Heck...I ought to move to Ireland and open a restaurant! ;)

chas · Post by **chas** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 6:45 am

I'm with Jens. I liked the fried breakfasts so much that I do one myself now and then, complete with fried tomatoes and brown soda bread. I love white pudding (can't find it in the US, though), you can keep the black.

My complaint was the limited number of pub licenses. Many restaurants couldn't serve beer because they couldn't get pub licenses. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, the pub food was generally better anyway, but it took us several tries to figure out the pub license situation.

Jens_Hoppe · Post by **Jens_Hoppe** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 6:48 am

Jens, you forgot to mention the white pudding! If the black pudding causes concern, the white pudding causes confusion!

That sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

Jens

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:00 am

I don't know much about Irish food, but ken my English awright. Like, I skip it usually. Isle of Man would be a paradise, but for food...

With all these prejudices, I was all the more surprised when visiting West Cornwall last year off-season (spring). The trick was touring the shoreline clockwise, on a motorbike, diving into any backroad going to the left (i.e. closer to the shore).
So we always ended in pubs on the shore, middle of nowhere.
The food was nothing fancy, just fish--fresh, smoked, salted, whatever!--but all from the local fishermen. And of course Cornish red ale, from local micro-breweries.
It's the best "local" food I ever had in the Bristish isles in 30 years. And it was really good food generally. The only bad experiences we had were when hitting obviously touristic places, like Tintagel. There, we had the same as at the worst suburbian London caterers' .

I wonder why this choice (local fish, local ale) wouldn't work on Irish shores ?

claudine · Post by **claudine** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:14 am

You can eat lots of wonderful salmon in Ireland, or seafood chowder - fresh and cheap. And did I tell you about the Guinness?

rbm · Post by **rbm** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:24 am

A mate of mine used to be one of Guinness's head brewers, but he left as the way they brew was like a prodution line and not a true Real Ale, He now runs his own brewery only producing organic real ale he won't use chemicals like some well known beers.

_______________yep still can't spell__
rbm, in the wilds of the English Lake District, where the fells stand proud, the lakes be clear and the sea be in the celler!

[ This Message was edited by: rbm on 2003-01-15 08:25 ]

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:37 am

On 2003-01-15 06:00, Martin Milner wrote:
but nobody ever says "Let's go for an English".

Not quite true Martin. There's a very funny TV sketch made by English commedians of Indian extraction in which they 'go for an English' every Friday night. They trot out all the usual cliches used by those who habitually 'go for an Indian' but with the obvious twist—you must order the blandest food possible, drink weak tea, insipid lager ... or it just isn't Friday night, right ...? I spent seven years in England and most of my English friends were well trained in producing Indian, Persion, Chinese, Italian, and ... roasts. But the real ale, now that's another matter ....

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:39 am

Womby!

True, I was thinking of that very sketch when I cunningly misled you all, but I hadn't realised it had reached Aussieland yet!

Sanjeev Bhasker and his team are now doing a very funny chat show, the Kumars at no. 42. I read that the concept has been sold to the USA for £6million, and they're going to use mexicans in the place of our lovely Indian family.

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:57 am

Well, I don't know if I a whiner, but I'm not french! I always thought that food was a big problem in Ireland. It's hard to find a restaurant where you're not going to eat very fat food, and if you find one, you might expect to pay a lot for it. Sometimes it's good, I remember cycling 70 kilometers up to Doolin, and then I had three quarter-pounders in the only restaurant available at that time of the day, a fastfood. Hmmmm, I don't think vegetables would have done the job. I remember a fine selection of chinese and italian restaurants in Limerick, but everything's cheap in Limerick, there's no tourists there, and you could expect to pay an extra 50% for the same type of food if you went in Galway.

I don't think the americans will have much problem with irish food, as american food culture is very "fast-food" oriented, but for people from France, Italy, Spain, etc, I understand why irish food is an issue.

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 10:13 am

I really enjoyed the food in Ireland. The Irish Cadbury's chocolate (I was told by one of the shopkeepers that there is a factory in Dublin where they use Irish cows' milk) was far superior to that produced in England. The dinners were quite good...one restaurant in Kinvara had unbelievable crab claws (not a kind we have here, at least not that I have seen) that I ordered as an appetizer (as on the menu) and another order for my meal. Seriously, we got a full dinner with appetizers, meals, desserts (for 2) and alcohol (for 1) for about $40. It would have been over $100 here. Also, the Irish breakfasts were quite a treat. I ended up with an infection from too much sugar. I still take Zyrtec every night to avoid hives, and I was in Ireland a year and a half ago. I don't think the food was worth the hives, but the music sure was worth the trip.

Edited to fix typo

[ This Message was edited by: JessieK on 2003-01-15 11:15 ]

madguy · Post by **madguy** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 10:19 am

Here I am trying to cut back on sweets, and you mention Cadbury's!!!!

~Larry

Gary · Post by **Gary** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 10:32 am

It's my understanding that Ireland does not want any immigrants. If you are not a citizen, you many not find a job, either.

I thought of going there as a missionary but I would not be able to support my self or family.

Gary

Jim_B1 · Post by **Jim_B1** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:39 pm

I saw that a few days ago and thought it was funny. We just got back from Ireland a couple of months ago and the food was one of the highlites of the trip. Wonder where the people went that the food wasn't good? I'm guessing Dublin, they were expensive there but still good.
-Jim

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:44 pm

On 2003-01-15 11:32, Gary wrote:
It's my understanding that Ireland does not want any immigrants. If you are not a citizen, you many not find a job, either.

I thought of going there as a missionary but I would not be able to support my self or family.

Gary

??????????

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:52 pm

On 2003-01-15 11:32, Gary wrote:
It's my understanding that Ireland does not want any immigrants. If you are not a citizen, you many not find a job, either.

I thought of going there as a missionary but I would not be able to support my self or family.

Gary

Well that's

: food for thought (?) in a thread on food as in eats. Don't talk soul to a hungry body...

Talking of missionaries, this brings me to a profound culinary thought : Cook was eaten raw, while Tahitians ate their Frogs cooked.
I let you ruminate

on this one...

[ This Message was edited by: Zubivka on 2003-01-15 16:01 ]

msheldon · Post by **msheldon** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 4:21 pm

On 2003-01-15 06:17, rbm wrote:
When you think about it most, no all Irish/scottish traditional cooking must have been Stewwed/slow boilled.
As you don't get much energy from a slowly burnning sod ! (peat)

See, the problem here is the pot of water. Slow, low fires are *wonderful* for cooking, so long as you only use the pot to wash up in.

Mmmmm, good old fashioned southern barbeque, cooked for countless hours next to a low wood fire. For me, cooking the thanksgiving turkey requires putting the turkey on the barbeque sometime between 2:00am and 4:00am, so that it will be ready for a 6:00pm meal. As for the potatoes, just throw 'em on the coals.

My wife and friends joke about the fact that I'll slow-cook nearly anything on the barbeque (turkey, pork shoulders, sausages, leg of lamb, corned beef, ribs, rabbit, you name it.) However, there's no joking when it comes time to eat!

The most use the pots get in my house is for making beer and mead.