Archive for January 30th, 2006
Postie Plug-in now works with Vodafone MMS e-mail
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Pictures, Technology, Wordpress.
Big big thanks to Dirk over at Economy Size Geek. E-mails with picture attachments sent from my Nokia on the Vodafone Ireland network to this blog were not working with his plug-in. He says that the format from Vodafone is crazy. But he got it working! He is an absolute star for putting all of that effort in to get his code working for one user. Now I just need to get a phone that can take decent pictures…
[tags]Wordpress, Postie, Economy Size Geek, Vodafone Ireland, MMS, Nokia 6230[/tags]
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Davida Tapas Bar – Reason enough to stop in Bandon
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon, Cork, Restaurants, Reviews.
A few Saturdays ago, myself and the worlds most understanding wife headed out to the new Tapas Bar in Bandon. I know, I know, you don’t often hear the words Tapas and Bandon in the same sentence, but bear with me.
Davida is in a fantastic location on Patrick’s Quay in Bandon looking out on the little river (the Bride?) rather than the Bandon itself. There are a few tables out the front for the warmer days and there is a heated area outside at the back too.
The room is dominated by the main bar where all of the food and drink is prepped. The menu is short but everything sounds tasty. The main problem we had was trying to figure out how to tackle the menu. Most people will presumably be just going for light snacks and a few glasses of wine whereas I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was starving.
We asked the very friendly and helpful person in charge (Liz?) for her opinion. She suggested to start with something small, then to try one of the specials. So we went with a small bowl of just-right olives and then had the basque chicken which was excellent. Bit by bit we worked through the menu. The big advantage of the tapas idea is that each person can give up when they are full so Catherine faded before me. The meatballs were superb – as good as my own with the addition of some chilli. And the duck pate was stunningly good.
I have no idea how “authentic” the food is in Davida. I should really check out La Boquiera in Cork city for comparison. But I’m not remotely bothered if it isn’t. The quality of every dish was just right and suited our palates to a tee. What Vivian the owner has created is a really compelling alternative to the pub or big restaurant night out. We spent the night drinking the house red and it was excellent.
One thing that really impressed me was how Vivian has created a menu where all the dishes can be done with a cooler unit, a toaster oven and a microwave. All of the things like meatballs are obviously prepared ahead of time and heated on demand with the other dishes assembled as required. She is right to keep a strictly limited menu with nightly specials and I’m looking forward to seeing what else she comes up with. Anything with chorizo or jamon serrano gets my vote.
The only vaguely negative comment I would make is that a lot of customers are probably going to be clueless like ourselves and maybe an “introductory paragraph” in the menu might reduce some anxiety people would have about looking stupid and not knowing how to order.
We were originally worried that maybe it was a step too far for Bandon which to date has not exactly trail-blazed in the area of restaurants. When we arrived at 6.30 on a Saturday evening, we were the first customers. We purposely sat in the window with the aim to encourage others in. By 8.00 some more had joined and by 9.30 it was full. We were thrilled for Vivian and complimented her hugely on her venture. She has identified a genuine pent-up demand for a different way to spend an evening locally. It is also the sort of place that you might pop into at the start and/or end of a night to have a wee tipple and a snack.The lunch menu looks very appealing too and sunday brunch also looks pretty damned fine. I think we’ll be making more use of the services of our local baby-sitters over the next few months!If you do mention Davida to anyone, be very clear in how you say Tapas. Several people thought we now had Bandon’s first topless bar!
We just loved the whole idea of being able to pace your own meal. It suits everyone from the person in a rush who just wants a quick snack and a coffee to someone who feels like a few glasses of wine out of the house to those looking for a full nights food and drink.
Bandonians – support a great local business and eat, drink or have a coffee there today. Anyone heading to West Cork – do yourselves a big favour, skip the bypass road and stop at Davida to top up on some lovely nibbles before the last leg of your trip.
[tags]tapas, Davida, Patricks’s Quay[/tags]
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Danano’s in Derry – Nice Italianish food with incredible value
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Restaurants, Reviews.
Eating out in Derry on a Saturday night without a booking proved to be a bigger challenge than the NI Peace Process. Eoin’s unique understanding of local restaurant booking dynamics (all that chemical engineering process training didn’t go to waste) meant that most places quoted us up to two hours waiting time at around 8pm.
We put our names down in a few spots and retired to the pub for some pints. Smoking ban down South, yadda yadda, changed my mind, yadda yadda, stinky clothes following morning, yadda yadda, wife mentions stinky hair, yadda yadda, dunno, don’t have any, yadda yadda.
About 9.30, we finally got into Danano’s which is a 130 seater Italian-style joint. Big menu built around the usual fare of pizza and pasta but with plenty of little surprises to make it interesting. It is BYOB so we grabbed three bottles of wine in the pub (less than £30 in a pub – wow).
We shared three starters between six of us; Seafood selection, nachos and bruschetta. All were excellent and the seafood selection in particular was stunning value – salad, olives. whitebait, prawns on the shell and calamari for less than £4! Tasty too.
Most people went with pizza for mains which looked lovely. I had chicken cacciatore and salad which was nothing awesome but still perfectly good.
In total we had three starters, six mains and corkage for three wines. How much? £59. Holy crap! Makes you realise how much we are over-paying down south.
Good solid food, tasty, well made, fast service and dirt cheap. Check it out if you are up yonder.
[tags] Danano’s, Italian food, Derry, Rip-Off Ireland[/tags]
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Mickey D’s – From not bad to bloody hell
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Food, Friends, Reviews.
We pop in to McDonald’s in Roscrea on most trips from Bandon to Cavan. It is about half way and the kids are usually starving at that stage. It’s a wee bit small and parking is a hassle but it is one of the best run ones in the country. They have one of those “helper” people permanently on the floor mainly doing clean-up but also offering to mind kids if you need to order the food or go to the loo. The food is fine and the place is always spotless.
On the way back from LondonDerry (how much trouble am I in for writing that 
) we were targeting McD’s in Athlone which isn’t as good as Roscrea but is usually fine. But Fionn couldn’t wait that long and we pit-stopped at the one in Cavan. We’ve been in it several times before and it has never really impressed. Always feels like there is no-one really in control. This time was shockingly bad. The place was empty on arrival so all of the staff were chatting. The young-fella who took the order was fine – and he was the highlight.
The baby high-chairs were filthy. I dropped some fries on the floor on the way to the table and they stayed in full view of all for the entire meal. The mens toilets were filthy and had no toilet roll. I also didn’t see a cleaning schedule pinned up anywhere. No cleaning was done in the main seating area for our entire visit. Bloody awful. Was there even a manager on duty?
This McD’s is usually very busy and my guess is that they have come to the conclusion that they don’t need to try to excel at all since the business comes in anyway. A recipe for disaster. This is exactly the reason that McDonald’s as a corporation got into so much trouble. They raced towards the bottom of the market, concentrating entirely on cost and forgetting that they need to keep customers happy. It is the same mistake Dell are making with the corner-cutting on quality at the moment and I’ve a feeling RyanAir are also going to hit a tipping point where customers say “no more”. But this will probably not be until Michael O’Leary decides to transport cattle in the main cabin along with people.
I heard a fantastic quote on “The Restaurant Guys” podcast last week (well worth listening to these guys) where they repeated an old saying: “In the restaurant business, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse”. I think that applies to all business.
I know I’m only talking about fast food but McD’s really seemed to be getting their act together recently. Good coffee, nice variations on burgers, some variety in the Happy Meals. Let’s hope Cavan is just one bad franschisee and not a trend.
On a side note, after the hell of the Maxol Coffee we stopped in Supermacs in Fermoy so Catherine could change Fionn. This is another place that always looks dirty but to be fair to them, the service was excellent, the chicken tenders were genuinely tasty (real chicken, possibly from Ulan Bator but real chicken all the same) and the coffeee was good. Their adult loos were fine but the changing area for babies was flithy.
Oh god, am I turning into the Sunday World’s Pub Spy? Is that newspaper column still going?
Whilst I am at it, any recommendations for Child friendly places to stop on the N62-N55 that are not too close to Cork or Cavan. Needs to be speedy, have clean loos, child-changing facilities, better food than McD’s, not require a detour and be helpful if you do have four monsters. I don’t ask for much do I 
[tags] McDonalds, Roscrea, Athlone, Cavan, The Restaurant Guys, Supermacs Fermoy[/tags]
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Bandon to Derry – Nearly Mizen to Malin
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Friends.
We finally did it. Up to Derry to visit the Pierce’s. On the way up we over-nighted with Mary in Cavan and then arrived at Saturday lunchtime. Incredible location looking out over the Foyle. Great weekend.
On Sunday we braced ourselves for the return journey. There were three options – some bizarre route via Tuam suggested by AAIreland, via Dublin suggested by Eoin or back the way we came via Cavan.
We plumped for the latter but I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has other suggestions. We did Derry-Lifford-Strabane-Omage-Enniskillen-Belturbet-Cavan-Athlone-Roscrea-Cashel-Cork-Bandon. With two shortish pit-stops in Cavan and Fermoy, it took the guts of 8 hours to do it.
The N62-N55 backbone through Ireland is the main route from deep south to far north. Maybe it’s time to consider the first Motorway that does not head towards Dublin? In some places, it is so narrow that trucks have to come to almost a full stop in order to pass each other.
[tags] Cork-Derry Motorway Petition, Ireland’s roads[/tags]
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The all-time worst cup of coffee I have ever tasted
Posted on January 30, 2006, by Conor O'Neill, under Cork, Food.
Congratulations to Myer’s Maxol Garage in Mitchelstown. Without doubt the most disgusting, undrinkable excuse for a cup of coffee we have ever bought. I have to wonder if they are using mud in the machine rather than coffeee beans. I’ve had some pretty dire coffee over the years. What some Greek cafes did to Nescafe when I was there in 1988 should be banned under the Geneva Convention but they were better than the thing we had yesterday.
As for the toilets – I think the Monkey’s from Madagascar got there first expecting a Tom Wolfe reading. For those of you who haven’t seen Madagascar, think Trainspotting instead……
[tags] Myer’s Maxol, Mitchelstown, Coffee, Nescafe[/tags]
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