Conor's Bandon Blog

Running, Food and Local stuff from a blow-in

Hot Hot Hot Hot Sauces

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.

Film Society for Bandon

Denise Cox has let me know that a new Film Society is being organised in Bandon. I don’t have any of the details yet but if you are interested, fire an SMS over to Declan Waugh at 086-3853363. I’ll post an update when I hear more.

Food and Health

I got an email during the week from Mary Wedel who runs the brilliant An Tobairín Health Food Shop in Bandon. We’ve watched Mary grow this business since we arrived here from a pokey place on North Main Street to the bigger one on Factory Lane to the current flagship on South Main Street. I see no reason why she won’t be as successful as Whole Foods Market in the US.

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

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.

Taste of Cork a huge success

We’ve been looking forward to this for months and it did not disappoint. An overwhelming success for the organisers and the exhibitors. We had a fantastic few hours last night, sampling and chatting. Go! Whilst the reports on this year’s Dublin Event varied, we had a strong belief that Cork would be good simply due to the smaller scale. Auntie Fi babysat the kiddies and we drove in to County Hall for 5.

Fancy a meal for two?

I don’t know a lot about wine and beer, but I know a man who does. Julian over at Bubble Brothers has a nice competition on their blog. They import the gorgeous Japanese iKi beer (I had it in Wagamama a few months back) and are now supplying it to the Cafe Mao chain. He wants you to use what you know about iKi beer and Café Mao and tell them which dish on the menu would make the best match for iKi, and why.

Spicendipity goes live!

Many of the readers of this blog are surely also fans of The Humble Housewife, Deborah Hadley. She has just launched a fabulous new web-site called Spicendipity selling homemade sauces and 100% natural spice mixes and baking mixes. Debz had me won over just by saying “BBQ sauce” when she first revealed what she was putting together. We love the idea so much, the prize we are giving away on LouderVoice for the best review at Taste of Cork is one of her BBQ Hampers.

Yes the fish is fantastic

I did a last-minute race down to The Fish Shop in Union Hall this morning to check it out. It’s as good as they say! Great selection of fish, shellfish, gourmet seafood products and wine. Well worth travelling to. So my lazy ass didn’t get up early enough and I left Bandon at 12 knowing they shut at 1pm on a Saturday. I made it to Union Hall by 12:45 after spending the journey as far as Rosscarbery behind someone who averaged 35 MPH.

Great news for fishies in West Cork

So if food lovers are foodies and wine lovers are winos ;-) I’ve decided that fish lovers are fishies. Just got a comment on an old blog post about the fish shop in Union Hall and it’s all good news: we Glenmar Shellfish have now merged with Antcar over 12mths ago - if you are ever in Union Hall again be sure and call into the shop again - The Fish Shop - you will not be disappointed - we have recently extended the shop and added alot of additional products to our impressive array of fish - including mussels !

You going to Taste of Cork?

It looks like Taste of Dublin this weekend was a big success and a huge improvement over last year. I was thrilled to hear that they are doing a Taste of Cork from Friday 27th June to Sunday 29th. Over on LouderVoice, we’d like to capture the quality of the event by having people review what they eat/drink/encounter by SMS. The most popular review will win a prize (suggestions on what that should be are very welcome).