Are Irish food and restaurants underrated

v638sg7k1a92bx · 20-07-2015 3:53pm #1

Up until last year I was travelling back and forth between Ireland, France and Spain quite regularly and one thing that kept coming up was "oh I bet you don't miss the food in Ireland" or "what do you think of the food in France/Spain".

With all due respect, I think the food in Ireland is head and shoulders above what I've had in France and Spain. Especially our produce like Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Milk, butter, cream which don't even come close. My overall point is that there seems to be an almost accepted received message that the food is better on the continent and IMO the quality of food is much better.

Is it time we started calling people out and saying that this is BS, your food is not that great. In France, they smother everything in sauce and stuff themselves on bread and in Spain everything is fried in olive oil and garlic! What's the big deal, I don't see what is so special about European food and why is it supposed to be so much better than here?

Uncle_moe · 20-07-2015 4:12pm

If I lived in France I'd also stuff myself with bread. You can't get anything like it anywhere else in the world.
I'd also rate their dairy as better than Irish. The milk generally has a higher fat content so makes it creamier. Just try Brittany butter in Marks to taste the difference. In Spain their pork is better than Irish pork and they know how to actually age it.
Overall the food culture is still distinctly lacking in this country. I live in Dublin and I've probably eaten in a handful of restaurants I'd actually ever return to. I always find I eat better when I'm abroad.

Riverireland · 20-07-2015 4:17pm

I agree in general although the food in Spain and Greece is in my opinion better than Ireland. I do think irish food is under rated though. I'm reminded of this every time I'm in the UK.

Aongus Von Bismarck · 20-07-2015 10:23pm

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

Celly Smunt · 20-07-2015 10:31pm

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

I think that pretty much nails it on the head. It's not the produce that the Continental's use that makes their food good but the way they produce their dishes.

I feel that Dublin has some of the best food around but none of those restaurants would ever be traditionally Irish but more so the foreign influences/chefs. It's like how people say that New York has great food though in reality 9/10 times you'll just get crap unless you know where you're going. There are not many places in Dublin that I would avoided like the plague apart from certain chains.

If I want Lebanese I can get good Lebanese
If I want good french I can find good french
If I want good tapas I can find good tapas etc etc

Dublin 20-30 years ago was a completely different situation however due to nothing having the variety or influx of foreign chefs. These days we can get the same french dish in Dublin 2 as some place in Carcasonne or Toulouse.

katydid · 20-07-2015 11:52pm

Uncle_moe wrote: »

.
I'd also rate their dairy as better than Irish. The milk generally has a higher fat content so makes it creamier. Just try Brittany butter in Marks to taste the difference.
.

I have to disagree. I have never managed to find milk or butter in France that tasted anyway near the richness you get here.

enda1 · 21-07-2015 10:02am

katydid wrote: »

I have to disagree. I have never managed to find milk or butter in France that tasted anyway near the richness you get here.

It's a regional thing, but in Normandy and Brittany, the quality of dairy is way better than in Ireland. It simply is.

Shenshen · 21-07-2015 10:58am

I think some of the produce is very good indeed.
What's being done with it, though... a lot of it wouldn't be my cup of tea.

katydid · 21-07-2015 11:06am

enda1 wrote: »

It's a regional thing, but in Normandy and Brittany, the quality of dairy is way better than in Ireland. It simply is.

True enough, it's better in the NW than elsewhere. As good as Ireland

Dr Turk Turkelton · 21-07-2015 11:07am

Will agree that the cooking style on the continent has traditionally been better but we are fast catching up on that point.
The beef there has the consistency of a poorly made workman's boot though. The pork though is a better product as has been mentioned above.
I can't comment on the Brittany dairy but the rest is definitely an inferior product.

whiskeyman · 21-07-2015 1:47pm

Whenever I'm abroad, I just feel restaurants seem to do simple food better, and cheaper than places here.

With regards the food itself, the quality of irish meat in available in shops is some of the best in the world.

dub_skav · 21-07-2015 3:19pm

I would rate our beef and lamb highly, but our pork and chicken leave a lot to be desired compared to our continental cousins.
Our root veg is excellent and we produce some fine dairy and cheeses.

As others have said, the produce isn't the problem.
While I believe our better restaurants are very good, they can be expensive and I think we miss a tier of dining that you find in other countries. We don't really have many places where you can get quality affordable food. We go from cheap to expensive. The quality and affordable tier is probably filled by pub grub in Ireland, but it is often over-priced and can be of low quality.

All of these situations are improving greatly though.

Tom Dunne · 21-07-2015 3:35pm

As somebody who lives abroad, I relish the thought of coming home each summer and eating everything from fresh produce in the supermarkets, to pub grub and higher-end restaurants.

I think food is underrated by ourselves and it's only when you go abroad and see what's on offer elsewhere that you come to appreciate all that is available here.

