While although the blog is called "cooking in Ireland: Beyond Meat and Potatoes", it could just as easily be called "Eating in Ireland" because as a foodie I find myself enjoying some of Dublin's affordable eating destinations. They take many different forms, starting with a visit to your local farmers market and the dozens of food stalls that it contains. My favorite is the Dun Laoghaire Sunday market which is filled with food from several nationalities and dishes ranging from falafel, to crepes, to roast chicken and more. I have been there twice for lunch now and have been very happy with my experiences. The first time their I got a ham, cheddar and sundried tomato pesto crepe. It was sensationally delicious and not that filling, which is actually a good thing because it lets you keep eating more exciting things as you walk along and explore. The second time I was feeling something a little more ethnic and got Japanese yakisoba noodles. I wasn't really sure what I would think about this vegetarian lunch option, but got really excited when the woman serving the food pulled out a bottle of some 'secret sauce' and gave my noodles a good dose. It was definitely delicious, but nothing really extraordinary. Could have used a little more heat in my opinion. What was extraordinary though, was a cup of hot apple cider made from freshly pressed Irish apples with a shot of apple brandy. Intense apple flavor was married beautifully with warm spices that easily could have overpowered the apple, but did not. It only would have been better if it had been a little colder outside.
One the nice thing about a farmers markets is that you can almost always go back to a place that you wanted to check out the week before but didn't for some reason or another. But this is not the case with the restaurant Crack Bird, a pop-up restaurant that features southern pan-fried chicken (with a few twists). In case you have never heard of the concept of a pop-up restaurant, it is basically when a chef rents a cheap short-term lease on a building and then sets up a restaurant there with the intention of only being open for a couple of months. After this point in time, the restaurant disappears and is possibly never to be seen again. Kinda gives you incentive to go to a place when there is a deadline on when it will be there. Allie and I got promotional seats at the restaurant through twitter which got us a completely free meal, minus the drinks. The meal included half a fried chicken, 4 hand breaded chicken tenders whth a choice of dipping sauce and a side. The actual fried chicken was super moist/ flavourful and was covered in a sweet and sour spicy chili garlic sauce that was so good I spent at least ten minutes trying to find any possible piece of meat I could on those bones. We seriously left nothing. The chicken tenders were good, but what was really exciting was the burnt lemon and whipped feta dipping sauce we chose to have with them. Fresh, tangy and ohhhhh so good, so much so that we eventually just used our fingers to finish off the sauce once the chicken was gone. Our side was a shredded carrot and cranberry salad, which was amazing in its simplicity. Small flexes of orange zest were hidden in the mix, disguised by the carrots so that you wouldn't know they were there unless you tasted it. It was sweet, light and refreshing, a nice break from the delicious fattiness fried chicken can sometimes have. I plan on ordering fried chicken many more times in the future now.
Within Dublin City there are three other eateries that seem worth mentioning. The first is Cornucopia, an all vegetarian restaurant in the heart of Dublin, which is a brave endeavor for any restauranter setting up shop in such a meat-loving country. I only stopped in for a quick bite and got a small bowl of butternut squash soup with homemade brown bread. It was the most interesting and delicious version of butternut squash soup I have ever tried, hitting you first with squash and vegetable flavor, followed by a strong orange note and then finishing with a nice balance of the two. I would have liked the texture of the soup to be completely smooth, but I guess that might just be a personal preference. The brown bread was super hearty with lots of seeds in it and not only accompanied the soup well, but was also a vital component in my opinion. Next there is Murphies Ice Cream, a small ice cream chain based out of an area on the other side of the country called Dingle. The quality of the actual ice cream is matched only by the uniqueness of some of the flavors, including Irish whiskey, brown bread and sea salt. This place is a very nice break from the ordinary soft serve vanilla found almost everywhere here (which is very good, but at the end of the day it is just soft serve vanilla and I need a little something more in my life). Last but not least is Queen of Tarts, a great local bakery found near the Temple Bar area that makes cakes, tarts, brownies, cookies, scones and even some savory baked items for lunch. The raspberry scone I got was buttery yet light, puffy and was only improved upon by the application of butter and raspberry jam. I also got a chocolate and hazelnut biscotti, which had chunks of bittersweet chocolate and chopped hazelnuts spread throughout the giant slice of crunchy twice baked cookie. I naturally ate this with a cappucinno, dunking and swirling it through the thick head of foam so that it could absorb the bitter brew and also ever so slightly melt the chocolate. I am going to be trying to replicate this one when I get home.
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