Category: Food

I like to think that I am open to “different”, that’s why we are on this adventure, right? And I can handle – but choose not to ingest – things like blood pudding. But certain things have left me shaking my head. Let’s start with the one we face everyday, shall we? Combo take away places. Yes, we are in a small town – quite small – but I see these everywhere. Granted, the photo below is not in our town, it’s just before you enter Killarney on the N21:

Now, the above image is missing one integral option: it doesn’t offer fried chicken. Most of the others do. The thing is, surprisingly, most of these are pretty decent food. Okay, the pizzas are iffy, but not awful. The chicken is quite good. And they serve something called chicken balls! Made me question what the ingredients were 🙄 but it’s just chicken breast cut into good sized chunks, breaded and fried. I was told it’s different from chicken nuggets because it is discernible what part of the chicken it’s from – LOL. The kebabs though, the kebabs are like nothing I’ve ever had. When I’ve had kebabs (right or wrong here, I am no expert) it’s been straight meat with seasonings. And I love them. These are nothing like that –

These kebabs are meat, lettuce, garlic sauce and, get this, Thai sweet chili sauce all wrapped in freshly cooked naan bead. They are enormous so I usually pick at the parts. Naturally, they come with chips. Pizza comes with chips. Chinese food comes with chips. Your breakfast comes with chips. You get the picture. Sometimes the chips are really, really good (I’m looking at you, Brown Morel restaurant, who makes the MOST heavenly chips). Most of the time they are so-so. And then there are crisps (chips to us norte americanos). There is this one brand here, Keogh’s, that are bloody brilliant. A potato farm that thought, “hey, how can we increase our sales? Make our potatoes into crisps right on the farm!” These are the best potato chips crisps ever. Each bag tells you what potato variety, what field they are from AND who cooked them! Cheddar and onion are my personal favorite, but these are so unique I had to include a photo:

Another…interesting…bit is the love of gin and tonics. Really. So much so that I found this at Aldi –

So, we covered a bit of the odd, a bit of the yummy, a bit of the…whatever…and I shall leave you with this – even if I was born without the beer gene and can’t stand the stuff – It really sums up the whole experience:

The drive to Galway and the Wild Atlantic Coast was a blast. And our tummies enjoyed our stops along the way. The first stop was in Ennis for a late breakfast on the day we left. In the old part of town (I love that when you say old about these towns it really is OLD), is the Cafe Aroma. Great choice. Quirky fun with nice feel about the place. Food was seriously good too!

Our dinner that night in Galway was at the The Quays Pub and Restaurant. Live music, really old building, fun atmosphere! The drawback to it was that the lighting was awful for photos, so no pictures from there. Highly recommend the beef and Guinness stew though.

Breakfast the next morning was at Pascal Coffee House. Oh Lordy…I can’t say enough good things about this place. The coffee, the tea, the food. Heaven.

Saturday night the decision was to have fish and chips. We asked Ray (our tour guide) for his recommendation. He said that he thought that Hooked had the best in town. He did not lead us astray. I have not willingly eaten fish in many decades, but I have made it my mission to get over it. This dinner was an excellent start on that task-

We (I) also ate way too much bread, chai teas and other delicious things! Next weekend is a trip to Cork…looking forward to it.

In the UK and Ireland there are breakfasts known as the full Irish, or full British. These are intended to make certain you are not hungry again for a decade or two. Are they balanced meals? HAHAHA. No. Is your daily amount of carbs and fat ingested in one sitting? Oh yeah. Are they tasty? Most definitely, with one exception, and I’ll get to that.

I have had a full British many years ago, so I did have inkling of what they were like. And I knew that the one I had was middling, at best. My husband had a full Irish a few years ago in Dublin, knowing it might not be a good example, and his concerns were justified. So, we were both interested in trying it out again.

The first try was at Marguerite’s, Newcastle West’s bakery. Everything else that we have had here has been excellent so we had high hopes.

There are always eggs, sausage, bacon, usually black and white puddings and toast of some kind. This particular one had hash browns as well (plus chips). The bacon, sausage and egg were excellent, hash brown was tasty. The black and white puddings were the subject of discussion. A pudding of this style means that it is boiled or steamed as a cooking method. Before serving it is sliced and fried in some way. White pudding may or may not have some pork liver in it. If this one did it was well hidden by the spices. It was quite tasty – and I do not consider myself to be an adventurous eater. I made the husband try it first. Black pudding is another subject entirely. It has similar ingredients as white pudding, with the all important addition of blood. Yep. It doesn’t look or smell any different than the white pudding but I just couldn’t do it. Nope. The husband took a bite. He’s not nearly as picky as I am, but he was less than impressed. Overall we were pleased with this experience.

The next example came from the Brown Morel, also in Newcastle (or NCW, as the locals call it). The atmosphere in this restaurant was nice! I loved it. It’s a little bit upscale but not pricey.

First of all, this was ordered without black pudding, and had the classic addition of baked beans, mushrooms and grilled tomato. This one was outstanding! Note the intense color of the eggs. These are not eggs from some mass producer, these are happy chickens. The white pudding here was even better. An enthusiastic YUM is given to this offering.

More to come as we (sometimes) try more traditional food items!

If you don’t know that I have a fondness for little things, you will find out. Things that I might normally see of a certain size, but I come across an unusual small size, seem to tickle my fancy. 🙂 For example:

You might see this small size milk everywhere, but when I have seem them they are in cartons or bottles. This one is a jug. The most adorable little jug. My husband would not let me buy it just to have the jug. I was reminded of all that I had to discard in order to get my suitcase to a reasonable weight. Yeah, but, this is LITTLE! He still said no. Sigh.

A few days later we were at another market (no, I don’t spend all of my time in grocery stores. I think) and we were looking at the candy section. My kids have had a fondness for Double Decker candy bars for years. It was always a big deal when one of us would find them in a shop, or I talked my brother into schlepping them from Germany. Usually one found its way into their Christmas stocking. Imagine my delight when I saw this –

Even the name is adorable!

I’m certain these won’t be the only the little items that I find. I’ll post them as I see them. You maybe ignore if you choose – but it makes me happy.