Dining out in November

November saw a nice bit of dining out for me, first off myself and 4 of the lovely ladies I work with took ourselves off to The Old Convent in Clogheen for a night of fine dining, chat and craic.

Here's "the Girls" Kate, Mary, Phil & Sheila.

Dermot's food as usual was superlative and I was so glad that the girls enjoyed it as it was their first visit to The Old Convent. I adored the the course that started our meal - Ummera Smoked Duck Breast with Parmesan toast, and High Bank Orchard Apple Syrup. (So much so that I tracked down said syrup once I got home, managed to get it at the local farmer's market here in Tralee. Superb stuff!) The ladies and I are planning our return visit for 2012!

 Dermot's second dessert - chocolate heaven!

Then Billy and I went to the Tom Doorley event at The Brehon in Killarney, a lovely night where we were regaled with some fun and informative wine related anecdotes by Tom, while sampling the lovely food offered by Danú restaurant at The Brehon. The main was lovely lamb wellington, with roasted shallot, potato fondant, broad beans and a wine jus.

The night was unbelievable value at €45 per person and that included an amuse bouche, a starter, a veloute, the mains, a goats cheese panacotta and then a deliciously chocolately dessert and petit fours and tea/coffee and 3 very generous glasses of wine and a glass of port.Amazing value!

The following night we were off to Killarney again, this time to Treyvaud's restaurant for their annual game night, we were looking forward to this and trying a few new tastes. The Santa-esque gent here in Mr Treyvaud Senior who comes out of retirement for this event every year. The buffet table was laden down with all types of terrines, pates, sausages, salamis, salads etc, and it was from this we helped ourselves to the starter.

Then we had a Wild game consomme.

From the menu for mains Billy chose Roast Breast of Pigeon and I went with the Pheasant, loved my pheasant, Billy's pigeon I could live without but he ate it happily.

The meal ended with Xmas pud with a divine Brandy sauce.

The cost of this was a very reasonable €50 per person.

I saw somewhere that they also do a seafood night, will be checking that out in 2012!

Birthday Feast Part 3 Cliff House Hotel

After our beautiful breakfast we headed for Villierstown, Co Waterford as Christine at The Old Convent had told us about the Hindu/Gothic gate lodge built there in the mid 1800's to commemorate the wedding of the owner of Dromana House.

We arrived early afternoon (Sat 22nd Oct) at Cliff House Hotel as the rain was pouring down. Check in was quick and efficient and a very friendly chap showed us to our room and explained the layout of the hotel etc. We had a lovely room (25) with heathery shades, fab bathroom and a wet terrace with a panoramic view of the Waterford coastline.

 Luckily the weather cleared up so we headed on the cliff walk and how amazing is that - talk about a potted history of Ireland! We passed a shipwreck, The Sampson which got wrecked in 1987, the Old Coastguard station, A lookout post, Fr O'Donnell's well. We passed fields planted with parsnips, carrots, potatoes and beet - the smell of parsnips in abundance is amazing. We then came to the graveyard which has the 12th century Round Tower, the remains of an ancient church with really well preserved carvings on the wall, a sailor's grave from 1947 where 11 of the crew of the SS Ary are buried.

Trust Billy to have got the one pair of wellies in the hotel that were leaking! Lmao! So at that stage we headed back to the hotel.

We spent a while enjoying the beautiful pool, outdoor hot tub, sauna and steam room and by this time we had a fine appetite built up for dinner having had ZILCH since breakfast. Cliff House's chef is Dutch man  Martijn Kajuiter and they hold Munster's only Michelin Star.

Polished ourselves up a bit and headed to the bar for a pre-dinner cocktail - I had a beautiful Green Apple Martini - €12. Once again we were having the tasting menu with paired wines - €85per person for the dinner and €40pp for the wines. I was quite happy to see the menu had the wine pairing written underneath the food on the menu, it's impossible to remember what wine one had otherwise.

As I have already said in earlier posts I do not have adequate words to describe the intensity of the flavours, the food pairings, the art on a plate so if you have the opportunity go there for yourself and let your taste buds and your eyes be amazed by the plates you will be presented with. 

