26 Jun 2015

Dublin #1: restaurants & pubs

I went to Dublin for the first time 10 years ago. It was cold, grim, and grey and I don't remember eating or drinking anything decent there apart from a black beverage made of barley. Mind you, I was a student and didn't have the money to eat anywhere outside cheap burger places anyway. I'd also been told that Ireland wasn't famous for its food at that time anyway.

I've had the fantastic opportunity to travel a few times to Dublin for work this year and as I rediscovered the city, I totally fell in love with it. And its food. I thought I would share a few places I've discovered (with the help of lovely locals)
and enjoyed

Restaurants: 

  • Coppinger Raw: absolutely delicious food made with seasonal local ingredients. Modern mediteranen, not too expensive and very well executed. And their desserts are really good (the bread and butter pudding is incredible). 
  • The Winding Stair: the former book shop turned into a restaurant is a little pricey but well worth the money. With a view over the river, they serve a modern Irish and seasonal food in enormous portions. The service is friendly, the wine not too expensive, Their mixed smoked fish sharing starter plate is totally big enough for two people and it’s to die for. If you do make it to dessert, it won't disappoint either
  • Yamamori: simply the best value for money sushi I've ever had so far in my life. So fresh and full of flavour. I always get the rainbow norimaki. It's a pure delight.

Pubs
  •  At The Temple Bar (in the Temple bar area), you can enjoy live music pretty much all day, everyday. And I don't care if only tourists go to Temple Bar, because this place really is great! 
  •  With its cosy little booths, great atmosphere, craft beers and delicious pub food, P. Mac's is a perfect pub for a date or an after-work.


In the next post, I'll move onto Dublin's cafés, shops and markets.

19 Jun 2015

Express Blueberry Fool Recipe

The Man and I have extremely different personalities, but one thing we have in common is we both suck at making decisions. It often puts us in funny situations.

Ask us to choose something as simple as choosing a local restaurant to go out for dinner on a Friday night and it might take us hours to just decide between Italian, French and Indian food.

Ask us to choose which colours we will get the walls of our new house painted, and it will take us weeks and weeks of discussions, tries, changes of minds. We will end up painting everything in white because we could not make a decision. 

Ask us to choose furniture for the house, and two months later, you'll find that we haven't come close to any decision and that we are still living amongst boxes. 

I can't even think about how we are going to struggle choosing a name for a cat!
(we actually finalised the decision to get a cat yet. We've only been talking about for 6 months after all...)



Blueberry fool

That's the perfect "I've got five minutes to turn a pudding around" pudding. 
A berry fool is delicious, seasonal, and take literally five minutes to make. 
I made this one with blueberries, which gives it a strange-ish blue colour. Next time, I'll add raspberries, stronger in flavour and pinker! It still is a winner for all blueberry lovers. 

Ingredients, for 2 people: 

For the cream: 
250ml double cream
1 heaped tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla paste
For the blueberry sauce: 
1 large handful frozen or fresh blueberries (I used frozen)
1 tbsp caster sugar
To finish : a small handful of blueberries kept whole

Method: 

1/ In a little bowl, mix the blueberries and sugar and place in the microwave at full power for 1 min until the blueberries are softened and have started to release their juice. Mix well and pass through a sieve to get rid of the skins. Leave to cool. 

2/ In another bowl, beat the double cream, vanilla paste and sugar to firm peaks. 

3/ With a spatula, gently fold the 3/4 of the blueberry sauce and most of the fresh blueberries into the whipped cream. You can either mix thoroughly or keep ripples patterns throughout on purpose.

4/ In two separate glasses, pour some fool mixture, then half of the left over blueberry sauce, and then the rest of the fool mixture (so you can see a layer of sauce in the middle). Decorate each glass with a few whole blueberries and a leaf of mint.

5/ Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving