I like it, a lot. Needs a little bit more oomph to stand up to fish tho.

I was given this heavy tome by the publishers to review and months later I’m finally getting my thoughts down. Whilst it is a fantastic collection of recipes and information that all Irish cooks should own, I fear that along with Darina’s Forgotten Skills of Cooking, we are looking at our past.

The author Colman Andrews is a very well known food-writer and co-founder of the famed Saveur magazine in the US. This may look like a coffee-table staple but it is genuinely jammed with lots of recipes that could easily have been lost forever.

It’s clear reading the book that Colman is not claiming to be an expert in Irish food since he defers to many of the Irish greats like Darina and profiles some of our Irish food heroes like Anthony down the road in Ummera. The only time this becomes a problem is when he refers to things being very common when I know that they are small-scale and highly-localised. The perfect example is fraughan gathering. This is presented as something many people do. The reality is that 95% of the population would have no idea what a fraughan is and most of those live in boggy country areas. Their parents or grandparents may have gathered them but they are now buying Chilean strawberries in SuperValu.

This leads to the biggest problem I ran into when reading it. Quite simply it does not reflect mainstream current Irish eating or food. It is a lens on our food history and it tells us what foodies, Slow Food people and gurus like Myrtle or Darina are interested in, but it has no relationship to where most people are now.

My mother was flicking through it recently and ran into a word I had never heard of: stir-about. It’s an old word for porridge. Neither she nor my father had heard it for decades. This is a perfect example of what we are losing as we “modernize”.

I don’t see this as a problem with the book, I see it as a problem with us. Is our future going to be 100% Tesco-ized? Everything pre-prepared, cooked and packaged? Or Tesco-Finest for those with money? Is U.S.-style obesity heading our way? Is the idea of cooking with incredibly small budgets using things like cheap cuts of meat gone and replaced with take-aways and extruded shapes?

Anyone who reads this blog know I love food and love seeing artisan produce do well but at the back of my mind I worry we have gone from “proper food” being something everyone ate, due to economic necessity, to something utterly middle-class and slightly sniffy.

The current recession should be an opportunity for this type of cooking to come back but the skills are gone. Is there any hope? What could be done in the education system to bring these skills back?

Having stupid men on the sides of buses telling us how easy it is to cook certainly isn’t the answer either. How about replacing compulsory Irish in schools with compulsory cooking? Imagine a government doing something audacious now to solve a future health epidemic whilst finally admitting failure in an 80 year language effort.

Apologies for such a negative post about such a great book but I think I’ve been depressed since watching Food Inc. Movies like that along with efforts like Jamie Oliver’s and Hugh F-W’s are mainly just preaching to the converted. How do we convert those who could benefit most from a return to the past?

Colman’s book is not the solution but at least it is helping to preserve the knowledge.

In case the review was lost in my brain-dump above, this is a superb book. If you want a broad sweep of traditional Irish cooking you should buy it.

With a single episode, the greatest TV show RTE have made about food in at least 25 years. Martin Shanahan jumps out of the screen, grabs you by the scruff of the neck and demands that you watch him and start loving fish.

After decades of dreary formulaic yawn inducing food programmes on Irish TV or worse, the “crayzzzzze kooky” shows, someone in RTE finally saw an episode of Jamie Oliver and realised what was missing – personality.

Where has Martin been hiding all this time? In the kitchens of the rightly legendary Fishy Fishy in Kinsale? He’s a force of nature. He is everything that made Darina a legend – knowledge,passion, humour. But he goes far beyond that, he’s an absolute TV natural. He belongs in front of the camera. Dammit he _owns_ the camera.

Honestly, I was rivetted for 30 minutes. It is perfect food TV. This show doesn’t just have potential, this could go global. With sub-titles of course. Joke joke!

And the fish, lord the fish. We’re not having our regular Friday Chicken Tikka Masala tonight, we are doing the mackerel dish that Martin showed instead. He had that much impact. And that’s the other thing, every bloody RTE food show tells you how to do dinner party food. Who the hell has dinner parties? Martin shows you how to cook gorgeous tasty healthy food quickly, for you!

If you missed the first episode, kick yourself hard and just be thankful RTE now has it on the RTE Player (even if it built on the proprietary dying Realplayer technology, but that’s a topic for another blogpost).

Hopefully this show will also be the kick up the arse Kinsale needs to start living up again to its long-undeserved 1970s “Gourmet Capital of Ireland” tag. Quick, name five places in Kinsale you would travel an hour to eat in. Exactly.

Top Chef is the only food TV show for years that I actively look forward to seeing each week. Martin Shanahan has created a second.

