food geek

Restaurants, recipes, rants.

>Avoca Handweavers

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>The Avoca Handweavers story came into being almost 300 years ago in the tiny Wicklow village of Avoca. In its latest form, owned by Dublin business couple Donald and Hilary Pratt, Avoca has developed into a concept store encompassing homewares, clothing, kitchen shops, gourmet foods, and in-store cooking and baking.

The newest Avoca Handweavers store opened recently in Rathcoole, not far from my mum’s home in Dublin. Having already popped into their stores in Dublin city centre and Wicklow’s Powerscourt Townhouse, we were interested to see what they had created on our doorstep.

This large concept store has almost equal square footage given to retail space and dining space. Upstairs a large airy self-service cafe offers freshly made soups, hot lunches, breads and patisserie to the well-heeled local residents, as well as busy business people taking a break from their travels. next door a more formal table-service restaurant offers similar fare in more refined surroundings.

The salads are divine. The Mediterranean tomato and vegetable soup almost needs a knife and fork to consume it. The cakes and scones are so large that we had to share one scone between us (and we like scones). The jam is homemade, runny, and intensely flavoured.

Downstairs, we bought some brown scones for my sister’s breakfast, and the lady at the check-out gave us a taste of a freshly-baked Bakewell slice. The shelves groaned with gourmet pastas and sauces, marmalades and mustards, nuts and exotic dried fruits. I escaped empty-handed only because of Australia’s heavy restrictions on importing food.

I have a feeling that our local Avoca Handweavers will become a fixture in our family outings from now on.

>Don Giovannis

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

>Back to my mum’s favourite Italian on my last Dublin trip, and the waiters are as charming as ever.

We spoke to John, the owner for the past sixteen years, a charming man who recognised us from the photo on the first posting I made last year. Clearly proud of his domain, he credits his success on excellent chefs and personable staff. I saw him greet many of the diners personally, and people obviously come back here again and again because of the friendly atmosphere as much as for the tasty home-style Italian food.

Mum’s steak was perfectly cooked (well, cooked to her liking which is most important), my lasagne was delicious and our home-made soups were a welcome start to a meal on a chilly spring day.

Dining here just days after an expensive (but enjoyable) meal at the Unicorn, I know which one I will be coming back to on my next journey home. See you soon, Don Giovanni!

>The Unicorn

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>

The twenty-year anniversary of our graduation from the old UCD Engineering School around the corner was the occasion for a dinner at the Unicorn. Hidden down an alleyway off Merrion Row, the Unicorn was for years my favourite Dublin restaurant. As a student I used to gaze down the alleyway and imagine what it would be like to have the money to eat in a place like that.

A couple of scoops in Doheny and Nesbitts, and six of us arrived for our table at nine o’clock. Naturally, we had to wait at the tiny, cramped bar (the Unicorn doesn’t rush you out the door) but we were entertained by a nice bottle of Chianti and a couple of plates of parma ham freshly cut from the specimen on the counter.


The Unicorn’s menu looks a bit dated now, and then the waiter told us that there were no prawns. On second glance, the menu was pretty heavy on the prawns and Dublin Bay Prawns. That meant about half the dishes were no longer available. Disappointing. The pasta options were a little obvious – carbonara, amatriciana etc. I found myself struggling to choose something appetising. Finally I opted for the goat’s cheese salad to start, followed by saltimbocca, and was not disappointed.

I guess we were focusing more on the conversation than the food, but what I saw around the table was predictable and perfectly edible, but forgettable really. The place was full to bursting, and still has a reputation of a place to see and be seen, but for the price (90 euros a head including wine – that’s about $150 Australian) I would be expecting a lot more.

Service was lovely – professional, friendly without being overbearing (except perhaps when he tried to explain to me what parma ham was ) and efficient.

