A Weekend in Dublin

I took my wife to Dublin for a quick weekend trip for her birthday a couple weeks ago.  It ended up being a bit of a literary weekend, plus we had a couple of really great meals.

We landed at about 10:00 Saturday morning, took a cab to our hotel to drop our stuff off, then went for a wander before lunch.  We stayed at La Stampa hotel near St Stephen’s Green - reasonable rates, nice room but a bit of a party crowd.  If you plan to be out late in the evening, I recommend it, primarily because it’s reasonably priced.  If, like us, you’re used to being in bed by 10 or 11 (or like to be able to take a shower without sitting in the bathtub and spraying water from the handheld sprayer all over the bathroom), you might want to find a hotel with a bit better noise isolation between the rooms…  We walked up Grafton Street to Trinity college – Grafton Street could be High Street, Anytown, UK, but Trinity college was pretty cool.  Some really interesting buildings, plus the Book of Kells – one of the oldest known illustrated books in the Long Room at one of the libraries.

After Trinity College, we stopped into Books Upstairs - a great independent bookstore that’s stuffed with great books at great prices.  If we’d had more space in our luggage, we’d have bought a lot more books.  I picked up Nicholl’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci (something I’ve wanted to read since I saw The Last Supper on a business trip to Milan this past summer), and Kris found a book of Irish poetry.  If you like into books like we’re into books, this will be one of your favorite places in Dublin.  As an aside, we were amazed at how many bookshops there were in Dublin – I know we were close to a university, but it seemed like there was a bookshop on every block.  Not that we minded.

From Books Upstairs, we made our way over to the Dublin Castle.  The Castle has a great round tower and some interesting, brightly painted buildings, but the real gem is the Chester Beatty Library just outside the castle grounds.  We’d never heard of him, but apparently he was an extremely wealthy American-born mining engineer turned industrialist who really really like books.  He managed to assemble one of the finest, if not the finest collections of ancient manuscripts and illuminated texts in the world.  Before he died, he endowed the Chester Beatty Library to house his collection.  It’s an incredible collection of books, scrolls, manuscripts and other oddments – lots of snuff bottles, an amazing suit of Japanese armor, some carved rhinoceros horns.  Well worth a visit.

By this time it was getting close to 2:00, and I’d booked a table at a restaurant on the other side of the Liffey: The Winding Stair.  The restaurant is above a bookstore of the same name, which has a pretty narrow and extremely eclectic offering.  The restaurant is the real prize.  It’s a light filled space with big windows overlooking the river.  Bookshelves line the walls, wide pine planks cover the floors, and conversation fills the air.  The food is simple and very well done, using locally sourced ingredients.  We started with a bowl of fabulous, creamy fish chowder and some courgette pancakes topped with flat mushrooms and some melted crumbles of really strong cheddar.  The cheddar would have overwhelmed the delicate pancakes and mushrooms if not for a little dollop of herbed craime fraiche on the side that somehow managed to pull all of the flavors together and bring them out to play.  For our main, we shared a steak with herb butter and chips.  The chips were perfect and the steak was excellent.  We had a couple glasses of wine – they have an nice variety by the glass, and a solid wine list that’s not too overwhelming.  Lunch was pretty expensive – about a hundred euros, but all of the restaurants in Dublin seem like they’re pretty expensive.  Overall, this is a fantastic restaurant – great atmosphere, friendly but unobtrusive staff, and excellent food.  if you want to go, book a table, because the place was full from the minute we arrived for our late lunch until we left a couple of hours later.  They must have turned away half a dozen walk ins.

After lunch, we walked up towards O’Connell street, but couldn’t get out of there fast enough – nothing but shopping and crowds of tourists.  We headed back to our hotel, got settled in, and went to see if we could find a gallery – we’ve been looking for a piece of art for our anniversary for the past 6 months.  We found one gallery, but didn’t like anything.  It’s a little hard to pay 800 or 1000 euros for a painting when there are about 300 paintings by the same artist stacked around one gallery…  even if we had liked his stuff.