We recently discovered this shop as it seems to be the only one in a few hundred miles of Bandon that sells Sodastream gas refills. Catherine popped down a few weeks ago to get two refills and raved about the place. I drove down yesterday to have a look and get some of the Sodastream flavours.

They are just at the top of town on the main street, impossible to miss. I went in with 4 of our monsters so couldn’t spend as much time as I’d like. Suffice to say, if you like cookware or kitchenware, you’ll adore this shop. It is jammed with tons and tons of everything you could possibly need in a kitchen. In just a few minutes I got my Sodastream flavours (highly recommend that you start using this 1970s classic again to save yourself a fortune. Also less damaging to the environment!), spatula, pouring nozzles for oil, bun cases and oven thermometer. The owners were extremely friendly and helpful too.

The highlight for us all was this coffee maker. Slightly out of our budget but a wonderful design.

The Cookware Company is worth a drive no matter where you are in Cork.

I popped into the fish shop in Bantry today and spotted these. A fully sealed pack of live local mussels. I have long lamented the lack of fresh shellfish in shops in Cork and now they have no excuse. All you need is a cooler cabinet with no need for special shellfish expertise or having to deal with smells or things going off. These could literally be sold in every garage and convenience shop in the country.

Not only is it easier for shops but mussels are the ultimate fast food. All I did this evening was open the pack, rinse them, throw out the ones that were still open and cook them. Cooking consisted of chopping some garlic and onion, cooking that for a sec, lobbing in a ton of wine, one more minute, lob in the mussels, 4 minutes, add some cream, serve. Probably less that 15 minutes from taking pack out of fridge to eating my dinner.

And wow were these fresh. I could still smell and taste that seaside ozone without a hint of fishiness.

Demand these from every shop you frequent that limits itself to selling fish fingers.

It’s time to put Masterchef out to pasture. I’m watching an average show in about 10 minutes using Sky+. The formula isn’t working any more. No tension, no excitement, the same stupid catchphrases. Cooking doesn’t get any harder than this. Yeah, it does.

Scallops. If I see one more bleedin scallop on that show, I’ll explode. Fabio Viviani, in the far superior US show Top Chef, described the same problem perfectly back in January 2009:

And to prove the point yesterday, whilst bent over double in pain from a tummy bug, I lashed this together in 5 minutes, and I’m not even a good cook!

So Greg and John. Time to re-invent Top Chef again or give it up. I don’t know what the viewing figures are like but the ways it’s going, the contestants will be shown working in a chipper in the next season.

The recent review of CX Oriental by Messy Chef was the final push I needed to check this place out today after months of saying I must. It’s just fantastic. If you have ever raved about Asia Market in Dublin, this is 10x better.

If you have driven past Kinsale Road Roundabout in the past few months you can’t have missed the huge signs for CX Oriental Cash and Carry. Whilst Cork has had the brilliant Mr Bell’s in The English Market for years, it suffers from lack of space and the awkwardness of getting to it so this morning I finally made the trip to the Cash and Carry.

It’s pretty easy to find. Head past Harvey Normans off the Kinsale Road Roundabout, take the left at the lights onto Tramore Road and watch out for the many signs. My first surprise (and relief) was that they take credit cards. My second was that they have a noodle bar restaurant there open 7 days a week which was hopping.

The place is massive. It starts with a lot of huge freezers filled with all sorts of fish, meat and desserts. I got some tiger prawns and some spring roll sheets.

The fresh produce area and fridge is small but jammed full of stuff you just won’t get elsewhere including veg I’ve never seen before, multiple types of tofu, chillis, enoki mushrooms, mangoes and drinks. The fresh fish section looked awesome too but I didn’t get anything today.

I put together a list of ingredients from Rick Stein’s new Far Eastern book and found everything on it with no problems. They also obviously sell in bulk to restaurants and had lots of the Musgraves type things like foil containers and cups, in addition to woks, chopsticks, strainers, steamers etc.

Not much else to say except if you are doing any sort of Far Eastern cooking then it will be hard to keep you away from the place. The value is also stunningly good compared to supermarkets.

Here are some pictures I took whilst shopping:

We were recently taken out to dinner by my parents and decided to try the Malt House Granary in Clonakilty. We had only been once before, 5 years ago, and had not liked the heavy food. But a recent review which highlighted the new ownership made us want to try again. And oh boy were we glad we did.

We like eating very early and sat down at 7.30 to a totally empty restaurant which had me worried. I needn’t have. By 9pm they were turning people away at the door.

The menu is a great mix of local produce with a strong focus on fish and shellfish. Finally a restaurant in West Cork that offers something other than 5 different types of white fish!

As with other great meals I have had recently (like in Fenn’s Quay), I’ll let the pictures do the talking below. In summary, superb cooking with fantastic deep savoury flavours and a lightness of touch.

