Sweet Memories, Good Times, and Something to Share (Ireland)

A few of my fellow bloggers have recognized my blog and I want to say a belated “thank you” to Sophie at Sophies Foodiefiles (an incredibly talented chef who hails from Belgium, and from whom I continually get inspired). Gera from SweetsFoods, an engineer (a fellow after my own heart) who hails from Uruguay and puts food, culture, health and nutrition, and many other topics in easy and interesting posts, I learn something new every time I read his work.  Finally, Ruth of iloveflavorme, who writes about the life in the UK for a spicy food lover, and offers up some truly tempting recipes.  Generally the rules of receipt of such awards are to tell a bit about yourself, but I thought that providing feedback and recommendations on my recent trip to Ireland would be a more useful takeaway as I recently gave some facts about myself.

Stuff I figured out

What they say about the Irish being incredibly friendly – is true – I had only to look like I was reaching for my map before someone stopped to see if we needed help. One person even crossed the street to see that we were ok and took the time to explained the significance of the building across the street which we had thought was simply another pub; little did we know.

I found more folks in this country that have more artistic talent in their little finger than I could ever aspire to; the music, the singing, the art work incredible and inspiration.

The farther west you venture, the more likely you will hear Gallic conversations and the thicker the brogue.

My mother is a big Rick Steve’s fan, to the point where I jokingly said there were three of us making this trip: my mom, Rick Steves, and me.  She loves his books, and would confirm anything I said in the Rick Steve’s bible, err guidebook.  All I can say, is that he does some things very well, and somethings not so well.   For example, Rick Steve’s writes from the perspective that visitors have limited options and time, all very true, so he highlights some cities, historical sites, etc. and completely disregards others.  I was disconcerted that he mentions that while in County Cork, you should stay in Kinsale or Cobh but makes no mention of the City of Cork.  Now Kinsale’s population is about 2,500, Cobh’s is ~ 12,000 and Cork’s is over 100,000, so I thought Cork worthy of at least worth a mention, but if you only went by Rick Steve’s book, its as if it never existed.  Being a food lover, I was aghast, especially having visited the butter museum and the English Market.

Rick Steve’s Book – my review after living with it for 2 weeks

Good

• If you have no idea where to start or how to prioritize, this book is a good place to start.
• His list of places to stay were all good and situated close to the bus and train stations – great if you are hauling luggage around.  He also pointed out the Tourist Office and a selection of good restaurants and internet cafes, and other traveler necessities.
• We never had a complaint with any of the places he recommended.
• He lays out the city in neat easy to follow drawings, stripping out all the extraneous details
• Lists sites included on the Heritage Card

Not So Good

• The suggestions are very subjective, and as previously mentioned, the list excludes some interesting places.
• The suggestions, may not be accurate – the book said we could catch the bus for The Ring of Kerry from Tralee, no such luck, we were told by the local Tourist Office, after we made the trip in vain, that they had not had RoK bus leave from Tralee in years with no plans for one in the future.

Public transportation in Ireland is easy to use; my mother and I used both the bus and train, and had no problems.  A few caveats though:

• The train system is not as extensive as you might expect and it pays to consider your options between the train and the bus.  Generally, the buses are cheaper and stop more frequently than trains, but not always.  Also note the frequency of the trips, some only leave a handful of times a day and the last thing anyone wants is to be sitting at the station when they could be out exploring.
• Check into the pass situation, for us it was definitely not a good deal, as it limited us to the number of days we could use them.  What worked was booking our tickets on line at an internet cafe; generally you save 10%, for both the bus and train, but they occasionally throw in some on-line deals.  Our tickets from Galway to Dublin would have cost us 39€ /person, if I had purchased them at the station.  I had time, so I reserved our seats on the web for 10€/person – a heck of a deal.  Apparently this was a summer deal they offered and included connecting other major cities to Dublin, but they extended it.
• If you set up many home bases like we did, staying in a place for a few days and seeing the various sites.  Buying a “return” ticket saves money.  Sometimes the “return” ticket was only a few euro more than the “single” or one way ticket.

However, if you are considering hitting a lot of sites in a specific location then it might make sense to get a car as some places challenging to reach by bus or train.

When the stakes are high for the All Ireland Football Championship and you are inadvertently wearing the colors of the opposing team, be

prepared to be honked and gestured to.  (Never mind that my hat was from a university in Singapore.)  It appears that when the Irish find something they care passionately about they go all out!  You cannot help but respect that devotion.  Also, Irish football is not like American-style football or what the rest of the world calls “soccer”, it’s their own version.

Guinness is much better in Ireland.  Maybe its the water, and apparently English pubs agree with me.  I understand that they import it directly to capture the flavor rather than bottling it there.

Despite the downturn in the economy, prices for food and lodging were not cheap – due to the exchange rate (weak dollar).  If the dollar had been on parity with the euro, the prices would have seemed in lined to what you are accustomed to paying in the States.  The rate was about 1.45 € : $1.

