The Richmond

Went to the Richmond for their Tuesday evening 5 course tasting menu.  Met up at the Bleeding Horse, just around the corner from my Work, San got bus from her work.  Couple of nice IPAs for me, G&T for her.  Really gorgeous evening, given a window seat upstairs in the Richmond to watch world go by, menu is €33, ordered a lovely bottle of Cote de Ventoux, pictures below:





The lamb dish was probably  the best, but all very good, fennel was mild, honeycomb really intense, peas with the paella "arancini" lovely.  €100 in total with a coffee, defo would go back, but also saw at least 1/2 dozen other places in Portobello that look worth a visit

pasta

Made ravioli today, photos below, courgette from garden, tomatoes next week, chillies on way.  Bruschetta & crab claws to start, sea trout, tarragon and cream cheese, also made chickpea and bacon (blended), for another day, into freezer

Tripadvisor

An opinion:

Many of the food people - chefs, bloggers, reviewers, restaurateurs etc I follow on social media are real Tripadvisor haters - I understand this, especially for a chef or restaurateur whose livelihood may depend on it.  I can also see it from the pov of a food blogger as they may feel that they are an arbiter of taste and it should be left to  an aggregation of genuine travellers, amateur gourmands, trolls, people with agendas, people of dubious taste etc

However I would really like to stick up for Tripadvisor, with some caveats, as a resource for looking up things to do and / or places to stay around the world it is a great start point.  I will re-iterate this for food, which would be my main use - it is a start - with caveats...
Obviously I like to travel and I love new places, even in cities I go to a lot, like Madrid, Malaga and Düsseldorf or even Dublin  (I don't think Tripadvisor is as good for USA visits) so I'm always on the look out for good / great food at a good price.  I also use Michelin guide, Zagat in USA, coupled with Google Maps to see where the places are in relation to others, where we are staying and public transport, as well as the websites (sometimes FB pages) of the bars and restaurants to get a shortlist

Caveats:
The search function is and always has been rubbish, search for a place with tripadvisor or use the site:tripadvisor.ie restaurant_name in Google to get the page on TA

Pop-ups, pop-unders, emails - far too much of that and I have aggressive ad-block , no-script etc, must be appalling on a vanilla browser.  Also they are always trying to sell hotel room - (a) I never book hotels, San does that (b) she doesn't use TA, as it is not the best value.

Don't take the ranking too seriously, think about where it is, likely clientele and size of area.

A couple of examples - A friend of mine who is foodie, won't use TA because he was in either the Canaries or Costa del Sol, and went to the top rated pub / restaurant, as it had great reviews.  It was a good family friendly English / Irish pub grub place - he hated it, but he would never normally go to a place like that, he just assumed that the top 10 in TA would all be Fine Dining, not the pubs fault, just his misunderstanding, he didn't leave a review, but if he had it would have been v negative.

Nerja - I go a lot and the top 10 in TA changes frequently, but as 60-80% of the population are tourists in any given season, they will skew results, their demography is Northern European, working - middle class, so one has to take a long view and filter out the types of places you are not interested in.

Going to places without many reviews - Maputo is a good example, only 150 restaurants in total for a population of well over 1M (Boston population 600k 2,500 restaurants on TA), Maputo TA reviewers are likely to be ex-pat, NGO, GO - so sports bars are a big hit....

There is no single truth anywhere, especially on the internet, but I do think TA is a valuable resource along with other and your common sense :)

I have posted reviews on TA, I think San does way more, but I'm lazy and I can never remember names of places or what I ate / drank so I'm not a great reviewer - and I love offal so a plate of molejas in La Oreja de Jamie or zarajos over the road in Casa Toni (both Madrid) are manna for me, but not the place for San or most others

Tabbouleh

Made tabbouleh a couple of times lately, read the Guardian "prefect" article, but obvo didn't go for all the extra fancy messing.

There was bulgar wheat in Lidl ages ago that I bought cheap and never used, saw some tabbouleh on the telly , thought it looked nice so went for it.

Basically very simple:

Cook bulgar wheat in 2 x salted boing water for about 7-10 minutes, let cool
Chop enormous amounts of parsley (flat leaf, but I've used either) - at least three times the amount of wheat, but I've used less when that's all I have.
Chop a good handful of mint - plenty of others herbs will go (dill, tarragon, fennel fronds etc)
Slice a couple of spring onions and (preferably very ripe) tomatoes
In the proper recipe there is a list of spices - I just use ras al hanout
Lemon juice and salt to taste

Mix all together, the only time consuming bit is the herb chopping, but I guess you could use a machine...

excellent summer lunch at work

Cauliflower and curry

So after the lovely roasted, spiced cauliflower I had in Rasam and a recipe San found for something similar, I thought I would give it a go, as I was making a curry.

