sauce and lavender ice cream and chocolate torte for dessert. Adding to this list we also sampled warmed smoked salmon, Aberdeen Angus filet steak (guaranteed hung for at least 3 weeks), the loveliest lightest fish cakes, fresh scallops, goats cheese served with onion marmalade, fried camembert, flat topped mushrooms with raclette, pan fried chicken stuffed with brie, Toulouse sausages with herbed mash, tomato and pesto bread, fresh brown bread, onion bread, garlic and herb bread, a gentle carbonara with hand made pasta and a spicy beef sauce with papardelle. My companion also ate haggis (for her breakfast no less!) I, being of much more sound mind (and having tasted the vile concoction on previous visits) refused to go anywhere near it.

This gastronomique tour was washed down with bottles of red wine, ‘Moscow Mules’ cocktails, shots of Apple Sours, pints of Duechars, long vodkas and so many gin and tonics that I think my head exploded at one point.

We also stopped into Valvona and Crolla but due to time, money and waist size contraints managed to leave having sampled nothing heavier than a 10 year old balsamic vinegar.

The plethora of fudge and sweet shops tempted us time and again and we finally gave in on Sunday afternoon each buying a block of fudge from the Naffi shop on the HMS Britannia. We were also tempted to a slice of chocolate and orange cake along with the hot chocolate and chili in Plaisir du Chocolat.

I think I may have gained a few pounds.

Just back from the weekend away in Edinburgh. As we’d been there before the usual ‘trip to castle’ etc was foregone for sitting in the pubs and going to museums and galleries. Also it was pissing rain and we needed to stay indoors to keep dry.

Highlights of the trip include:
- Meal in the Witchery where we ate Venison with chocolate sauce, Duck served delightfully pink and a Chocolate torte with Lavender icecream. Also a big shout out to the group from Leeds who arrived in halfway through our mains, shouted the place down when they found out there was no pizza on the menu and asked for their Steak Tartare to be served ‘without quail’s eggs, no spices, tomato ketchup on the side… and can you please butterfly the steak and cremate it.’
- Pubs visited included the Jolly Judge, The White Hart, The Last Drop, Edwards, The Berlin BierHaus, The Rose and Crown, The Ship on the Shore, The Kings Whark, The Shore and the Kenilworth.
- Best chocolate award goes to ‘Plaisir du Chocolat’ on the Royal Mile where I had a cup of 100% chocolate served with a dash of chili powder. Very bitter, but very good.
- Attractions included the Museum of Childhood and the HMS Brittania.* Also spent an afternoon in the National Gallery and trawled through the Saturday morning Farmers Market below the Castle.

*Photos of these and further tales to follow at a later date.

I shall be eating dinner in the Witchery. On Sunday I shall be eating in Fishers.

Ha!

We wandered down to the Farmer’s Market in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday. I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch, which was a very bad idea. Coming home, we wondered why we felt weighed down and then realised we’d bought:

A loaf of crusty italian bread
A loaf of cheese, pesto and red pepper bread
Jar of cloudberry jam
Bottle of Loganberry squash
2 bottles of a grape and apple juice drink that tastes like wine
gluten free bratwurst
gluten free breakfast sausages
Pint of homemade lemonade with mint
chickpea and pepper curry
homemade (massive) onion bhaji’s
Vegetable Pakoras
Organic carrots and garlic
Vine-ripened tomatoes
Organic ‘St George’ mushrooms
A chocolate twist pastry

A very expensive Sunday afternoon. I didn’t have any money left so couldn’t buy any cheese, olives, pestos or fudge. Also there was a stall selling different types of teas, but I didn’t get a chance to try any of those. A lot of the stallholders can be found in the other markets around Dublin. (A full listing here of the farmer’s markets and here for the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Coco Markets.)

Don’t go when you’re hungry… or do, but make sure you have money.

Kaloo Kalay!
Oh Frabjous Day!

Yesterday I was all grumpy about the change in pastries in the little coffee shop across the road. None could console me, none could deter the thoughts in my wicked heart. But today I am a bright and shiny happy thing. I have found my mecca, my Valhalla, my own private Idaho, er. Ok, maybe not that last one but I have found a place where the pastries are sweet and flaky, where the pain au chocolat is warm and buttery. Ask and you shall recieve, they say. So I asked the universe and it responded with the kiosk on Leeson Bridge.
Oh joy! oh Bliss!
I am snarfing down an almond croissant as I type, please forgive the butterfingered typos.
And as my tenuous love for humanity is restored so, by default, is the fate of the world.
I shall not Destroy you today my loves.