The portion sizes were on the overly-large size but the value was amazing. Where most places seem to try and get €22+ for mains, they were mid-teens for almost everything. We all raved about the food but were bursting at the seams as we left. We agreed that a main+coffee would make a fantastic early quick filling dinner for little more than you’d pay in a thousand crappy restaurants all over Ireland.

On the drive back through Clon we spotted several other restaurants that looked almost empty. If they want to stay in business, they should study what Elaine McCarthy and her team are doing in the Malt House Granary. It’s simple to say but hard to do: “fantastic fresh food, cooked with skill and sold with value in mind”.

I think I’ve found my new favourite fish restaurant in Ireland. Yes it is that good.

This won’t be a long review, it doesn’t need to be. Fenn’s Quay gave us a fantastic meal last Saturday night with wonderful service in a lovely room. You can’t ask for more than that.

My lovely parents were down in Cork for the weekend for the GAA thingy and offered to bring Catherine and me out for a meal. We’d heard great things about Fenn’s Quay from my sister and Julian Alubaidy and, wanting somewhere new to us, booked it.

Luckily we found parking at the door of the Mardyke and walked the few yards to the unassuming door. Inside was quite large and broken into two rooms. The service from the very first minute was friendly, light-hearted and helpful, exactly the way I like it.

I was thrilled to see they were quite busy for the entire night but that didn’t impact on us at all. The menu had something for everyone but for whatever reason we all picked fish mains and 3/4 picked fish starters.

To go with the meal, diligent wine-student Catherine picked a lovely Sancerre which improved quickly with opening.

I need say little more other than to highlight that this is in the top tier of restaurants in the country and if you are in Cork it should be top of your list to try. Whilst other local establishments appear to be resting on their laurels, Fenn’s Quay isn’t letting-up for a minute. The pictures can do the rest of the talking.

This isn’t good food, it’s fantastic food. The Irish have forgotten the power of preserving and this is a big wake-up call. Lip-smackingly gorgeous duck confit that is an absolute bargain and a doddle to prepare.

Disclosure: I received several of these products for free and did not pay delivery.

Quite a while back Laurent of Confit de France contacted me and a bunch of other foodie bloggers about his new ecommerce store which was selling a variety of preserved French foods including confit, pate, rillettes and foie gras. (yeah yeah vegans, we’ve heard it all before, do something useful and go annoy someone about battery chickens instead).

Laurent was particularly excited by the confit and I went to order some. Unfortunately whilst the products themselves were great value, the delivery was very expensive if you didn’t order a lot. Therefore Laurent offered to send me some for free to try out. The great news is that since then, he has dropped the price of delivery by a huge amount and everything is now a bargain.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying the various things he sent me and I’ll mention them all. But first, the duck. I got a large four-portion tin which was filled to the brim with duck fat. I poured off the fat and the gelatin and put the four very large legs into a frying pan.

I kept them on the heat until they were hot through and the skin had started to crisp up. However I think the oven method would be better for crisping and will try that the next time.

We just had it with a simple green salad and it was stunning. When you see how expensive duck breast is and how many times I’ve messed up the cooking of it, these confit legs are a doddle and more tasty in many ways. The fat makes amazing roast spuds too!

The other products I got were as follows:

• Goose Rillettes: I discovered the joy of rillettes at Taste of Cork and had tons of it on holidays in France. It’s basically pate with the meat shredded rather than pureed. Gorgeous on toast.
   
• Confit Duck in Orange: The duck and sauce were excellent but there wasn’t enough fondant potatoes.



• Cassoulet de Castelnaudary: This is a classic cassoulet with goose confit, sausage and beans. Very tasty and filling.



• Foie Gras: Not eaten yet. Will report back.

As I mentioned above, we seem to have forgotten the importance and usefulness of preserving. With all the money people were making in recent years, it was like curing/pickling/preserving/canning were somehow from our poor past. Apart from bacon, all we wanted were expensive cuts of meat or stupidly priced “premium” ready meals.

The tin of baked beans is one of the most perfect food products ever. Our holidays in France reminded us of all the other things like duck confit and casoulet which came from poverty and lack of freezers but which are now pinnacles of gourmet food.

I hope one of the upsides of this recession is that we look again at our past and start learning how to cook the cheaper tastier cuts of meats, how to use pulses and grains, how to use preserved goods and how to live on a budget whilst still eating beautiful food.

Some might think this is the wrong time to be launching a site like Laurent’s. I disagree, I can’t think of a better time.

I was given this lovely book for Christmas 2007 and finally finished it last month. What initially appears to be a coffee-table resident turned out to be one of the best books on food I’ve ever read.