We wandered through a couple of pubs, I had the obligatory pint of Guiness and a glass of Irish Whiskey (not Jameson, I’m ashamed to say, given that we were in Dublin where the distillery is), and had a light dinner at Tiger Bec’s.  Don’t bother – ordinary Thai food at overconfident prices.  We decided to call it a night, and aside from having to call and complain about the noise from the room upstairs at 3:00 in the morning, had a restful night.

Sunday morning we ordered coffee, toast and pastries from room service, got crumbs all over the bed, and packed up to head home.  Our flight wasn’t until 5:00 though, so we had plenty of time to do a bit more exploring.  Since we didn’t have a car, we decided to do one of the bus tours to see a bit more of the town than we could cover on foot.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we pretty much had the bus to ourselves.  We saw the sights, chuckled at the driver’s well-practiced jokes about the local sights, and say a bit more of the town than we could cover on foot…

Nothing really opens in Dublin (except the Guiness plant, of course) until the afternoon, so we got off at the North end of O’Connell street to find the James Joyce house.  We found it. It was closed.  We headed down to Merrion Square, where Oscar Wilde grew up, and wandered around the park to check out the artists selling their work around the outside.  Saw a couple of things we liked, but didn’t end up getting anything.  from Merrion Square, we walked back over to our St. Stephen’s Green and walked throught the park – a lovely green space in the middle of the city.  If the weather had been a bit warmer, we’d have been tempted to get a picnic and sit by one of the ponds.

We ended up having brunch at a place called Hugo’s on Merrion Row, just off the west corner of St. Stephen’s Green.  This turned out to be an excellent decision.  The food was good, the atmosphere was cozy, and they had a great jazz quartet playing in the middle of the restaurant.  A glass of Prosecco to start and a bowl of roasted red pepper and fennel soup to start, then a simple but well done grilled chicked salad and another steak with green peppercorn sauce and chips.  I had to request a second order of chips that were cooked enough, but they came out just right, and the peppercorn sauce was almost as good as my own.  I know, I know, two days, two steaks – I should’ve been a bit more adventurous.  The steak was really the only thing that appealed to me at Hugo’s – I just didn’t feel like breakfast.  But I definitely should have had the venison at the Winding Stair.  Oh well.  Next time…

After lunch, we walked back to Grafton Street to pick up a few tchatchkies for our girls and various other relatives, picked up our bag at the hotel, and hopped in a cab for the airport.  All in all, a great trip.  Next up… Barcelona.

Tuscan Ragu

I just made a really delicious meat ragu, served over egg papardelle.  When we were in Tuscany last fall we had some fantastic Pici pasta with a rabbit ragu at our inn’s restaurant, and this is my attempt at something similar.    We stayed at the Locanda dell’Amorosa, an inn about 40 km from Siena, just outside a fairly grubby industrial town named Sinalunga.  Aside from Sinalunga, everything about the Locanda dell’Amorosa was incredible – as you can see from these pictures.  We had a lovely room with a view out over vineyards and rolling hills.  It’s a working farm and produces its own wine.  It has a great restaurant.  It has a beautiful pool (although it was a bit chilly for swimming when we were there).  And it’s in the middle of the Chianti region of Tuscany, about half an hour’s drive from Siena, Montepulciano and Pienza.  It’s a bit further to San Gimignano, but still an easy day trip.

Pici is the local pasta - kind of like a really thick spaghetti, often served with a simple ragu.  So this evening I wanted to try to make a ragu sauce like the one at the restaurant.  My wife has decreed that rabbit shall not enter our home, so I made do with pork sausage and some pancetta.

