We went to Ireland; specifically, we went to County Galway, one of our favourite places in the world. If I won the lottery, I’d be over there househunting tomorrow.
We spent the first night at a guest house in Ennis, which I will gloss over; suffice it to say that at breakfast, they gave us a thermos jug of hot water and a selection of teabags. Quite.
We then moved on to Rosleague Manor – we’ve stayed here before, and loved it. I’m not convinced that the food was quite as good this time, but it was still spectacular. No Connemara lamb, though, which was disappointing.
We ate (between us, not each!):
- clams with coconut and lime
- veal with wild mushroom sauce
- king prawns with sundried tomatoes
- french onion soup
- guinea fowl
- chocolate mousse
- scrambled eggs and smokedsalmon
- asparagus with walnut dressing and Baronne ham
- scallops with roast red pepper
- mackerel
- pork with prunes
- lime pie
- goats cheese with vinaigrette
- honeyed duckling with spiced cranberry relish
- chicken liver pate
- bream with olive tapenade and pesto
- clafoutis
Then we moved on to the Park House hotel in Galway City. This is an odd hotel – in Eyre Square, the heart of the city, and trying desperately to be a chic 21st century hotel (white bed linen and burnt orange throws), but failing desperately. And the food … I’ve never seen so much food. The tables were too small, so things were piled upon things. It’s too depressing to list what we ate, but here’s an example:
I ordered baked cod. It came on a plate, accompanied by some sort of fish cake. The waiter brought me a baked potato. The waiter then brought us mange touts and some sort of vegetable puree (it certainly involved parsnips). The waiter then brought us potatoes in garlic and cream.
The woman at the table next door ordered lemon meringue pie. She got it. On the same plate, she got some sort of red jelly, a brandysnap basket with ice cream, a dob of whipped cream, a strawberry, some blueberries, god knows what else. It was as though the chef wasn’t really confident, and thus had to put a little bit of everything on every plate. Just about every plate went back to the kitchen with food on it – nobody could eat all that. I must write and complain – the waste must be colossal.
We ate in the bar the next night – much less gargantuan.
We also ate crab sandwiches (at the (award winning) restaurant in the photo above) and scones and beef and guiness stew and irish cheese and apple pie and chowder and and and.
I love Ireland – can I go back now, please?