Case in point: went for a meal for 6 on Friday evening last, mid-range restaurant, very high-quality food. After doing the maths, I realised that the quality food we got for six people in Dublin was literally half the cost of comparable meal where I live.

And don't get me started on the seafood. I've just wolfed down a load of prawns and brown bread for lunch and looking forward to more seafood later this evening.

al22 · 21-07-2015 3:53pm

Every location is overrating their own food everywhere. If I am hungry there is no much difference. If I am full or overfull, I hate any food.

I agree only one thing - raw food produced in Ireland is OK and good before cooking. / After the fussy cooking I would not say it alwys good, may be looks nice on the plate but not tasty.

katydid · 21-07-2015 6:35pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Case in point: went for a meal for 6 on Friday evening last, mid-range restaurant, very high-quality food. After doing the maths, I realised that the quality food we got for six people in Dublin was literally half the cost of comparable meal where I live.

And don't get me started on the seafood. I've just wolfed down a load of prawns and brown bread for lunch and looking forward to more seafood later this evening.

Maybe so. But it's probably double the price in many Mediterranean countries. I'm not talking about your Costas... We were in Crete in June, and ate fabulous food, superb quality - fish literally just off the boat, for half what we'd pay in Ireland.

And in the north of Germany, where I was a few weeks ago, the food was so cheap and fabulous quality. We were in the North East, where it's all game and red meat and sauces, and fish from the lakes, and the average main course was less than a tenner. I had a wonderful fillet of lamb with veg and potatoes for €9.50 - you'd pay twenty to twenty five for it here.

Tom Dunne · 21-07-2015 8:48pm

katydid wrote: »

Maybe so. But it's probably double the price in many Mediterranean countries. I'm not talking about your Costas... We were in Crete in June, and ate fabulous food, superb quality - fish literally just off the boat, for half what we'd pay in Ireland.

Yeah, but the cost of living and wages are also probably half of what they are in Ireland.

v638sg7k1a92bx · 21-07-2015 8:55pm

It's not just the food, it's the service in the restaurants and bars also. You can be left waiting 10 mins in a restaurant on the continent before someone brings you a menu, and then the wait for the order, wait for the food, wait for the bill... it just takes some of the enjoyment out of the evening when you're constantly trying to make eye contact with the one waiter who is serving the entire restaurant, and strolling along at their own pace. In my opinion, I think pubs and restaurants are better run in Ireland and have more staff.

Also, the way some of the food is handled in Spain with the tapas sitting on the counter underneath a piece of glass all day with no refrigeration and is just hand-balled out to you over the counter, things like anchovies and muscles that has been sitting there all day, no hands washed just out ya go.

katydid · 21-07-2015 9:12pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Yeah, but the cost of living and wages are also probably half of what they are in Ireland.

True

spuddy · 21-07-2015 11:15pm

The grass is always greener they say, it actually is in Ireland.

The Golden Vale is one of the productive dairy regions in the world, and for once we can thank our climate. It's mild, which means our cattle spend more of the year outside eating grass, than our European counterparts with their humid summers and bitter winters, we have fantastic grass growth rates to boot.

Look at the price of beef next time you're on holiday in France, ask at an American restaurant about the traceability of the steak they've just served, you'll soon start to appreciate what you get at home. It's one of the most consistent compliments I get from friends visiting from abroad.

There are a lot of things Ireland doesn't excel at, but our food is world beating. We should rightly be proud of it.

whiskeyman · 22-07-2015 9:59am

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

It's not just the food, it's the service in the restaurants and bars also. You can be left waiting 10 mins in a restaurant on the continent before someone brings you a menu, and then the wait for the order, wait for the food, wait for the bill... it just takes some of the enjoyment out of the evening when you're constantly trying to make eye contact with the one waiter who is serving the entire restaurant, and strolling along at their own pace. In my opinion, I think pubs and restaurants are better run in Ireland and have more staff.

I look at this another way.
Abroad (Italy especially!) most people go out to eat are in no rush, and are there to chat and enjoy the experience, hence why the staff appear so laid back to us.
We see that as poor service here, but they are very used to it abroad and don't even bat an eyelid towards it.

Remember many restaurants having 2 or 3 'sittings' per evening here, especially back in the tiger days?
I can't image that happened abroad. If you go out for dinner there, the restaurant welcomes you to stay all evening and enjoy the experience, chat and food.
I'll never forgot one evening going out for a dinner in Rome around 7pm, and we were still there at 12:30am at a table outside, and only found out when I went to the bathroom that the chef and owner were playing cards inside waiting for us to finish up (we were the only customers left!) - they wouldn't dare rush us and were happy to see us enjoy ourselves! If that were here, we would have been booted out ages ago!

Any 'tourist' areas I've been to tend to have more staff and quicker turnaround times.

I've seen places in Ireland with lots of staff (sometimes too much!) but still woeful service.

al22 · 22-07-2015 10:35am

In Poland, Russia and ex-USSR people go to eat in rush in restaurants mostly during the lunch to eat fast and go back to work.

