Wait! Where Are the Potatoes? Irish Food Revisited

What I say is that, 

if a man really likes potatoes, 

he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.  

 ~A.A. Milne 

We once heard a tourist in Ireland complain, "I have gained 15 pounds in a week. The potato has become my spirit animal." We have no such complaint. We love potatoes. On this trip we found that, while potatoes were on the menu every now and again, we enjoyed few "I'll have potatoes with my potatoes" meals. By the end of our travels we were missing our spuds.

So, what was the best thing we ate? In a restaurant it would have to be the coffee cake at the Blueberry Cafe in Thomastown. But the best meal was tea in the kitchen at the farm of our friend, Kevin in Gowran where we dined on muffins, tea, good conversation, and family.

We had a few bread and cheese meals. Then, at a crossroads near St. Patrick's Well on our long drive to the airport, I found myself ordering the roast with vegetables and potatoes two ways. I was set to order a sandwich until I saw the gentleman at the next table with the roast. Oh, my. It was even better than it looked. I shared half with DH who had only ordered a dainty bagel/bacon/brie sandwich and there was so much food (and potatoes two ways).

Here are a few photos and maybe a story or two. [Yeah. I am that person.]

1. We arrived in Kilkenny hungry. We stopped at a pub before a performance.*

Soup and brown bread is the perfect meal.

But we were intrigued by the "fried brie" on the starter menu. It was good, but the salad was better.

This looks like DH's ham and cheese toasty. Note - there are the spuds.

Scorched earth. Look, we had just climbed a hill, explored ruins, driven over an hour, found our hotel, and unpacked.

2. First breakfast in Ireland, Kilkenny Inn.

I always recommend the "full Irish" breakfast on the first morning. This was a particularly good and varied one. From "noon" clockwise: flat mushrooms (sauteed in butter), black pudding,** white pudding, bacon, grilled tomato, fried egg. Sausages are in the middle. This is clearly an OD on the "fry." Following days found me with poached eggs, black pudding, mushrooms and tomato. No potatoes here although the tomato is a cousin (both are nightshades - really).

3. There is a restaurant in Kilkenny called Paris Texas. I'd heard of it before and we stopped one day in between exploration and festival events. It's a large place. The food has a Texas influence. It was fine. We didn't need French fries...and I tried to get DH to wait for crab until we got to Cork. He cannot pass up a crab cake.

Paris Texas serves burgers and fries and mac & cheese among other American delicacies. It's fine, but not where I want to eat in Ireland. I can eat a burger at home.

4. Blackberries - EVERYWHERE. Some fruit around Ireland was ripe. The blackberries were just becoming that dark purple that means they are ready. DH is not a fan, but I tried a few. They must almost fall off the vine or they are still too tart.

Blackberries (or brambles)

5. The tea room at Kilkenny Castle in the old castle kitchen. We stopped for coffee and tea and a shared coffee gateau (okay, okay - we also had a slice of lemon Madeira cake).  The gateau, a delicious coffee flavored sponge cake with a coffee flavored butter cream frosting, was the winner.

I'm not sure how it was that we did not get a photo of the cake. It was lovely and delicious.

6. Tea room at St. Mary's Cathedral. After we attended a fabulous quilt show upstairs in the chapter house and visited with an artist raising money for South Sudan, we headed downstairs for lunch.

DH was glad to be able to find one of a couple of diet sodas he prefers pretty much everywhere.

We don't seem to be able to wait. Mushroom soup and a bacon and brie sandwich. I seem to be noticing a pattern.

Did I mention that brown bread is almost always served with soup? Did I mention that we ate a good deal of bread on this trip? [Have I shed a tear or two when realizing there is no brown bread waiting for me in the kitchen?]

7. La Rivista, Kilkenny. Some of the local festival attendees encouraged us to try one of the Italian restaurants. We couldn't remember which one, but stopped outside of one in the early evening and enjoyed some pasta.

DH had bacon and Parmesan tagliatelle

I had fettuccine and prawns. I win!

8. Blueberry Cafe, Thomastown. After visiting Jerpoint Abbey we wandered through nearby Thomastown looking for part of the "Fringe Festival" and got tired and hungry. We did better finding food than the "fringe."

These were busy people and they served us quickly. We had the coffee cake for dessert (we shared). OMG! I shared with the owner that we had eaten the coffee cake at the Kilkenny Castle tea room and she wins. It was the truth. [The tomato soup was wonderful too and the brown bread was at the top of what we ate on this trip. Of course - they are bakers here.]

We settled for soup and bread because we could see they were bakers!

Can you see the cake in the display to the left? [Do you see the pottery? Fabulous - pitchers, plates, display bowls -- and the mirror in the bathroom.] I'm going to have to find a coffee cake recipe.

They took their broken crockery and made this mirror.

9. On the long drive from Kilkenny we started running low on petrol. We were hungry and in the middle of nowhere. Finally a pub appeared and we stopped to eat and for directions to a gas station. So we were not actually in the middle of nowhere. We were on the R585 in Crookstown and dined at Clifford's Bar. A family of French vacationers sat next to us and DH impressed them with his schoolboy French. [Because of the European Union, it appears there is more vacationing across borders.] We had some fabulous soup and bread (yes, standard lunch - you cannot go wrong) and I had my first Murphy's. The gas station was not far away and the directions we received took us right to it.