To make enough sauce for two people (as you’ll see from the quantities of ingredients, it’d be easier to double this and make enough for four…):

• Half a carrot, diced
• Half a rib of celery, diced
• Half an onion, diced
• 3 Italian sausage (200 grams)
• 100 grams Pancetta or thick sliced bacon
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/3 cup good red wine (I suggest a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo)
• Half a can of chopped tomatoes (200 grams)
• 1 teaspoon chile flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• A sturdy, long pasta, such as Pici, Pappardelle, or Fettucini

Pour a slug of good olive oil into a medium sized heavy pot (I use a cast iron Le Creuset), and heat over medium heat.  When the pan is hot (but not too hot), add the carrot, celery, and onion.  Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring regularly, until softened but not browned.  Add the sausage and pancetta.  break up the sausage into crumbly bits – it helps if you take the casing off.  Just run a sharp knife across the sausage, lengthwise, to cut the casing, then peel it off.  Continue to cook over medium heat, breaking the sausage up as it cooks, for another 10 minutes or so.  Clear a space in the middle of the pot, then add the tomato paste.  Stir it in the middle of the pot for a minute or two to caramelize, then mix it all together.  Pour in the wine, mix well, and let the liquid cook off – another few minutes.  Add the tomatoes and chili flakes, and mix well.  Cook for a few more minutes, until the sauce is the desired thickness.  Taste and add salt and pepper to taste (most tomotoes have lots of salt added, so taste the sauce before you add any more).

Boil a large pot of water, add the pasta, cook until done, drain, and serve with your sauce.  Grate some good fresh parmesan or romano cheese over it.  I’m still working on a hunk of romano we brought back from our trip (I think we bought it in Pienza – a perfect little Tuscan hill town, founded by and named after Pope Pius).

I steamed some asparagus and served it with butter, more romano, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

And if you’ve never been to Tuscany… GO!!!

Kong

I had an excellent meal in Paris this week at a restaurant called Kong.  It occupies the top two floors of the same building as Kenzo (very mod clothes that would probably make me look ridiculous, if I could afford them) on Rue Pont Neuf.  I was in Paris on a business trip, saw a brief writeup on the place in a magazine, and asked the hotel to book me a table. 

From the Pont Neuf, the restaurant looks like a big greenhouse, or maybe an upside down salad bowl sitting on top of the building; from the the inside, it offers fantastic views over the river.

Decorated by Phillippe Starck, the bar feels like some very hip (and wealthy) 28 year old’s living room.  It’s a bit darkand a bit industrial, but still comfortable. Clear acrylic panels between booths are lit from below and have faces printed on them.  Makes you feel like someone’s watching you (with a slightly disdainful eye, of course – this is Paris after all).  The face theme is repeated throughout the restaurant, on monitors in the dining room and on the backs of the acrylic Ghost chairs used at many of the tables.

After dark, you don’t get the same views, but the dimly lit restaurant offers a romantic setting in keeping with Paris’ reputation.  As I was dining with a work colleague, romance wasn’t on my mind (sorry Perry – I’d rather have been dining with Kris…) – I was more focused on the food.

The food was great.  We started with a mixed entree platter of spring rolls, black perch tartare, artichokes poivrade, seared tuna, and california rolls.  Everything but the tuna was fantastic.  The tuna was a bit fishy and not particularly flavorful.  For mains, I had Chilean Seabass (Bar du Chili) with black rice.  Perry had a Filet de Beouf with peppercorn sauce and fries.  My fish was perfectly cooked, and served with an interesting (miso based?) sauce.  Perry’s steak was good, if fairly ordinary, but he said the fries were great.  The food was well prepared and the nicely sized portions were presented very simply.  We split an excellent bottle of bordeaux that went well with both dishes.  A lemon tart and pannacotta with strawberries rounded out the meal.

All in all, a great meal in a great setting.  Expensive, but not over the top.  Well worth a stop next time you find yourself in Paris.

Souvlaki

We went on a family vacation to Greece a few weeks ago – probably our best vacation ever.  Perfect weather, we went to the beach every day, nobody barfed, and everybody slept well.  Pretty much everything you could ask for in a vacation – those of you who have young children will know what I mean.

We stayed at Bungalows Ingrid (highly recommended) – small bungalows in the middle of an orange grove, inexpensive, clean and well maintained, with a beautiful taverna in the middle.  Ingrid made us simple but fantastic breakfasts every day, which we ate on our patio, or at a picnic table surrounded by orange trees.  The bungalows are between the towns of Assini and Drepano, near Nafplio with its Venetian fortresses, shops, and waterfront cafes, about two hours drive south of Athens on the Peloponnese Peninsula.  The town of Tolo, with a gorgeous sandy beach (most of the beaches in the area, while beautiful, are pebbly), is about a kilometer away.  I cannot recommend this place highly enough – we will be going back.