After 4-5 pm it is not a rush time and not for for only but to relax and spend a good time, alone or with a company, meet friends or dates, dance.... Drinks not in rush and always with food, need to wait... till it coocked according to your order, wait and have a good time.... can be till 3-5 a.m. and staff will be waiting if there are customers.

Ladies usually well dressed for restaurants (men too) and they should not spend hours and time/money for make-up and hair stylists just to jump for a quick drink. Restaurants is a hunting places for a dates and may be for a future husband or wife - everybody need a time to look around.... and show herself or himself to others. Food is a good addition but not the main purpose. :-) Usually cheap during the lunch but more expensive after 5 p.m.

deadybai · 22-07-2015 10:43am

I think that all round for fresh produce, no country comes close. I completely agree that the food here is underrated. Its actually amazing. Also I find that when you go abroad you dont have much of a section of restaurants. In Ireland your not too far away from any type of food.

Also I must say because Im from here, but Waterford is a hidden gem for fantastic restaurants. Really everyone ive been to has been top class. Really should be marketed as the restaurant capital of Ireland

gaiscioch · 22-07-2015 11:06am

Interesting thread. The only restaurant I can think of that does "Irish cuisine" is Gallagher's Boxty House in Temple Bar.

Do Nevin Maguire or any of those guys not create any distinctively Irish dishes? It's been years since I had colcannon with spring onions - it was at a trad seisiún and we all got a ticket for the meal - and it was the tastiest dish ever (I actually went around picking up spare tickets and going back loads of times :-))

Colcannon would make, at least, a great starter or snack. But it definitely could form the base of many dinners. And, as potato cake is still a standard meal for teatime (with the leftover spuds from dinner) when I go home I'm sure we could have a colcannon potatocake! Also, brown bread! This country makes the nicest brown bread in the world. And it's getting better. The lack of brown bread in France or Spain is always a turn-off.

Likewise, growing up stew was the norm and it had a bad reputation as "uncool". Rename it casserole and it sounds sophisticated!

Time for An Bord Bia to start developing and promoting Irish dishes, as well as Irish food (where they're doing a decent job).

munchkin_utd · 22-07-2015 11:21am

sorry but the general irish food you get out is poor to be honest.
its no good having decent ingredients if you make a hames of cooking it. I've had nicer food at motorway service stations in Germany than most of what I ever have in Ireland. And even then you can get fatty chewey putrid mutton served as lamb in even good restaurants.

Aside from what my mother cooks, and even then I have issues with its blandness at times, food is the last thing I look forward to when visiting Ireland. It barely registers to be honest as how can you look forward to something when you are never sure it'll be edible let alone enjoyable.

katydid · 22-07-2015 11:43am

deadybai wrote: »

Also I must say because Im from here, but Waterford is a hidden gem for fantastic restaurants. Really everyone ive been to has been top class. Really should be marketed as the restaurant capital of Ireland

I have to agree with you there. For a place of its size, it has an amazing selection of restaurants. I often wonder how they all keep going - and still they are opening more. You could stay for a couple of weeks in Waterford, and eat out in a good quality different restaurant every night. It's something they should be marketing.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 12:27pm

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The seafood really is very good indeed. The beef and dairy are top class as well.

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

That times a thousand!
It is getting better,but how many restaurants are glorified chippers, charging €15-20 for a burger and chips because it is served on a plate with some lettuce and a tiny dollop of mayo from a jar?
You cannot get a decent salad with proper dressing, in Seafod restaurants I have been told "We are a seafod restaurant, no we don't do fish", a lot of restaurants would have to shut down if you took their freezer, microwave and deep fat fryer, every single restaurant gets exactly the same vacuum packed carrots packed in the same factory, cooking veg, the recipe should NOT be "throw in water boil, serve", the Irish have ZERO concept of sauce other than what comes in sachets, there ARE other seasonings besides salt and pepper, even fast food outlets should cotton on to the fact that they don't HAVE to use the exact same industrial burgers and buns as every single other burger joint, for a country made famous by potatoes you sure don't know what to do with them, dishes are created by logic of "what the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat", which is why you could take the menu from any restaurant and replace it with another, starters are ALL miserable, tiny and monstrously overpriced, bread is another concept alien to the Irish, garlic mushrooms are a good idea, but they don't have to be from the freezer and they should never cost €6 for 4 miserable little mushrooms, in short you don't know what to do meat, sauce, spuds or veg.
Local, organic, seasonal produce prepared to a recipe unique to that restaurant is forbidden by law, i think.
This is before we get to vegetarians.
Restauranteurs of Ireland, vegetarians do eat more than just penne arrabiata, the standard vegetarian dish of EVERY Irish restaurant.
And for some reason, event food is much, MUCH worse than ANY of the above. Chicken, beef, pork (maybe salmon), steamed industrial veg and "sauce" made from oxo cubes. If you're veggie, penne.