Curry first - two lamb shanks marinated for about 6 hours in yoghurt, fresh and dried chillies, garlic, ginger and homemade garam masala.  Into pressure cooker, brown for about 10 minutes until sauce nearly gone add 3 quartered red onions, cook for another few minutes, add a bag of lamb stock I made months ago from freezer, tin of tomatoes and some water.  Pressure cook for about 1 1/2 hours, add chopped peppers remove bones / gristle (meat came off easily).  Another 30 minutes, tear meat with forks, add chopped courgette, cook open until courgette is done.  Served with rice and chapatis.

Slice cauliflower into 1/2 cm slice, they will probably split into manageable chucks, but if not split them, parboil until just tender, plunge into iced water, then once completely cold drain in colander then pat dry.  Mix flour and spice - I used ras el hanout, but could have used garam masala or curry powder.  Dredge cauliflower in flour mix,  shake them, then put on lightly greased oven paper on an oven tray (oil spray is best for this), bake for about 1/2 hour turning at least once, lovely as starter or accompaniment.

Pickle

Just a quick update, Pickle for lunch with work today, tiffin boxes, very, very good, especially the cold chickpea salad, would definitely go with San one evening

Indians and chcikens

Went to Rasam in Glasthule for dinner on Sunday after a lovely day walking The Metals and a couple of drinks.  Food as always was gorgeous, fab spiced roasted cauliflower starter and chicken curry, mild but lovely.

Anyway, took Monday off after a couple of weekends working Sundays, made a chicken taco thing from a Nevin Maguire recipe in Dunnes, for lunch today, was OK, but need maybe guacamole or sour cream to give it a bit more richness and more chili heat.  I had bought a cheap chicken (and a better one for a standard Roast), legs and wings for two portions of lunches above, carcass for stock (and again from the carcass of the roast) and two large breasts, maybe for a Thai curry into freezer, good knife skills practice.  We also made a tomato sauce and some beef mince / pork sausage-meat meatballs - had them tonight with bucatoni, leftover chicken and probably cole slaw tomorrow - but going for another Indian for lunch tomorrow - thanks from work for the extra we did over the last few weeks - Pickle - will review hopefully tomorrow

Pizza and today

Made pizzas (3 x 9") last night pictures below:

I had a tomato sauce I made for a sausage pasta dish in freezer to go on the bases I'd made, recipe somewhere above. for both sauce and bases.  Chilli beef, always do that, make two or three at a time of the mixes, basically a standard chilli con carne, without the beans and quite dry., full recipe is probably here somewhere above.  Tuna, sweetcorn and roast red peppers (small tin in packs of three from any supermarket in Spain - large jar go off).  I usually do those, then the third is generally a new one:
Waxy potatoes sliced on the finest mandolin setting,  baby asparagus (cheap in SuperValu), sliced, microwaved for about 2 minutes and into cold water, sliced red onion and peppers, mixture of mozzarella and emmental.

Really liked them, but I think a little under-seasoned, which is odd, as I'm not a salt fan


Today off to Dun Laorgharie to stay in Royal Marine and and dinner in Rasam, that we love and a few pints - Beer Traders / Forty Foot or 64Wine in Glasthule for a nice glass of wine.  Day off tomorrow, to make up for a couple of Sundays, bit of shopping and cooking.

Thoughts on lunches

Over the years, lots of jobs, lots of different workplaces and lunch possibilities, at the moment a break room, fridge, couple of microwaves, George Foreman, toaster so OK.  Had everything from proper kitchens to nothings and a huge range of canteens in between. Whee I currently work, there are load of great (expensive and large portion) places to get takeaways and plenty of eat-ins as well.

Part of being old and on a strict plan to not spend money, makes me aghast at spending a tenner, or more, on lunch, food looks and smells lovely, but I don't need that much (though am a terrible snacker, but that's why I have apples, yogurt bars, peanuts in my desk) I do think that lunch can be good and cheap.

I plan to do a few recipes to expound on this, but just wanted to put down a few words about leftovers, especially ignoring using everything the next day and jazzing up simple staples.

Part of the problem here is I am impervious to any gutrot, so I would say food never goes off (within a week), so I can use Saturday's leftovers on Wednesday, but even if you are more delicate, most food from supermarkets traveled from the other side of the world, it will last another day.  It's is also part of the plan, not to waste anything, I feel sadder about throwing food out than Trump, May, Corbyn, God(s) and / or any other ridiculous politician or the imaginary pantheon.  So will try and post some recipes of use of leftovers, five days a week for years, so I think am OK at it.


Staples - rice, pasta, chick-peas, noodles, pulses, potatoes, can be all great, some take a bit longer to cook and / or prep, but cheap as fuck and can be lovely, especially if, as I do, you love spices

I plan to put a selection of my lunches down to help anyone else with a similar plan

Quiet weekend

Made a lovely risotto with chicken supreme yesterday, chorizo, peeled broad beans etc

Quite faffy but lovely.  San brought home some coffee beans from work, so had to buy a grinder - I already have one but only used for spices, so couldn't use it for coffee, bought a couple of little coffee cups from Vincent de Paul's in Swords and made a cup before work (Sunday) this morning.  So San cooking dinner today, her parents coming, a beef strew and hopefully brownies.

Will have to make some lunches and ironing when I get home from work.