On the table when we sat down was a little pack of crisps, delicious salty slightly greasy crisps - Mr Tayto eat your heart out boy!

We were then given an amuse bouche - the thing of beauty on the right of the picture is a beetroot meringue-ey type thing with goat's cheese, so melt on the tongue. Save us all from old age but neither me nor himself can for the life of us remember what the yoke in the glass was! There were hazelnuts sprinkled on top and it tasted delicious, ok!

Edited 2/11/11 - This morning thanks to Twitter, where my inner foodie is realeased with a passion, Martijn, the genius chef at Cliff House told me what was in the glass - Thank you Martijn !

@Kajuiter Kajuiter

@CaroCreates Whipped and Peppered Glenilen Yoghurt, Ardmore Carrots Jelly - crunch of dehydrated Yoghurt,Hazelnut and Blue berry Blossoms..

3 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

 

The breads were presented on a small slate plate, a sea salt brioche and a soda type bread with a slab of butter made at the Cliff House.

Next up what was described on the menu as The Cliff House "Snacks" -

These were paired with Pinot Blanc "Vieille Vigne", Meyer-Fonne, Alsace, France, 2008.

In this picture we have West Cork Scallop/Garden Spinach/Samphire.

Baby potato/Glenilen Yoghurt/Irish Caviar -

Quail egg "-20*C Cured/Squash/Veal/Hazelnut

Foie Gras/Red Cabbage Textures/Celeriac

Next - Bantry bay Organic Salmon/ Garden Beetroot/Cucumber/Oak Smoke.

This is presented under a glass dome which when lifted there's a rush of smoke out and the smell lingers on whilst eating.

The complementing wine was Marsanne, Chateau Tabhilk, Nagambie Lakes, Victoria, Australia 2008.

I'm not sure what was in those pink pearly things, see 3o'clock position on plate but they tasted so salmony.

Ya ok I know, my food descriptive writing skills are shite!

 

Then onto Helvick Cod/Irish Abalone/Garden leeks/Sea vegetable

It was good believe me - must've been - I forgot to take a pic!

It was paired with an Austrian wine 2010, Gruner Veltliner "von den Terrasen" Sepp Moser, Kremstal.

McGrath's Black Angus Beef followed with Garden vegetables/Bone Marrow/Beef Tea 2011.

There is a bit of a production with the beef tea which we enjoyed, the waitress brought a cafetiere with herbs - rosemary, thyme, parsley and garlic. She then poured the contents of a tea pot, a rich beef jus into the cafetiere, it infuses for a few minutes to give a rich flavoursome "gravy".

The teamed wine was Seleccion Especial, Albadia Retuerta, Ribera del Duero, Spain 2008.

Next we got a fennel sorbet as a pre-dessert

Next onto the first of two desserts and numero uno came to us like this - a pizza box arrived at the table!

Inside was this deliciousness - Apple Discovery the menu reads with Cranberry/Apricot/Tonka Bean/Lemon/Hibiscus

And finally in excess of 3 hours after we sat down Dark Chocolate 70% - White Coffee Ice Cream/Olive Oil/Sea Salt

The accompanying wine was Rivesaltes Ambre, Domaine Cazes, Roussillon, France 1999

So the following morning we had a delicious breakfast - the ubiquitous full Irish for Billy, kippers with herb butter for me and we headed on the road home. I have to say the three nights of fine dining were magnificent, 3 very different places to stay and all offering and showcasing the very best of Irish food,

 BEST BIRTHDAYS EVER!!!

Birthday Feast Part 2 - The Old Convent

Birthday Feasting Part 2 was scheduled for The Old Convent in Clogheen, Co Tipperary -We left Gregan's Castle and headed for Cahir where we stopped off and wandered around the fantastic well preserved 13th century Cahir castle - well worth a visit if you're in the area and only €3 each for the entry. 