The title says it all. This is a book about pork. Every single bit of the pig gets a mention and use. The author, Stéphane Reynaud is the grandson of a village butcher from the Ardeche plateau in France. He runs a restaurant near Paris that specialises in Pork. I want to eat there!

The recipes themselves are fantastic but so too are the notes, anecdotes and pictures and people. This is a book centered on the relationship between a community and its food. The way it is sectioned up is unusual but it works. The “chapters” are as follows:

• Pig-killing time at Saint-Agreve
• Black Pudding Recipes
• For the love of Sausages
• Sausage Recipes
• Hamming it up
• Ham Recipes
• Pates and Terrines
• Jacquy’s terrine
• Granny Pig
• Barbecued Pig
• A piggy Party
• Wild Boar

It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a cookery book which stirred up such desire to cook but this did it. Whilst I know recession-talk is starting to wear people down, this book will hopefully be part of a return to cooking cheap tasty food with a bit of soul.

We’ve had a couple of very good reviews of Mio on LouderVoice and finally got a chance to try it out last Sunday. A brilliant meal in a beautiful but shockingly empty restaurant. We’ll be back soon.

Granny Mary shooed us out the door at 5pm on Sunday and we tootled down to Clon to Mio’s. Owned by the same people as the brilliant Gleenson’s, it is two doors up and upstairs.

The room is beautifully done with a nice Italian feel to the whole place. It was empty on arrival so we got the full attention of the very friendly waiter. A couple of Italian Moretti beers saw us through the meal and we had a hard time deciding what to pick. Both the main menu and specials looked good but with quite run-of-the-mill descriptions, which as as discovered when the food arrived, didn’t do it justice at all.

Catherine had a fantastic pate to start and I had pasta-wrapped prawns with a saffron aioli. Both with very good salad with a tasty dressing.

For main I had the Capricciosa pizza which had anchovies, capers, olives and an egg. One of the best pizzas I’ve eaten in the past ten years. Catherine had a classic Caesar sald with chicken. She couldn’t finish it, it was so big. Lovely leaves and dressing, beautifully moist chicken. She didn’t go for the whole anchovies in it tho. Might be best to mention as an option to people.

Two excellent double espressos finished the evening and we were out off home, fully sated.

Unfortunately not one other person came in whilst we were there. I so hope this was a timing thing and not a regular occurrence since Clon needs a place like this that serves great food in a relaxed setting. I am concerned that the menu outside gives no hint of the high quality of the food and could be mistaken for an Eddie Rockets style place. The prices are a little high but then I say that about everywhere.

If you like great pizza and great food in general but want it in a lovely relaxed welcoming setup then Mio is worth a detour. Next time I’m trying the burger.

A brilliant gift of a cookery course in Dunbrody by my fabulous sister-in-law Paula led to one of the best day’s out I’ve had in ages.  Interesting and enjoyable in every way without a dull moment in a gorgeous location.

We did our annual extended family meet-up on the August Bank Holiday weekend in Rosslare recently. On Friday morning I borrowed my mother’s car and drove the 45 minute journey to Arthurstown near the ferry in Ballyhack.

For some silly reason I thought Dunbrody was just a cookery school and restaurant but soon discovered it is a hotel and spa too. I arrived on the dot of 9.30 to find just two other people there; a B&B owner and a GP, both of whom were very friendly. A moment later, Edward, our teacher, swooped in to start our day of “Light Lunches”. I have to say that the guy was just wonderful for the whole session. Tons of energy, knowledge and anecdotes. He’s just finished a cookery book which will be launched soon. Keep an eye out for it: “Entertaining with Edward”. I wish I had been that accomplished at the age of 26!

My only tiny disappointment on the day was realising that it was all demos with no hands on. This is inevitable given the size and layout of the room but I do love to get stuck in. My concern that I might get bored just watching proved totally unfounded. Edward’s manner and approach made sure we didn’t even suffer the mid-afternoon lull.

The list of things he made was extensive and there wasn’t a clunker among them. I would just love to be able to multi-task the way that he did. He did the following:

Traditional Brown Soda Bread: This was lovely and nutty. Not as good as my mothers but still great.

Fresh Basil Pesto: For some reason I have never made pesto. This was one of the best I’ve had.

Crab Croquettes with Sweet Chilli Jam: Whilst I’ll definitely be making the croquettes again, the jam just made me feel stupid. I cannot believe how easy it is to make and how much better it was than any bought jar. This is going to be one of my regular creations from now on.

Smoked Haddock and Rocket Tart: One of the absolute highlights of the day. If you love fish pie, this makes a quicker and lighter alternative

Cheese and Bacon Quesadillas: Simple and tasty as hell. Will be trying this on the kids. Total winner.

Fish en paupilotte: This genuinely shocked me. I love smoked salmon, I detest cooked fresh salmon, it makes me gag. Yet somehow, this tasted beautiful and I scoffed the lot. Another ultra-easy meal which will be a future regular.