If anyone wants to see what I'm on about, go to a restaurant called A-Z in a town called Heppenheim near Frankfurt.
In Ireland a veggie dish is made to punish the person for daring to be a vegetarian. In the A-Z I eat the veggie option, because it is out of this world and there's half a dozen veggie dishes available. There is local produce and this changes with the season. Try Pfifferling (local mushrooms, oh yes, the Irish only know one type) or Spargel (asparagus).

This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I could write a whole book about it.

H3llR4iser · 22-07-2015 1:27pm

Let's start by saying that food can and often is something that has enormous regional variations - especially in bigger countries. What you can find in Southern Italy will differ from Northern Italy and so on.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, a lot of foods are an acquired taste. Most people will invariably prefer food they grew up with, regardless of its objective taste and/or quality. Point in case, sausages - Irish people consider Irish sausages the best thing in the world, while most foreigners, especially from continental Europe, find them...well, nearly inedible - descriptions as "tasteless lumps of fat" will be the most common.

Conversely, most Irish people trying, say, Italian sausage will say it's too aromatic and "garlicky" and it doesn't taste like sausage at all (the closest thing you can find here are the Polish biela kielbasa, if you want to have a taste).

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

...especially our produce like Beef, Lamb, Chicken, Milk, butter, cream which don't even come close

I hail from Italy, been here for nearly a decade, so I guess I am in a good position...and yes, especially the stuff in bold are definitely top-notch: Beef is juicy and tender, chicken maybe not super remarkable, but still less dry than in most other places. I would add Turkey in the mix, which I find to be much better and edible than in the Mediterranean, where it essentially tastes like cardboard.

The real king is lamb, however...suffice to say that before trying lamb here, I hated it. In Italy, it tastes like...well, mud, and has the consistency of concrete. First time I tried some lamb here, I didn't even believe the meat came from the same species of animal!

I am not so sure about the dairy products, they seem to be more or less the same than in other places - with the differences that you don't find fridges stacked with 10,000 different types of butter in the rest of the EU

Ellianna Echoing Nag wrote: »

Is it time we started calling people out and saying that this is BS, your food is not that great. In France, they smother everything in sauce and stuff themselves on bread and in Spain everything is fried in olive oil and garlic! What's the big deal, I don't see what is so special about European food and why is it supposed to be so much better than here?

Olive oil has the lowest smoke point, and it's one of the least "dangerous" for the health to fry in; That said, it's also expensive, so I'd be surprised if restaurants and the likes use it extensively to fry; It's more common so use either sunflower oil or peanut oil.

Again, as I said it's an acquired taste: in the opposite view to yours, which is the one of most Europeans, the Irish senselessly ruin everything by plastering butter all over, stuff themselves with chips and deep fry everything in batter, so...

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

As a foreign critic once remarked in a guide book, "The Irish have the best food in the world until they decide to cook it".

That is changing, and every time I go back to Ireland I do see the quality and quantity of good restaurants growing.

This a million times. All you seem to see around are chippers, with an infinite queue outside no less. Every time I have friends or relatives visiting, and they ask to try something local, I really struggle to find places that make "things an Irish homemaker would put on the table". Telling them "the homemaker would go to the chipper and get takeaway!" is not an acceptable answer

What's the point of having some of the nicest ingredients around only to cook them within an inch of their lives, possibly in fat/batter that has been boiling over for hours?

Shenshen · 22-07-2015 4:12pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

That times a thousand!
It is getting better,but how many restaurants are glorified chippers, charging €15-20 for a burger and chips because it is served on a plate with some lettuce and a tiny dollop of mayo from a jar?
You cannot get a decent salad with proper dressing, in Seafod restaurants I have been told "We are a seafod restaurant, no we don't do fish", a lot of restaurants would have to shut down if you took their freezer, microwave and deep fat fryer, every single restaurant gets exactly the same vacuum packed carrots packed in the same factory, cooking veg, the recipe should NOT be "throw in water boil, serve", the Irish have ZERO concept of sauce other than what comes in sachets, there ARE other seasonings besides salt and pepper, even fast food outlets should cotton on to the fact that they don't HAVE to use the exact same industrial burgers and buns as every single other burger joint, for a country made famous by potatoes you sure don't know what to do with them, dishes are created by logic of "what the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat", which is why you could take the menu from any restaurant and replace it with another, starters are ALL miserable, tiny and monstrously overpriced, bread is another concept alien to the Irish, garlic mushrooms are a good idea, but they don't have to be from the freezer and they should never cost €6 for 4 miserable little mushrooms, in short you don't know what to do meat, sauce, spuds or veg.
Local, organic, seasonal produce prepared to a recipe unique to that restaurant is forbidden by law, i think.
This is before we get to vegetarians.
Restauranteurs of Ireland, vegetarians do eat more than just penne arrabiata, the standard vegetarian dish of EVERY Irish restaurant.
And for some reason, event food is much, MUCH worse than ANY of the above. Chicken, beef, pork (maybe salmon), steamed industrial veg and "sauce" made from oxo cubes. If you're veggie, penne.