We had stayed in The Old Convent before in June and we absolutely loved it - the warmth of the welcome, the comfort of the rooms, the dinner, the breakfast, the lovely drawing room, the many books strewn around, and the food :-) Dermot and Christine are exceptional, Dermot is a magnificent chef and Christine does front of house with a charm that is really unequalled in any place I've ever stayed, and next year they will be joined by baby Gannon! Congrats to them!

This time we had room 3 which is compact but oh so cute with a raised seated area, the most comfortable of beds, warm snuggly duvet and great pillows - I have truly turned into my mother judging a place by the quality of their pillow - she actually used to take her own pillow with her when she went anywhere - no need for that in The Old Convent! A beautiful touch was the vase of coral roses in the window.

Down to the drawing room with us just after 7.30p.m. where we enjoyed a glass of Prosecco for me and a Tempranillio for himself, and we got a bottle of each to accompany the dinner,  it was our birthdays after all ya know!!! (Excuses, excuses....) - €36 and €24 respectively, wouldn't it be great if those were our ages instead of the wine prices ;-)

Dermot's 8 course tasting menu is €65 per person and finished off with tea or coffee.

We began with Baked Dunmore East Crab with Glenelin Creme Fraiche and a couple of brioche soldiers, beautifully served in an egg shell and ( insert rolly eyes here) your intrepid food reporter - 'tis good to dream dear reader!!!! - forgot to take a photo till the plate was almost cleaned! Not much point taking a pic of an empty egg shell!

Next up was30 hour slow roast Ballinwilliam Rare Breed Pork with polenta, Crozier Blue, baby pear and candied pecans - utterly delicious, loved the micro red shiso. Billy, being Billy!, enquired as to what breed of pork we were eating, the lovely young girl serving us went off and promptly came back to tell us it was a Wild Boar and Tamworth cross.

This was followed by a Aubergine veloute with truffle oil served in a pretty purple espresso cup. Took a pic but it turned out crap!

Then we had Buttermilk Connemara Smokehouse Organic salmon with handmade potato gnocchi, sunchoke and Saffron cream. Scrummy!

Green Apple Sorbet with Traas farm strawberry apple jelly was then enjoyed, forgot to take a pic - bold me!

Mains was maple & Mint Braised Mountain Lamb with creamy white cocoa beans and autumn veggies.

Then Lemon Posset with blueberries and a warm ginger meringue. We actually had this also in June sans blueberries and it's delightful, LOVE the ginger meringue. In fact made it ourselves one night here and twas just luverly ;-)

The last dessert of the night was a Valrhona Dark Chocolate Pot with white chocolate mousse, cherries and caramelised hazelnuts. Had a taste of all the elements in the interests of being able to report for this blog but forgot to take a pic, probably the Prosecco kicking in there!

We then spent an enjoyable hour in the Drawing Room chatting with a few of the other guests and Christine, and a fantastic night's sleep after that.

Breakfast at The Old Convent is without doubt in my opinion FANTASTIC!! Great juices - orange or blackberry and apple. A glass with yogurt, fresh fruit, to-die-for candied nuts and cherry syrup. A great basket of breads - a brown soda with caraway seeds and a polenta, goat's cheese and pine nut concoction that was great!

Billy had the full Irish - no shock there then! - and it is one of the best Irish breakfasts ever - no arguments! The one Billy had was supplemented with delicious herby mushrooms with white beans, I decided he'd be ill if he ate them so devoured his portion. The kind server brought out a little extra dish of them.

I went for the waffles with bananas, cinnamon and white chocolate mousse - oh sweet Jesus - talk about decadence at breakfast!

Absolutely wholeheartedly and unreservedly recommend The Old Convent - a gourmet hideaway in a beautiful part of the country.

And the very best part I'll be back here for dinner again in just over 2 weeks time with a few of my colleagues - looking forward to it!

Birthday feast Part 1 - Gregan's Castle.

So our much awaited birthday feast weekend started last Thursday and we headed off for Tarbert and took the ferry across to Killimer in Co.Clare, my first time being on the ferry and it's so handy and time saving, not that we were in any mad rush!