Mild Cajun Chicken: Lovely and juicy in a yoghurt coating
Classic Italian Meatballs: Excellent but not a patch on my own The mince mix would make fantastic burgers or meatloaf.
Vegetarian Roulade with Spinach: The least favourite for the three of us but still good. Some of the intended ingredients were not delivered on the day which is a pity as I can imagine how much better it would have been.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad: Using roasted veg and some of the pesto, this is perfect BBQ food.
Meringue Roulade with Summer Berries and Toasted Almonds: Should be illegal. We had it for our elevenses and it was light as a feather and totally delish.

Edward also gave us two tours of the kitchen gardens which were a joy to see. Jammed with every sort of veg, fruit and herb. If only I had the acerage and the time!

I was chuffed to get a branded apron and Kevin Dundon’s latest book as I left. This course won’t teach you amazing new techniques if you are already a solid home chef but it will give you tons of ideas for tasty interesting family meals. It’s also a perfect day of relaxation and fun.

Full set of photos from the day including geo-tagged ones on Flickr.

The offer of a free box of these sauces was irresistable and we have spent the past few months trying them in a variety of different ways. Whilst our weak-willed Irish palates found the hotter ones just too hot, the depth of flavour is just fantastic. If only they had an Irish distributor!

Back in January I got a comment on a very old post from 2006 that I did about buffalo wings. I had used the famous Frank’s Hot Sauce and mentioned that I was a little disappointed by it. Mark Stirling from Branding Iron Foods offered to ship me a box of their sauces all the way from Washington State to try out. I was stunned and of course I accepted.

In no time at all, a box arrived with nine big bottles in it. Three each of EZ Earl’s Blazin Hot Stuff, Smokin Hot Stuff and Spicy Sauces. Mark told me that they have been refining the recipe in these sauces for generations. I couldn’t wait to try them out and immediately tried the hottest (Blazin) on a tray of chicken pieces in the oven. It blew my face off. Seriously, this makes vindaloo curry taste like a korma!

Over the next while we tried out all three levels of heat both at home and on some of my extended family. It turns out we are all a bunch of big girl’s blouses and the lowest heat (Spicy) is our favourite. All three work brilliantly well on buffalo wings but the hottest is just too hot for us in things like pitta kebabs.

But heat shouldn’t be the main focus of this review, it should be taste. These sauces deliver that in bucketloads. There is a phenomenal depth of flavour that far exceeds anything I have tried before. In particular, the Spicy one gives you the opportunity to really get the notes of all the ingredients.

All of the sauces have smoke in them which I guess is traditional in the US? This is perfect for all those BBQ sutuations but I’d love one more member of the product family to be created without the smoke so it can be used in an even wider variety of situations where you need to add a strong spicy undertone to a dish.

Whilst using the sauce instead of Tabasco in a Prawn Cocktail might seem a bit odd, trust me, it works so so well. I actually find myself looking for unusual ways of using the sauce, it really is that good.

My gut tells me that the hottest level would not sell in Ireland and that the best seller would actually be the Spicy. But I do think it would be a best seller. If any Deli or Gourmet shop here is looking for unique products to import, you really should look at these. I’d be happy to put you in touch with Mark.

Now all we need is some decent weather so I can get some BBQ done!

UPDATE 1: The first ever OpenCoffeeClub BBQ was held in Terryglass, Co Tipperary on the shores of Lough Derg recently. I decided to test out the Blazin and Smokin sauces on the attendees. I got a few kilos of wings, some bone-in chicken breasts and some massive pork chops from the excellent Dan Moloney’s butchers in Bandon. I put each of them in ziplock bags and emptied bottles of the hottest sauce on the chicken and the less hot on the chops. They went in the fridge overnight and then were transported in a cooler box to the BBQ.

Due to the bad state of the grill near the venue, the food was actually cooked in some ovens. But boy were they popular! People descended on them like ravenous wolves. The feedback was all positive and contradicted what I said earlier about heat, no-one found them too hot, they thought they were perfect! Marinating them and then dry roasting them seemed to have mellowed the heat compared to wet cooking. The depth of smokey flavour came right through. Very memorable wings.

A last minute decision to pop down here for Sunday lunch turned out to be a total success. Fantastic seafood in a relaxed atmosphere with serene views of Clonakilty Bay. If they could just do something about parking, it would be perfect.

I’ve eaten in Deasy’s once before and thoroughly enjoyed it. For some reason they popped into my head this morning and I hopped into the car with four of the five monsters to see if they were still doing Sunday Lunch. The usual crawl to Clon ensued followed by the twisty road to Ring.

