Shock Announcement: Somewhere to eat in Fairview...

Kennedys Good Food Store on Fairview near the large Centra. Almost all food home-made from brown bread to all the cakes (v. rich chocolate layered cake, baileys cheesecake, banoffi, the usual suspects), plus of course beef lasagne, stuffed flat mushrooms, pork and leek sausages in a Lyonnaise Sauce etc. etc. Specials for 9.95 in the evening including a glass of wine. Not sophisticated food but not half bad if you find yourself in that wilderness. Good little shop element with Green and Black Chocolate, San Pellegrino water etc. Coffee is Palombino.

wild gourmets - educational or just preachy posh gits?

Just watched the second episode of wild gourmets on channel 4 (Tuesday 8.30) and still not sure what to make of them. While it is great to encourage people to eat wild food, how realistic is it for ordinary people (without a camera crew in tow) to turn up at stately homes in Surrey and ask them for free food from the kitchen garden in exchange for a bit of wood chopping. I'd like to see them do it without a camera crew and without their posh accents. In this week's show they shot some pheasants, caught a couple of pike and picked some mushrooms including parasols (they looked more like shaggy parasols to me but I could be wrong). Last week they swapped some beefsteak fungi for eggs and all manner of things at a local shop. which seemed utterly unrealistic to me. I know what my local veg. shop would say if I turned up with some battered bracket fungi and asked to swap them for a dozen eggs and some olive oil. So far almost all the herbs she has used have been cultivated ones - why is she not using wild garlic and all the other things that woods are full of rather than relying on what she can scrounge from the local toffs kitchen garden? I think we are supposed to fancy them (hence the shot of his arse this week - I will lay odds that there will be more of this posterior in future episodes) - personally I find them both utterly sexless and the recipes suspect but I will probably keep watching.

The mushroom season around dublin has been very erratic this year thanks to the miserable Summer with many mushrooms blooming earlier than usual and some not at all. My usual spots for parasols and ink caps are yielding but I have missed out on some beauties by mistiming my hunts (they were too old to pick on at least 4 occasions). I did find some (slightly maggoty) slippery jacks in Bushy Park last week (my first time finding them in this wood) and some shaggy parasols so there is still lots of growth.

The link above for the slippery jacks says they are not worth eating - this is untrue as they taste just like a blander softer version of the bay bolete (boletus badius). I simply peeled the slimy skin off the top and cut carefully watching for little baby maggots (especially prevalent in older ones) and fried the flesh in olive oil and a little butter, adding some garlic for the last 30 seconds, and spread them on toasted challah (jewish new year bread from the corner bakery in Terenure).

For the parasols I chopped them with some fresh herbs and garlic, placed them in a baking dish with some sea salt and a good dash of olive oil, covered them in tin foil and baked them in a low oven for 20 minutes. They lose their liquid and shrink quite a bit but you can then add them to risotto or spread on toast or add to eggs etc. I often freeze them in their juices in little empty creme fraiche pots for use later on.

Blackberries are just about finished in Bushy Park but there are still lots in Marley and the season in Wicklow is only beginning so get picking.

Eating and Drinking in Dublin (and elsewhere)

Welcome!
This blog will focus on finding good things to eat and drink in Dublin City (and anywhere else we find good food). Obviously this includes restaurants but we will also focus on chippers and cheesemongers, bakeries and butchers, fish mongers and fruitcake sellers.

I am a food and wine writer based in Dublin and I will also be inviting some of my trusted foodie friends to post their thoughts here so you wont just get my opinion...

All primary posters to this blog will be food and wine professionals with their own prejudices and biases but also with well developed taste buds and ruthless honesty.

Here are some random thoughts to get us started...

Some Good things about eating and drinking in Dublin -
- Some of the best pubs in the world - Stags Head, Kehoes, Long Hall, Grave Diggers, Grogans, Mulligans, Palace, Ryans etc.
- Family run butchers in most parts of the city (use them or we will lose them)
- An ever increasing number of ethnic shops and restaurants in which to find good food as our immigrant population increases on a daily basis. Sadly there is little of interest in most of the eastern european shops.
- Bakeries seem to be on the way back (eg. Corner Bakery Terenure, Maison des Gourmets on Castlemarket, Soul Bakery Ongar village etc.)
- Affineurs - Sheridans Cheesemongers and Matthews Cheese Cellar - fantastic cheese for the masses
- Wine and Tapas Bars keep opening and some are quite good - e.g. the Port House
- Finding a decent restaurant is getting easier not harder
- Wild Blackberries grow everywhere in our public parks (get them quick before the Corpo does their annual hedge trim) - also watch out for mushrooms as shaggy ink caps often lurk under blackberry bushes (cf. bushy park)
- Good cheap fish can be found; if only in about 3 locations - howth pier, Kish fish and Moore Street (get there before 11am). Supervalu Churchtown and the coal pier in Dun Laoghaireare also worth a visit.
- Almost all of the world's great wines and beers are available in Dublin if you know where to look.
- Farmers markets keep opening up and amazingly some even have a few farmers at them.

Some Bad things -
- 90% of our pubs are awful places with music cranked loud to make you drink more, surly barstaff, even more surly door staff, and more emphasis on kahlua and baileys shots than on decent beer and wine.
- the price of things - Dublin really is a horrendously expensive place to eat and drink in.
- our over-dependence on supermarkets to the detriment of the small shopkeeper that actually cares about how things taste rather than how they look.
- the lack of proper planning in the city that has lead to the pushing up of rents that keeps driving small food shops out in favour of yet more pharmacies, overpriced boutiques and beauty salons (cf. malahide)
- the total chancers at many of our farmers markets like the guys selling olives at 24 euro a kilo at Ranelagh market
- our utterly braindead, officious, arrogant EHOs (environmental health officers) who only know the bad things about food and none of the good - e.g. they recently tried to shut down the meals on wheels service in Rathgar because they did not have 2 sinks.
- God help you if you work in town and expect to find a decent sandwich for under a fiver - come on Ben Dunne where are those quality cheap sandwich bars you promised us... please save us from the mediocrity that is Cafe Sol and O'Briens Sandwich bars.
- the so called "chips" (that are in fact potato wedges) that have invaded virtually all our restaurants. Lets get things straight - a chipped or french fried potato is thin, crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside.
- the fact that Dublin does not have an abbatoir
- the fact that we have virtually no BYOB (bring your own bottle) restaurants
- the fact that we have no street food culture
- the fact that we have virtually no gastro pubs
- our lack of a traiteur culture

That will do for now... more anon...