If anyone wants to see what I'm on about, go to a restaurant called A-Z in a town called Heppenheim near Frankfurt.
In Ireland a veggie dish is made to punish the person for daring to be a vegetarian. In the A-Z I eat the veggie option, because it is out of this world and there's half a dozen veggie dishes available. There is local produce and this changes with the season. Try Pfifferling (local mushrooms, oh yes, the Irish only know one type) or Spargel (asparagus).

This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I could write a whole book about it.

As a vegetarian, I would have to agree with this rant

It is definitely improving, but I also miss the seasonality of the food, or local produce being used in restaurants.
Please, please, PLEASE don't remind me of Pfifferlinge, nice German salads or white Spargel or I might start crying.

What I do find here, though, is that you get much more international cusines. So if picking a restaurant, more often than not I'll opt for a non-Irish cusine, just because I'll have a little bit of choice on the menu. I'm usually happy if there's more than 1 dish to choose from

Edit: Btw, I googled A-Z in Heppenheim, google says they're closed now. Sorry to break the bad news...

Alun · 22-07-2015 4:37pm

Ah, Heppenheim, that takes me back! I used to live in Darmstadt and loved the small restaurants and Gaststätte down in the Odenwald ... Ebbelwoi anyone?. Germany is seriously underrated by most people for it's cooking.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 4:47pm

If they are closed it would be a terrible thing indeed, they have been there since the 80's.
OK, go to Filou instead:
http://www.filou-heppenheim.de/

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 4:51pm

Alun wrote: »

Ah, Heppenheim, that takes me back! I used to live in Darmstadt and loved the small restaurants and Gaststätte down in the Odenwald ... Ebbelwoi anyone?. Germany is seriously underrated by most people for it's cooking.

No. Fceking. Way. Amazeballs. of course you have to have Handkäs mit Musik with your Ebbelwoi.
Anyway, yes people love to say how crap Germany is for food, it's all Sauerkraut (delicious if made right) and Bratwurst (nothing wrong with tyhat either).
Also, if not Heppenheim, anyone could try Allgäu, The Bären in Nesselwang has a Bavarian buffet that you are guaranteed to never forget as long as you live. I know I won't.

Alun · 22-07-2015 5:01pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

No. Fceking. Way. Amazeballs. of course you have to have Handkäs mit Musik with your Ebbelwoi.

Absolutely! Almost as 'explosive' a combination as Federweiße and Zwiebelkuchen

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 7:32pm

Alun wrote: »

Absolutely! Almost as 'explosive' a combination as Federweiße and Zwiebelkuchen

Hence the "music" :pac:

Asmooh · 22-07-2015 7:36pm

Actually, the food in Ireland is really bad compare to the main land, not just in restaurants also in the store.

meeeeh · 22-07-2015 7:56pm

I think beef and lamb in Ireland are awesome, pork is ok and majority of chicken is bloody awful. I especially don't get the obsession with chicken breasts.

I've eaten in some very good Irish restaurants but mostly it wasn't a 20 euro dinner special. And I had some really bad meals, mostly big portions from the jar type food. It is also very hard to get good pizza. But I also had bad food in Italy and whoever claimed the food on german autobahn is good wasn't stopping at the same places as I did. Typically for Ireland, we were in Cork this Saturday and had great brunch with very good ingredients and then on the way home we had some food first frozen and then fried into oblivion so it lost all taste.

What I miss the most in Ireland is decent fruit (and tomatoes). I am sure it is partly due to the climate but the supermarkets on continent would never get away with selling such rubbish imported fruit as they do here.

dr.fuzzenstein · 22-07-2015 7:59pm

Asmooh wrote: »

Actually, the food in Ireland is really bad compare to the main land, not just in restaurants also in the store.

Well, the actual food is fine, you can get nice beef, chicken, lamb and very nice fish if you know where to look. The dairy stuff and the eggs are good too. There is some really nice honey about the place and I'm buying organic veg in a shop in Ennis that is very tasty.
A lot of stuff doesn't grow here and has to be brought in, so that is only as good as where it came from.
In the end it's what you pay for. If you buy your meat in the bargain section of a big supermarket instead of your local butcher, of course it will not be anywhere near as good.

As for the chicken, buy organic, free range or corn fed. If you buy an 1800 gram chicken for €4.99, you have to remember that this chicken had to be hatched, reared, cared for, fed, slaughtered, processed, shipped and sold for less than that, because that price has a profit built in.
And stop buying separate chicken breasts. I get the whole chicken, strip the breasts, legs and wings, use the rest for stock, marinate the breast and make a curry that way, with legs and wings in the oven.
If you're buying breasts only and cook an Irish curry with McDonnell's curry powder, of course it will be awful.