I knew the parking had been bad but time had dulled my memory. It’s brutal. Four spaces in front of the pub and then you have to travel a few hundred yards to find a roadside spot. Fine as an adult, a total pain (and dangerous) if you have kids. I had to circle three times before parking. Just in case, I ran down and discovered that they didn’t open for lunch until 1. So we headed over to the newly revamped playground in Clon. This looks great but now seems much more oriented towards older kids. My middle-uns were scared to climb the ladders to the slides.

Back we trotted to Ring and luckily one of the four spaces was free and we parked right at the door. It was still pretty quiet at 1pm but people arrived bit by bit over the following hour. We were seated towards the back which made sense from a safety perspective. The staff and owner were very friendly throughout. The lack of a baby-seat was a bit of a pain but not the end of the world. After seeing the usual stroppiness of our four demons, they gave us some crayons and colouring sheets which calmed everyone down.

The menu is a big step above what you’d expect from a rural Irish pub. The three course lunch menu is €30 and looks great value to me. However, as our family meals are all about speed, I went straight to the main courses. Initially I was concerned that there was nothing very child-friendly on the menu but then I copped myself on and realised they should be eating the same stuff as me.

So I ordered three half portions of Monkfish and Fennel Risotto with puttanesca salsa for them and a Hake with Lemon Butter and Swiss Chard for me. They arrived reasonably quickly on adult stopwatches but an eternity in kid-time. I tried to explain “cooking on demand” to the kids but failed.

Of course all them said “yeuch, I’m not eating that” as soon as the plates were put on the table. Rather than get hassled, I let them be and started on my hake. Never ones to miss an opportunity to annoy me, two of them asked to taste the hake and both decided they loved it, the little sods. I split mine between them and then took over their plates of risotto. Dishes of lovely baby spuds and one of the best selections of vegetables I’ve ever seen in an Irish restaurant appeared too.

Myself and the two middlers had a bit of everything. Baby would eat nothing. 2 year old wouldn’t touch anything until near the end, at which point he let me feed him a mix of fish, risotto, carrots and spuds.

Oh, I nearly forgot to say, the food was fantastic. The fish perfectly cooked, the flavours subtle and not overpowering, the vegetables beautiful. Apologies for the lack of pics and menu details but I really had my hands full.

The two boys began messing too loudly so it was time to go. The bill for the food plus three 7-ups and a Ballygowan came to a refreshingly low €53. We’ll be back very soon avec wife and fifth child so I can sample more and have both hands available to eat with.

Thrilled to find a nice new local place with good tasty well-priced unpretentious food which I think will suit our family perfectly. I’ve also heard good things from several others.

Italistro opened several months ago and immediately caught my eye because, despite being on a street I rarely visit, they advertised on the side of the building in their lovely brand colours and I see it every time I go through town. However months passed and I still hadn’t tried it.

Today I went for lunch with two of the cool Newsweaver people, Denise and Jennifer and decided to check it out. The decor and colour scheme really catch your eye, they’ve done a superb job. I had been worried about them doing sit-down and takeaway but the areas are separated well.

There was no-one there at 12.45 for lunch which surprised me. We got the lunch menus and I saw a lot I’d be happy having. A good general mix of pasta, pizza, burgers, chicken etc. One thing leaped off the page for me, a meatball/mozzarella/salami pannini. I bloody love meatballs so I had to have it. The others picked pizzas.

The food took quite a while to arrive but where pizza is involved I’m happy to wait. My pannini hit the spot, yum! The price had originally seemed high to me at €9.50 but when the plate arrived with a full bowl of chips and a big bowl of proper salad and tasty dressing, I realised it was a bargain. Reports on the pizzas were good too and they looked gorgeous. We finished off with some good coffees in very sexy cups.

The lack of custom worried me but I was assured it is hoppin at night which I was happy to hear. We have to get our childer fed and watered on Friday before we head off for a quick night away and I’m definitely heading down to Italistro with them.

Bandon is just getting better and better for food. Now all we need is Yo Sushi to open and I’ll be a very happy bunny.

An unsatisfying mix of excellent food and wine with haphazard service and crazy pricing. The most expensive meal we’re ever had but sadly not the best.

Regular readers of the blog know that I was blown away by the documentary on Dylan McGrath getting his Michelin star for Mint. When my parents gave me a 40th birthday present of a meal for two there, I was gobsmacked and couldn’t wait to go. We finally got there last weekend and left a few hours later confused and unsatisfied.

Mint is based in what I think used to be a fish shop/deli in Ranelagh in Dublin. Whilst Ranelagh has moved on from it’s Chew n Chat and Pat Grace’s Famous Fried Chicken roots, it still feels like student-land to me. First impressions on arriving at the restaurant were poor since they have kept the old crappy shop-door that you’d expect to see in a Qik-E-Mart.