>Sydney

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>Stir Crazy Thai
Shop 5, 1 Broughton Street, Kirribilli
(02) 9922 6620

Tiny cramped loud canteen-style place serving huge portions of delicious spicy food. BYO alcohol, and don’t expect a leisurely pace – you will be handed the bill as soon as the last mouthful off food is eaten. Cheap and well worth the walk across the Harbour Bridge.

Nick’s Seafood Restaurant
The Promenade, Cockle Bay Wharf, Sydney
(02) 9264 1212
www.nicks-seafood.com.au

Nick’s at Cockle Bay Wharf is one of half a dozen restaurants in Sydney owned by the same group. The focus here is on fresh seafood. The restaurant is pretty large and can suffer a bit from large family and work parties in the evenings. But there is ample outdoor dinig with views of Darling Harbour (a great place to people-watch) and the service is excellent. The crab ravioli starter is sublime, the seafood chowder is OK but not the most fantastic in the world, the vongole and crab meat pasta is wonderful but filling, and the fresh grilled fish (any fish) is fantastic. I have never eaten anything but seafood here, but they do have other dishes on the menu.

Jordon’s Seafood
197 Harbourside, Darling Harbour
(02) 9281 3711
www.jordonsrestaurant.com.au

A bit of a Sydney institution, Orlando and I dined here years ago, on the famous three-tiered seafood platter. Last time I tried the bouillabaisse even though my waitress said it was “too big for a female to eat”. And it was: an enormous platter of shellfish and other seafood, the centrepiece being a huge steamd crab. Delicious, but don’t eat for two days beforehand. The fish and chips here are pretty good too.

vegetable meme

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Another Outspoken Female from “Confessions of a Food Nazi” tagged me for this meme.

1. Is there a vegetable you hated as a child, but came to love as you got older?

Tomatoes, believe it or not. I couldn’t manage to eat even one slice of the very first pizza I ever ordered because I could not stomach the tomato base on it. I still can’t eat raw tomato (unless marinated in oil and garlic like a bruschetta) but I simply could not live without cooked ones in all their forms.

2. Most underrated vegetable?

Cabbage. My childhood was spent eating overcooked cabbage boiled for hours in bacon or ham water (the traditional Irish way of cooking it) and it was years before I discovered it as the versatile, delicious vegetable it is – cooked or raw.

3. Name one favourite summer vegetable dish.

Tuna Nicoise. Done the cheater’s way with tinned tuna (don’t ask me why, I just prefer it that way). With lots of black olives and new potatoes and green beans and proper cos lettuce (none of your new-fangled rocket or mesclin).

4. And one for winter?

My vegetable curry.

5. What vegetables are in your fridge and freezer right now?

None in fridge. We have been away for the weekend. Baby sweetcorn and garden peas in the freezer. Pathetic.

6. Is there a vegetable you really like but don’t make much yourself?

Pumpkin. It seems to be Australia’s national vegetable but we just don’t eat much of it in Ireland/England. I learned to make a good pumpkin soup when I was here years ago on a serious budget, but haven’t touched one since in my own kitchen. Maybe this winter will be a new beginning.

>Stir Crazy Thai

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>Stir Crazy is a tiny loud local Thai place nestled in between about a dozen other eateries in Kirribilli – Thai, Chinese, Japanese, seafood, pasta. They don’t take bookings and the place is tiny. Prospective diners stand around outside on the pavement alongside the open-air diners crouched over their food on stools.

Inside it is cramped and loud; the waitresses waver between friendly and harried but they do their best. But the food was fantastic.

I ordered a vegetarian stir-fry – hot, I told the waitress – and Orlando ordered the chicken and beef stir-fry. They arrived in shallow bowls on banana leaves, steaming hot, incredibly spicy and quite sweet. I devoured mine with a sprinkling of steamed rice.

As soon as we were finished the bill was thrust under Orlando’s nose – no standing on ceremony here. For two huge dishes of food the total was $32. Brilliant value; so much so that we ate there again only two days later.