MissFlitworth · 22-07-2015 8:55pm

It's a mixed bag I think. There are an awful lot of places (and I mean full towns rather than restaurants) I wouldn't be bothered eating out in here and I'd rather bring lunch with me on a cross country drive than chow down on the Cuisine de France specials that are open to you in a lot of places. And the bad pub food and the lack lustre cafe food and the very expensive but not very good restaurant food. But then I find that in a lot of countries. I've had some *awful* meals out in Germany (seriously, stop putting a tinned pea/carrot mix into Mexican food or throwing a bunch of bad veg in an oven dish, covering it in bechamel and trying to hide it through the power of Auflauf), Switzerland & Northern Spain (the only countries I've spent enough time in to spot a pattern in bad food.) Seriously had a plate of manky awful chorizo over chips that was the 'special' of a fancy enough Tapas bar that turned me off chorizo for a year. And my middle name is practically chorizo. And it was the 3rd meal in a row out that ranged from 'hmm...no thanks' to 'gross'.

I do think things are getting better here in terms of food you eat out. I'm based in Dublin so that's where my main experience is and we have many, many excellent restaurants and different cuisines available. And I can shop seasonally for fruit & veg. I think that's gradually radiating out from Dublin, Cork, Waterford and other hotspots of awesome food into the rest of the country.

meeeeh · 22-07-2015 9:40pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

As for the chicken, buy organic, free range or corn fed. If you buy an 1800 gram chicken for €4.99, you have to remember that this chicken had to be hatched, reared, cared for, fed, slaughtered, processed, shipped and sold for less than that, because that price has a profit built in.
And stop buying separate chicken breasts. I get the whole chicken, strip the breasts, legs and wings, use the rest for stock, marinate the breast and make a curry that way, with legs and wings in the oven.
If you're buying breasts only and cook an Irish curry with McDonnell's curry powder, of course it will be awful.

Oh I agree you can get good whole chicken. Especially in summer I like to buy legs or drumsticks because they bbq really well but it's hard to get decent ones, at least where I live. And I don't fancy buying four whole chickens to have enough legs if I have some people coming over.

Shenshen · 23-07-2015 8:06am

Alun wrote: »

Absolutely! Almost as 'explosive' a combination as Federweiße and Zwiebelkuchen

I've made do with Lambrusco as a poor substitute for Federweisser whenever I made Zwiebelkuchen here

pwurple · 23-07-2015 9:15am

Dear vegetarians, I hear you on the lack of imagination in some places, but really and truly I think there are some bloody fantastic places around as well.

Cafe Paradiso and Iyer's in Cork for a start. Both exclusively vegetarian, both delicious. I'd eat my own weight in dhosas given the chance!
And the range in some of the other Cork restaurants is great for vegetarians. Here are a few of the options on the Market Lane menu

Grilled Haloumi, roast onion, tomato and courgette, local leaves, sultana, apricot and marjoram chutney, harissa chickpeas and puy lentils
Home made Quiche of roast peppers, courgettes, basil, spinach and cheddar with sauteed potatoes, local leaves and mustard dressing
Butternut and feta gratin with sundried tomato, potatoes, toasted almonds & breadcrumbs and a salad of roast vine cherry tomatoes, courgettes and pickled shallots
Grilled peaches with Ardsallagh goats cheese and sweet red onion pickle on walnut bread

Jacob's on the mall has separate vegan and vegetarian menu's
http://www.jacobsonthemall.com/menu/
Orso is another decent menu.

I love food, and honestly it's one of my favourite things about Ireland. I lived in the US for years, and the lack of fresh food was just depressing. I think there are some low quality chipper impersonator places alright, but you also get some brilliant places, doing local ingredients with creativity. I love irish food!

And new restaurants are springing up like weeds... I've got new 12 places on my list to get to in Cork, knocking one of them off the list tonight hopefully.

Boskowski · 23-07-2015 9:34am

Being a continental and living in Ireland 10+ years I think Irish food is very good in quality. The ingredients that is. After that I think a distinction must be made between top restaurants and 'regular' restaurants which make up about 95% of the scene no matter where you go in Europe.

There is no point in pointing out that Michelin star place that has that crazy menu that looks like any other Michelin star menu anywhere in Europe. How many people eat there after all?

What regular Irish restaurants do with those excellent ingredients has come on a long way too but on the whole is - how do I say this - a bit unimaginative. Its all quite plain in preparation. Most common used 'spice' seems salt. Pepper at a stretch. I can go into seaside resorts and struggle to find good (or any) fish restaurants. Game doesn't seem to exist at all. Cakes and tarts - baking products in general including bread - and such are the plainest nothings I've encountered anywhere and those I actually avoid.
On the whole its all a bit roast beef, roast chicken, boiled pork, cabbage, carrots, turnip, mash. Salt, butter. Pepper at a stretch.