While we were there, we had some terrific meals at local tavernas – The Meat Market (literally, the meat market) in Drepano, the Mermaid in Vivari (the next town to the east of Drepano), and Casablanca in Tolo, where we got our lunch to take away and eat on the beach every day.  Which brings me to Souvlaki – marinated skewers of grilled chicken or pork.  Since we’ve been home I’ve made it three times.  Try this for your next barbecue – you won’t be disappointed.

But first, a disclaimer – I’m not big on measuring when I cook.  There’s a time and place for measuring, and it’s usually when I’m baking.  Otherwise, I tend to eyeball things.  So I’ll try to provide measures in my recipes, but they’ll probably be a little fuzzy.  It’s be my little way of encouraging you to experiment…

Chicken or Pork Souvlaki

Cut chicken breasts or pork chops into 1-1.5 in. cubes (if you make them bigger, it’s less work to put them on the skewers).  If you do pork, leave a little bit of the fat around the edge – it’ll get crispy and flavourful when you grill it.  Drop the cubes in a zip top plastic bag, and for each pound of meat you’re cooking, add:

• The juice of one lemon or lime – cut it in half and squeeze it straight into the bag
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon or so of oregano, preferably Greek
• A slug of olive oil (2 or 3 tablespoons)
• A few shakes of salt and a few grinds of pepper

Seal the bag, shake it all up, and throw it in the fridge for an hour or two.  I’ve also made this on a weeknight, leaving the meat at room temperature on the counter for half an hour, and it was delicious.

When you’re ready to start cooking, go get your grill started.  Then cut up an onion into 1-1.5 inch squares (peel it, cut it in half, pull out the smaller layers in the middle, cut the outer layers to the right size, then break up the layers).  You can also cut up a green pepper into similar sized pieces if you like.

Thread the cubes of meat onto bamboo skewers (I know, I know, you’re supposed to soak them in water first.  I never do and they work fine), alternating a piece of meat with a slice of onion or green pepper.  When your grill’s ready, put the skewers on, cooking on each side for a couple of minutes – they should take 8-10 minutes in all, depending on how big your cubes are.

For a quick meal, serve with a green salad and some fresh crusty bread.  For a Greek feast, serve with Tzatziki, grilled pita bread, and a Greek Salad.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure you could also just marinate and grill whole chicken breasts or pork chops if you didn’t feel like doing the whole kebab thing.

Tzatziki

Peel a medium sized cucumber (or half a long English cucumber), cut it in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon.  Grate the halves on a box grater, and put the shreds into a colander or mesh sieve.  Squeeze out the extra water (it’ll make your tzatziki watery otherwise).  In a pinch, you could pile the shreds onto the center of a paper towel or dish towel, pull the edges up to make a ball, and squeeze the water out.

Dump the shredded cucumber into a bowl and mix with 1 cup of greek style (generally full fat) or nonfat plain (if you must) yogurt.  Mince one or two cloves of garlic (depending on how strong you like it) and add to the bowl.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice (maybe a teaspon), mix it all up and add salt and pepper to taste.  You can also add a drizzle of olive oil, or just leave it alone.  Serve as a sauce for the meat, and a dip for the pita bread.

This amount of Tzatziki will probably serve 2-3 people (be warned: it’s addictive).

Greek Salad

Peel and seed another cucumber (or the other half of the one you used for the Tzatziki), cut into thick slices, and place in a shallow serving bowl.  Cut a few nice ripe tomatoes into chunks and put on top of the cucumber.  Slice up a green pepper, and half a sweet red onion and put on top of the tomato.  Cut some feta into big chunks, and put on top of the vegetables.  Sprinkle with dried oregano.  Drizzle with plenty of good olive oil and a little bit of red wine vinegar; squeeze half a lemon on top.  Server with a bowl of Kalamata olives.