The Irish Bed and Breakfasts quote rates per person, but will quote for a single room if you ask – I do not recall seeing this practice anywhere else.  Note the breakfast part, because an Irish breakfast is truly something to behold. An Irish breakfast is a meat lovers delight: one or two fried

eggs, sausage (bangers), bacon, black and white pudding and a token tomato quarter, plus all the lovely toast you can eat.

Keep small change handy in your pockets.  Like the UK and other countries you may encounter restrooms that you need to pay to use (usually 30¢)  The practice appears to be less widespread than in the UK, but you do not want to be surprised.

The Tourist Office is your friend.  These places are awesome (seems to be one in every town), chock full of great information and they can book tickets for events and rooms for you.  We traveled towards the off season (mid to end of September) and did not have a set itinerary.  Our first stop on arriving in a new town was a visit to the Tourist Office, they had a selection of approved hotels and B&Bs to choose from, and for a 4€ booking fee, plus 10% deposit we had a nice room for the night – stress free.

The Irish food markets that we visited were wonderful.  If your on a budget, you can totally score a gourmet meal here.  I got an amazing sampling of some of Ireland’s finest cheeses in Cork’s English Market and proved conclusively that I am not lactose intolerant – Yippee!  Better yet, their offerings do not stop with dairy, the baked goods, meats, fish, produce – all were excellent at every market we tried.

Take the Ring of Kerry Tour by bus.  We’d been told that driving it was nerve racking, and I believe it.  The roads are incredibly narrow, and our bus driver made amply use of both lanes, so I would not want to be in a small car navigating these roads; you would never appreciate the scenery.  Plus you would miss out on the information provided by the bus driver, ours was full of wonderful stories, and he knew where to stop so that we could soak in the sites.  Finally, our bus seated about 30 passengers, and was the perfect size, any more would have been overwhelming.  Maybe because we visited towards the end of the season, it was our only option.  I understand that during the height of summer, the larger buses are in use – if you can, choose the smaller bus.

My mother, from her research, determined we needed the Heritage Cards which allows visitors access to sites throughout Ireland either for free, or at reduced rates.  We secured our cards at the Dublin airport, but you can obtain them from multiple locations.  We broke even with the cards, but if we were avid museum and monument visitors, or if we concentrated our time around Dublin, we would have easily come out ahead.  I’d suggest determining where you want to go and checking to see if they’re heritage sites, and determining the prices.  A few locations were on the expensive side so the card would have easily paid for iteself.  Rick Steves, to his credit, lists the sites in his book.

Cobh is a must see if you had relatives that immigrated from Ireland.  If they did, they probably passed through Cobh, their last days in Ireland were probably here before they sailed to the US and points beyond.  Cobh has a great museum on immigration (for the history buffs, Cobh (or Cove or Watertown as it was previously called) was also the final port of the Titanic and the Lusitania disaster happened between here and Kinsale).

What I’d do differently or at least include on my next visit

I’d plan a bit more so we could take in more sights from a single location.  Some of the places that we missed because we ran out of time include:

Take advantage of all the castles, gardens and other historical sites that are short day trips from Dublin.  We concentrated our time in Dublin, which I certainly do not regret, but were keenly aware that we had missed beacoup sites just outside Dublin.  Here’s where the Heritage card comes in handy.

The Cliffs of Moher

The Rock of Cashel

Cork County is said to be a food lovers delight, I’d love to spend more time checking out the bounty of this region.

The town of Adare, with its thatched roof houses was so pretty.  I had recommended this place to my Mom, but as it was not included in Rick Steves book (another oversight!) we caught a view as we passed through.  It was truly a lovely village that you could spend the night at and probably check out in a day.

I wanted to check out Northern Ireland, but we just ran out of time, so this location is also on my list for a future visit.

Take a cooking class – because of the fluidity of our schedule it was not possible this time, so I had to console myself with several cooking books that drew me with their sirens’ songs.  Two books are from the Ballymaloe cooking school and Darina Allen which is high on my list for my return visit.  They are not the only ones to offer a cooking classes, but if you talk to anyone familiar with Irish cooking, theirs is the name that comes up.

I would seek out Irish cooking in the towns I visited.  I thought I’d easily find it in the pubs, and if I could eat fish and chips every night, maybe so.  But I was struck at how global the menu selection was: hamburgers (albeit from real Kerry cows), panini, pizza, chicken korma and curry.

oh, and I would want to revisit everything I saw the first time, because, well, they might have changed since the last time.

Foodie Advise I got

I have some great contacts in the food world, who generously share their ideas, opinions and suggestions.  Typically upon receiving this treasure trove of information, the receiving party returns the favor by sharing it within the group.  I wanted to spread that wealth of wonderful suggestions with a broader audiences; I could not keep all the wonderful advise to myself so I’ve added their feedback below.  (Note – I removed most duplicate recommendations).