The rest of this review will mention Petrus here and there. Why? Because it is also a Michelin starred restaurant, the bill was lower and it was the best dining experience of our lives.

We were greeted and seated at a table that was precisely 6 inches from the one next to it. We may as well have sat in the laps of the people next to us since we could hear every word, and vice versa. Of all the problems with the meal, the room is one of the worst. It’s simply unacceptable for a restaurant that charges these prices. The stupid mirror trick fools no-one. At one point I got elbowed by the bread guy as he tried to serve the adjoining table. Losing a table or two would be a major revenue blow for them so they just have to move – immediately.

After a bit of discussion we decided to try the Tasting Menu with wines. The sommelier asked if we had any preferences on the wine but we just put ourselves entirely in his hands. I have to say that all his selections were fantastic. Every wine felt perfect for the dish that it accompanied. Even the dessert wine, which I hate, worked well. A big thank you to him for giving us a menu to take home with all the wines written down beside the  courses.

After a beautiful mouth-explosion taster trio involving foams, jellies and mini-soups we moved to the tasting menu. It was as follows (with apologies for the spellings on the wines):

• Roasted Scallops with caramelised chicoree, blood orange and black grapes – This was stunning. I loved every part of the dish. One of the highlights of the night. Wine was Motto Piane Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from Italy. I didn’t even know they did Sauvignon in Italy. I’ll be looking out for some from now on.

• Fois Gras and prune terrine with pear puree, air dried duck and pickled pear slices – Another fabulous dish. Catherine’s favourite. Wine was Cuvee Marie from Charles Hours 2003 from South West France. Another seriously great wine.

At this point I thought we were looking at the second best meal we’ve ever had.

• Sea Bass with hot fennel mayo, chilled fennel soup, black olive, and sardines on sour dough – This was good but not at the mouth-explosion level of everything that preceded it. Just a decent fish dish. It was then that we realised that too many of the dishes were aniseedy via fennel or celeriac. You’d be in serious trouble with the menu if you weren’t a fan. Wine was Arneis from Seghesio, 2004 from the Russian River Valley in the US. This was one of our favourites of the night. A real winner.

• Loin of Lamb with chickpeas, aubergine puree, tomato petals and buckler sorrel – This was a completely bizarre dish which didn’t work for either of us. A plate was placed in front of us covered in dabs of various purees and chickpeas. In a side-dish (!) was the lamb and jus. The purees really were not very nice at all and the lamb was overwhelmed by rosemary which was a terrible pity since it was succulent. However my first taste of sweetbreads was a real revelation and they were gorgeous. Wine was a Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, Chateau Sansonnet 2001 which was sadly badly masked by the food.

• Selection of cheese and crackers – All of them good and I liked the fact that we both got a different selection with a different jam/chutney in the middle. Wine was Madiran Chateau Montus 2003 from South West France. Another perfect matching with the food.

• Raspberries with almond milk, raspberry jelly and almond biscuit – Nice dessert but pretty forgettable and the block of frozen parfait(?) was just icy . Wine was Montbazillac Chateau Tireuil la Graviere 2001 from South West France. As I said earlier, I hate sweet wine but this really did suit the dessert well.

• Passion fruit with coconut cream, mango puree, marmalade with warm caramel and passion fruit jelly – Another very tasty but not memorable or special dessert. The wine was Riesling Vom Bunten Shiefer from Hans Lang in Germany, 2003. I loved this one too and will be seeking out some good Riesling from now on.

As I said, overall the food was to a very high standard and the wines were excellent. But both was diminished badly by the completely cack-handed front of house. There were multiple problems:

• I have no idea who the Maitre d’ was. Was it the small blonde wine guy who disappeared once we got our order in? Or the tall woman who came over to our table towards the end when Catherine was in the loo, folded her napkin and walked away without a word? Or some invisible third party?

• In Petrus we knew exactly who was in charge and he came over several times, not to ask some bland “did you enjoy your meal?” but to engage and converse. Thinking about Mint after the meal, the strong sense I got was a lack of confidence from everyone front-of-house and so a complete lack of proper engagement with their customers.

• Our wine glasses spent a lot of time empty. I’ve listed a large number of wines above but at one point the only thing left on the table was two napkins and two glasses of water. Again at this price level, I expect to be permanently topped up, not penny pinched.

• When I say I don’t want bread twice in a row, stop bloody coming back! What was it, 5 times? 6 times?

• Don’t tell me we have to be out by 9pm when you know you don’t have a full set of bookings for 9pm, when you don’t serve our last course until 9.15 and when you leave us 10-15 minutes between a few of the courses without even wine in our glasses. And all of this in a non-full restaurant.