Vegetable soup, bread, and Murphy's

10. Beechwood House, located outside of Glengarriff, was the only B&B we stayed in on this trip. It was a lovely and comfortable place. The proprietor, Ann saw to our needs efficiently. She fed us well and also provided recommendations for/stories about hikes at the nature reserve. We were able to pick and choose much of our breakfast. Again, I was pleased because nothing would be wasted.

I love the B&B breakfast table.

11. Jack's Restaurant, Glengarriff - Jack is good at what he does. The food is amazing. There is ongoing staff training and Jack knows how to drum up business. If you are looking at the menu outside the restaurant, Jack might just come out and talk to you about the specials. We ate at Jack's both days we were in Glengarriff.

It's a good size place so no waiting and you will find loads of locals inside. There is a message in that.

My second and last Murphy's. If you are ever in County Cork and the vicinity, don't order a Guinness. Order a Murphy's (smoother and less bite).

"Have the Black Sole," Jack said.

DH had the scallops and bacon in cream sauce (with potatoes). I had this dish the next night.

Hey, I listened to Jack and had the Black Sole.

I'm not usually a girl who orders "whole fish" but the herb and butter grilled sole was fabulous. No, I never found a stray bone.

DH had the lamb shank on the second night (yes, I believe it might be resting on potatoes). I did have a bite. It was lovely

DH didn't like the lamb. Hahahaha! He loved it!

Jack is a character. As we left on the last night, DH was looking at something or other. I found a family outside the restaurant reading the menu board. I began to tell them that we had eaten there the last two nights and sharing the wonders of the food. Just as I was in the middle of describing the dishes we had devoured, Jack came out the door to give his pitch. He saw me, heard me, and swung back inside the restaurant - never missing a beat. He had plenty to do and he could see there was no need for him to make the pitch with that group.  [They did, indeed, go inside.]


12. The Snug, Bantry. Bantry is famous for seafood. I had promised DH some fresh crab. We found it at the Snug.

Open-faced fresh Dingle crab sandwich and seafood chowder. It was a good meal. Did I mention the crab?

13. Maritime Hotel, Bantry - Breakfast buffet. What's not to like? We had plenty of choices and ended up "balancing" the fry the last few mornings with poached eggs. The staff here was great too!

"Almost" full Irish. I like being able to pick and choose so no food is wasted. DH was happy to be able to order porridge.

14. As we headed back to Dublin on our last day in Ireland we decided to stop between Cahir and Clonmel to walk around, visit St. Patrick's Well, and eat. We found the Barne Lodge on the N24 (a roadway we know well). It was a Sunday and the roast beef dinner reminded me of many Sunday dinners.

Don't think that DH was starving or anything. He had the soup as well. I also shared almost half of my roast as there was so much food on my plate (I am sure I didn't really want to share, but how could I not?).

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, roasted potato, mushy peas, and mixed veg. I had almost forgotten about "mushy peas." If done right they are good. These were done right and the roast was wonderful. It was the perfect way to end the trip - potatoes two ways!

There would have to be more meals as we were traveling for two weeks, but there are no photos and nothing to mention (although the local pizza joint just down from the Maritime Hotel was pretty good). We did manage to skip a few meals as the breakfasts were enormous. We were rarely hungry until mid-afternoon and did not need an evening meal - we just had "tea" with cheese and crackers or bread/scones/fruit left over from the morning.

Here are more "food related" photos:

Okay, okay. I had salted caramel ice cream from this truck near the crafts at Kilkenny Castle. It was good.

We did not get invited to the "after parties" as in after the hurling match between Kilkenny and Tipperary. We hear them, though. Folks in Kilkenny were not celebrating.

I don't know that I was aware you could buy such a thing - that these were a "real deal." I didn't go looking, but I loved the sign!

Some of what I scored at Bantry Market Day. Fudge. Fresh sour dough brown bread. Cheese and jams (Darn - that reminds me I have not unpacked the jams we brought back. That's why that suitcase was so heavy!).

I took this photo for DH. He was a little "under the weather" on market day so I didn't even suggest it.

NOTES:

*Normally we rest on the first day, but our schedule did not allow it. We ate instead. The performance? The Soldier's Tale , spoken word and classical music, with Ciarán Hinds. Yup. Himself.

**I am a fan of black pudding (aka blood sausage). Clonakilty in west Cork is especially proud of its pudding (and it is truly excellent - but we didn't go there on this trip). If you are curious you can read about it here, but remember what they say about "learning how sausage is made." I generally skip the white pudding (I don't even want to know). https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/all-you-need-know-about-black-pudding

FINAL NOTE:

We had the opportunity to "bid" on business class seats. It seemed strange to me, but since we were on our own and wouldn't be hopping on and off a bus with someone else driving, we thought we would gamble for the chance of a good night's sleep on the plane (we had gotten a good price on our original tickets and didn't bid exorbitantly). Sometimes gambling is worth it.

We were very well treated by Aer Lingus. We toasted the beginning and the end of the trip and then I had one whiskey in Kilkenny and two Murphy's in County Cork. I usually drink much more than this when at home and much more when traveling in Ireland. When traveling with DH I do seem to drink less...but he carries my duty free purchases. Good man!