Dublin

Along the Liffey, the Winding Stair (with an adjacent bookstore) is one of my favorite restaurants anywhere!!  If every a recommendation came up repeatedly, this one is it!
Take their subway to the end of the line at Howth to check out the seafood restaurants and farmer’s market.
Take a tour of the Guinness Storehouse and the distillery for Jameson Irish Whiskey.  The Guinness tour is fun – its a self guided tour, and I think for most folks, the highlight is the pint of Guinness that is included at the end, plus the spectacular views from the Sky Bar at the top of the building.

Almost any of the pubs in Temple Bar are great for lifting a pint or two.  The farmstead cheeses are fabulous and there’s a cheese shop somewhere off Grafton St. near the hub of the City, where you can get the best cheeses from all parts of Ireland.  I think this shop is Sheridans Cheesemongers which also has a location in Galway.  I went to that one and stocked up, it was a gem.

I enjoyed Bewley’s, on Grafton Street.

Knightbridge Bar (Arlington Hotel) -  30€ for a 3 course meal. The food was OK, but the entertainment was awesome.

Marco Pierre White on Dawson Street is [expensive], but the Avoca shop on Suffolk Street has a super restaurant on its top floor, and an imaginative menu especially for lunch (they also have another shop/restaurant in the town of Avoca.

County Clare

If you get to Mountshannon in County Clare, we stayed there at the Hawthorn Lodge (B&B), and my favorite restaurant there was called The Snug Cafe Winebar.

County Cork

Kinsale, in County Cork, holds its gourmet food festival in October, and is a great place to explore otherwise. (this town is covered in a future post)
Shanagarry, in County Cork, is home to Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School – the gardens are magnificent.

Cork is one of the best cities for Irish food. While there, go to the Farm Gate Cafe  (really proper traditional Irish dishes such as tripe and drisheen, located in the fabulous English Market). The Crawfod Art Gallery has a nice cafe.

West Cork is home of some of Ireland’s best cheese producers.  Lots of great off-the-beaten track places…..County Cork has many wonderful restaurants–it’s a large county–ranging, in the east, the Farmgate in Midleton; in West Cork, Mary Ann’s in Castletownsend is pleasant. In Cork City, Café Paradiso has an imaginative and quite reasonably priced vegetarian menu and its chef, Denis Cotter, has published cookbooks (esp. Paradiso Seasons) a food aficionado would appreciate. The foodie jewel in Cork City, however, is the fabulous covered English Market, downtown, well worth an extended visit. For example, it has a spectacular cheese shop called On the Pig’s Back that sells St. Tola, an award-winning organic goat cheese from County Clare, and Arbutus Breads (they rival San Francisco’s Acme!) and crackers from the Baking Emporium (totally addictive). To top things off, a mezzanine restaurant makes a great place for lunch. As far as I’m concerned, Irish food culture deserves to be recast as worthy of acclaim!

Everything from Gubbeen – charcuterie, cheese, etc – is wonderful and if you can get to West Cork, the wild southwest of Ireland, you won’t be sorry. It’s fabulously beautiful and there is plenty of great food. Start in Cork and wind westward along the coast. Look for Gubbeen cheese in all the good food shops and markets. I can vouch for their delicious charcuterie, which has won several awards.

County Tipperary

Nenagh, in County Tipperary, Peter Ward, Chairman of Ireland’s Bord Bia Taste Council, who promotes Ireland’s artisan food sector, owns Country Choice, a “mecca for food lovers.”

County Galway
[The City of] Galway is known for great food, both in its pubs and restaurants. I can vouch for this one, we had many delicious meals here.  Also at the end of September is their famous Oyster Festival.

County Waterford

The Tannery in Dungarvan is a wonderful restaurant

Some Irish Bloggers of note

Food Related

The Daily Spud – she starts with the potato but takes this delightful food blog to another level.

CorkFork – food and restaurant information for Cork.

English Mum in Ireland – the name is pretty descriptive and the writing is a lot of fun

IcecreamIreland – a blog by the director of Murhphy’s ice cream.  This stuff was so tasty, and very addicting to.  Along with the cheeses, I was guaranteed my daily supply of calcium.

Bibliocook – started in New Zealand, but this food blog made Cork, Ireland home.

Conor’s Bandon Blog – not just a food blog – its got something for everyone

Val’s Kitchen – a food blog from Limerick

I intended to add more, but then I realized that IcecreamIreland has an excellent list.

Some excellent Irish resources

Discover Ireland

Irish Railroad

Irish Buses – Intercity

Heritage Ireland

Visit Dublin

I was struck at the irony that many of these Irish towns I knew of for years, yet their populations were often less than 20,000 and I’d be hard pressed to name comparably sized towns in the United States.  I had an incredible experience on this trip, in no small part becasue I got to really spend some time with my mom, which I have not done in years.  I also crisscrosed an incredibly beautiful country and learned that dispite my cocky confidence, it takes more then two weeks to take in the bounty this country has to offer.

Tags: friendship, Ireland, travel