• Absolutely no acknowledgment was made of the fact that it was my 40th birthday despite them being told so. In Jacob’s on the Mall last year, I got a special dessert and the Maitre d’ had a wee chat. In Petrus for our anniversary, we got a tour of the kitchen and met the amazing Marcus Wearing. On other occasions I’ve got a complementary cocktail. Here? Nothing! Not even Happy Bloody Birthday.

• When we left, there was no-one racing to open the door, ask us how the meal was or wish us on our way. We just snuck away in the night.

• They couldn’t even handle the fact that the meal was supposed to be paid-for as a gift. We were getting into the cab when one of the waiters (or maybe the Maitre d’, who knows?) ran out and grabbed us, apologised profusely since they had just realised who we were and said that they’d cancel our credit card charge. We told him not to bother as we’d sort it out ourselves. He was insistent but we were doubly so. There was clearly no-one running the booking system all night; no-one in proper charge; no-one who had scanned everything before service to see if there was anything unusual to warn the staff about. Amateur hour to be honest.

I’m not going to say the price of the meal, you can work it out yourself. But when you are paying that kind of money, having coffee and petit fours as an extra at over €6 is just plain scabby. The big shock on the bill was a mandatory 12.5% service charge. Let’s be blunt here, the service didn’t warrant it. 6% max, maybe. And if it’s mandatory then just put it in the price of the meal. Otherwise, why not separately call out the pastry charge, the loo roll charge and the dishwashing charge?

My gut tells me that, sadly, Mint will not survive. Dylan is clearly a talented chef but he’s not a restaurateur based on the front of house shambles we encountered. In a restaurant with a mix of two-tops and four-tops, none of the four-tops seemed to be occupied on a Saturday night. The prices are frankly ridiculous for a pokey little place with inexperienced staff. The blatant gouging via extras and service charges tells me they are in trouble.

We realised we could have flown to London, eaten in one of 200 better restaurants there, stayed the night and flown home the following day for less than Mint cost with its dazzling views of Spar. In a weakening economy, places like this which don’t deliver value (at whatever the price level) are the first to go to the wall. In a strange twist of timing and history, could we be seeing a re-run of Peacock Alley?

Having said alllllll of the above, we are so glad we gave it a go, so grateful to my parents for arranging and paying for it and so glad to have had a great meal.

We got a voucher from my mother-in-law for The Old Post over a year ago and finally made use of it last weekend. It consisted of one night’s stay plus dinner. I’ve previously given it top marks in a review last year and had eaten there several times before, all good.

We arrived up about 4pm and they weren’t fully open yet but some hand waving got us in and up to the room. They had told us on the phone that the rooms are being renovated in the spring and it really can’t happen soon enough. Our room really worn out and the bathroom in particular needs to be gutted. One thing that annoyed me intensely was the broken toilet seat. Not only is it unhygienic, it’d probably only take €30 and 20 minutes to fix. But that seat is my abiding memory of the place which is unfortunate as most other aspects are fine.

We headed down for dinner later and found the place hopping. The building is really cosy and I love the genuine friendly local staff. We had a drink whilst reading the menus and waiting for the table. A good selection of my kind of food with a list of each individual supplier impressed me.

The meal overall was good but I felt it could been brilliant with some more attention to detail. Having said that, they were under pressure in the kitchen with a very full dining room and apologised for a delay at one point with a mini-dessert. To be honest we hadn’t even noticed.

For starters I had carpaccio of beef with a rocket salad. The beef was gorgeous and delicate but overwhelmed by the over-dressed rocket. You should definitely try it but ask for the salad on the side so the meat can sing. D’wife had prawns with a nice onion marmalade.

The champagne sorbet was very boozy but beautifully flavoured.

My main was Peking duck on celeriac which, whilst very tasty, had flabby soft skin instead of the expected crispness. Catherine had a duo of fish on risotto. The fish was lovely but the risotto looked more like long grain rice and had non-diced stringy rocket it in.

Her dessert was three mini creme brulees which weren’t very distinctly different in taste and I had a gorgeous tarte tatin.

Through the meal we had a bottle of Sancerre Dominique et Janine Crochet 2006 which was fantastic and I’d try again.

Being a popular local venue, the portions are seriously big (the side veg was a meal in itself). I always leave there bursting and I need to show some restraint in future!Our room suffered a bit from dining room noise and the place didn’t really quieten down until after 1am. But that’s to be expected. Breakfast the following morning had both fresh fruit and a really tasty full Irish. Service again was top class and friendly.

Once the rooms are revamped, I’d recommend The Old Post. It’s a lovely part of the country and you’ll come away refreshed. Oh and to echo a topic I wrote about on my business blog yesterday, they really need to get themselves a web-site!