We meandered up along the coast of Clare with the sun shining down on us, ok, rain and fog! We arrived at Gregan's Castle Hotel  early afternoon and were shown to our room, loved the colour scheme, my kinda colours - shades of purple and green - No tea/coffee facilities in the bedroom but not a mad priority for us.  We decided on going to the Bird of Prey centre at the Alliwee caves and enjoyed the bird display and show despite the rain bucketing down!

Had a hot whiskey in the bar on our return, I must say I was tad dismayed to find the whisky poured into a non heated glass and NO lemon or cloves but it did the job and took the chill out of my bones! The genial manager/barman James is from Kanturk where I lived for 7 years.

Anyway it wasn't the hot whiskies I was here for so after a lil nap it was time to get ready for the highlight of our trip.

Gregan's castle have won tons of awards, the head chef is Mickael Viljanen. The man is a genius! Not only a genius and a chef but an artist. The food was phenomenal. I am not a food writer and don't have adequate words to describe the taste sensations and the fabulous flavours we enjoyed. In fact Billy laughed that for once words evaded me so caught up was I in the intensity of flavours.  The best I could come up with was that apples were so appley, salmon so salmony, cucumber so cucumbery - you get the drift!!! it was as if a single sliver of apple was imbued with the flavour of a thousand apples and the same for every other item on the plate - of which there were many!

We opted for the tasting menu with matching wines which was €130 each. When the dishes are presented by the very courteous servers they tell you what is on the plate and point each individual item out BUT I was so blown away by all in front of me that I didn't take on board half of it so I earwigged happily when other tables got served!

These were the canapes, From left to right - a scallop ceviche, a jellied smoked potato cube, a beetroot meringue with goats cheese and a pig's cheek croquette.
The paired wine was a sauvignon blanc and was the same for 2 courses.



Next up was the salmon plate, this featured salmom - doh! - and cucumber textures and a squid ink wafer.



Onto the foie gras - now this was my first time ever having foie gras as I'm a bit iffy about offaly things and the nature of foie gras production but in the spirit of the dining experience said I'd give it a bash - OMG I LOVED IT!!!!! The pic is crap though!
Our wine pairing with this was a Pedro Jiminez sherry which was also used as a gel on top of the foie gras. It was accompanied by apple in different textures, salted caramel, candied nuts and honeycomb. Did I say I LOVED it!!!!



Smoked Lobster and Sweetbreads, lobster is my favourist food ever! Never had sweetbreads before either - a wee bit of a wuss am I!  Paired with a Chablis.



Scallops next - MEGA! On the plate were salsify, herb stems, cauliflower textures, mushrooms. This was paired with a Sancerre.



The meat dish was venison, a disc of bone marrow on top (another first for me and yuk to that!) There was beetroot, parsnip and potato on this beautiful dish. The wine pairing was a Rioja.



The pre dessert was a coconut pannacotta with pineapple - saying of the day - "the pineapple is so pineappley!" With this came the first dessert wine.



Then along came a blackberry souffle with a blackberry sorbet, fresh blackberries and a blackberry sorbet. To offset the sweetness a jug of a citrus sauce was poured into the souffle and dessert wine number 2 really complemented it, not being over sweet but having a light citrussy note.



The meal finished with a blimming lovely selection of petit fours which I forgot to take a pic of, such was my food coma at this stage!

Billy then finished off with a cheese board and a port (extra to the tasting menu) - exceptional cheeses and delicious sesame crisps amd fig jam, the fig bread was just a bit cloying and heavy for my taste.



Left the diningroom two VERY happy campers.

Breakfast was delightful - a great buffet with cold meats, cheese, smoked salmon, fruits, cumin cheese from the Burren, cute little pots of yogurt with jam, prunes with cinnamon - nom nom nom!!!!!, apricots etc etc! Tea was proper leaf tea with strainers.

I knew from one of my food blogging friends Mona who stayed there lately that the eggs benedict were good and they were scrumptious! Billy went for the traditional Irish.

Totally enjoyed the foodie section of part one of our birthday break and the revelation that Foie gras is so divine!

Will we be back to Gregan's Castle - hell yeah!!!!

Part Two of our birthday weekend coming soon - The Old Convent.