When pointing that out Irish people tend to get defensive and say 'ah ye its because we don't need to use heavy spicing cos thats usually a sign of poor quality ingredients'. But I don't think thats quite true. The French have a food culture that has developed over hundreds of years, the Irish don't seem to have that for whatever reason. Similar enough for British food but Irish food is even plainer.

And btw please don't get defensive at this. I like Irish food quite a bit. It is what it is and all food cultures have their place and their own quality. Why try to emulate others?

Shenshen · 23-07-2015 9:47am

pwurple wrote: »

Dear vegetarians, I hear you on the lack of imagination in some places, but really and truly I think there are some bloody fantastic places around as well.

Cafe Paradiso and Iyer's in Cork for a start. Both exclusively vegetarian, both delicious. I'd eat my own weight in dhosas given the chance!
And the range in some of the other Cork restaurants is great for vegetarians. Here are a few of the options on the Market Lane menu

Jacob's on the mall has separate vegan and vegetarian menu's
http://www.jacobsonthemall.com/menu/
Orso is another decent menu.

I love food, and honestly it's one of my favourite things about Ireland. I lived in the US for years, and the lack of fresh food was just depressing. I think there are some low quality chipper impersonator places alright, but you also get some brilliant places, doing local ingredients with creativity. I love irish food!

And new restaurants are springing up like weeds... I've got new 12 places on my list to get to in Cork, knocking one of them off the list tonight hopefully.

Absolutely! This reminded me that I hadn't been to Orso in a while, need to put that on the calendar

My problem is more when being out on a word do - team night out, christmas parties, that sort of thing. We had a barbeque at a restaurant recently, and I got - a baked potato. I wouldn't have expected marinated halloumi skewers, but they could have slapped a portobello mushroom or two on the barbie, surely?

And that's probably the centre of my gripe with the majority of restaurants. People being paid for preparing food, and charging princely sums for their dishes, and a lot of the time I could have done the exact same quite easily and better at home. Good ingredients are falling victim to disinterest and lack of imagination.

There are a few trying to do better, and I'm eternally grateful for that. But it's still a good way to go, I feel

pwurple · 23-07-2015 10:19am

Shenshen wrote: »

My problem is more when being out on a word do - team night out, christmas parties, that sort of thing. We had a barbeque at a restaurant recently, and I got - a baked potato. I wouldn't have expected marinated halloumi skewers, but they could have slapped a portobello mushroom or two on the barbie, surely?

You need to get a hand in organising the do's!

That's so annoying. Especially when vegetables on the bbq are the nicest thing ever. A slightly charred bbq onion... crispy in places , all juicy and soft and delicious in the center, roasted peppers, courgettes. Noms.
Surely to feck there was a bit of a salad knocking around with the bbq though?

MissFlitworth · 23-07-2015 10:30am

Boskowski wrote: »

When pointing that out Irish people tend to get defensive and say 'ah ye its because we don't need to use heavy spicing cos thats usually a sign of poor quality ingredients'.

Oh there are not enough rolling eyes in the world for that. I also hate the old peach of 'yeah, spices are historically used to hide the fact that you're eating rotten meat'.

I do have to sort of watch how defensive I get at 'it's all so disssssssgusting here' (I know no one on this thread is doing that) because I absolutely agree that, among people I know and areas I've lived in, there's a bit of a disinterest or sometimes even distaste for 'nice' food. I know an awful lot of plain eaters and people who won't eat vegetables or meat on the bone or any sauces (excepting ketchup of course) or anything remotely spiced. If you go back one generation in my family people had absolutely no interest in food whatsoever excepting as a way to get salty, plain goodness into themselves. Lots of kids meant dinner was something on the side of a huge pot of potatoes, for affordability and ease of feeding everyone. They liked bread and butter, roast dinners and mashed vegetables but outside of that, not so much. Restaurants were way out of their price range and comfort zones. Some of their kids and grandkids are now completely the other side of that with many of us veering towards the wankery side of being into food *cough* me *cough*. So then with many 'plain eaters' about I don't know if that 'plain eating' way of mind affects what's available when you eat out or wha and I must actually look for somewhere to read up on it. (This is my experience only and I know loads of people on here grew up in families that really loved food so don't take it as a commentary on how all of Ireland eats)

IMO the best thing to happen to food in Dublin has been immigration (many of my favorite places to eat and the entirety of my favourite places to buy chilis and spices have furriners behind them) and Irish people travelling to live abroad and coming back with ideas. We're getting lots of people doing great things with Irish ingredients and really giving a very strong hoot about the quality and provenance of their ingredients and it's great.

john hanrahan · 23-07-2015 10:36am

this is a very interesting subject, and i think to best answer it is to ask how many times have you walked out of a restaurant disappointed in ireland or the continent

tourist food is poor in most places, irish meat and dairy are good but the range is small 3 or 4 cuts of beef, 2 or 3 cuts of lamb and the same applies to dairy. in a french butcher you might have 10 + cuts of beef

the food culture is improving here and as mentioned already, waterford cork and i think galway are good

price is an issue i am always amazed how easy it is to eat well in italy at a reasonable price but you can get frozen fish and soggy pasta there as well.

what i'm really trying to say is irish food is underrated but i do think we need to be more sympathetic to the produce, the reason i stopped eating out is price.

for the price of an average meal out you could buy great ingredients and a cook book and eat really well

Uncle_moe · 23-07-2015 11:55am

I absolutely agree that it's often utterly pointless to eat out most of the time in Ireland because you can eat better at home 95% of the time for a fraction of the cost. I wouldn't be too bothered about the cost of restaurants here if they were better. Far too many places have the whiff of hipsterness that really couldn't care less about the quality of food they're serving. I'm firmly looking at every faux bbq joint, asian "street food" eatery, and pop-up restaurant (shudder at the thought) that have destroyed Dublin's dining scene in the last 5 years.
Yes we have some great ingredients in Ireland but unfortunately we don't care about cooking them properly nor do we seem to care about that fact as most of the aforementioned places are packed almost all of the time. Oh and to top it all off they rarely take reservations. I'll eat at home then, thanks.

meeeeh · 23-07-2015 12:13pm

I actually think there is nothing wrong with roasts. Get a good price of meat and it will delicious. The problem is it will be usually over cooked. I don't mind ordering steak when out because I will order rare and hopefully get at least medium. But with roasts you can look forward to something imitating saw dust when ordering in restaurants.

I must say it is not that hard to find a place which serves decent food, especially going out for dinner. I find it harder to find good food going out for family lunch.

pwurple · 23-07-2015 12:23pm

john hanrahan wrote: »

irish meat and dairy are good but the range is small 3 or 4 cuts of beef, 2 or 3 cuts of lamb and the same applies to dairy. in a french butcher you might have 10 + cuts of beef

This is simply not true. Irish craft butchers will cut absolutely anything you ask for.

If by butcher, you mean those meat-in-a-pack resellers, then that's not what I call a butcher. Tesco style poorly butchered, not hung at all, sweating in a plastic pack and dripping red stuff onto the sanitary towel it comes with, yeuch. There you won't get much range, I agree.

But there are hundreds, if not thousands of craft butchers across nearly every town in Ireland. I can get bavettes of lamb, tira di asado ribs, hangar steak, feather blade. Absolutely anything. Look at this Cork butcher even tweeting away on various cuts of meat he does. https://twitter.com/guilderdbutcher

Uncle_moe · 23-07-2015 1:17pm

But there are hundreds, if not thousands of craft butchers across nearly every town in Ireland.

Have to disagree with this. I live in Dublin and craft butchers are few and far between. One in the city centre even has to to be given an order a few days in advance for simple things like ham hocks or pig cheeks.
Also have lived in Clonmel where there is one so called "craft butcher" and they have nothing beyond about 4 cuts of each animal. Even worse if the terrible quality of their meat. Great marketing though.
One thing that really bugs me about butchery in Ireland is the inability to cut a decent steak. Compare Irish cuts of steak to American. It has to be at least 2 inches thick to be able to cook it properly.

pwurple · 23-07-2015 1:23pm

Uncle_moe wrote: »

Have to disagree with this. I live in Dublin and craft butchers are few and far between.

I don't know Dublin that well, but surely Cork city can't be the only place in the country with excellent butchers?

One thing that really bugs me about butchery in Ireland is the inability to cut a decent steak. Compare Irish cuts of steak to American. It has to be at least 2 inches thick to be able to cook it properly.

You mean like this rib eye? From my local butcher...

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dr.fuzzenstein · 23-07-2015 2:06pm

If any restaurant in the country asked me to write up a menu for them, I could do it in 5 minutes.

Starters:

Soup (If you have to ask: veg. It's ALWAYS veg. Very, VERY rarely leek or mushroom, but only because we ran out of veg)
Seafood Chowder (This is showing our wild, unpredictable side)
(soup and seafood chowder might be fresh, the rest of the starters are frozen from a bag, €1.99 for 4 kg from the wholesaler)
Garlic Mushrooms €6.99 for 4
A dot of jam on a sliver of Goat's cheese €12.99

Mains:

Burger and chips on a plate with a dollop of coleslaw bought in Centra down the road €18.99
"Some" cut of beef on a bed of mash with shpuds and sauce made fresh from oxo cubes €23.99
Same for lamb, same price
Maybe pork, ditto
And last but definitely not least: the chicken dishes.
Chicken breast, chicken kiev, chicken nuggets, chicken thighs, chicken with chips, chicken curry (Irish style, with mayonnaise), chicken burger, chicken skewers, chicken bap, I could go on for days here. My god, you really DO eat a lot of chicken here!*

All this with side of veg (throw in pot, boil, serve) and chips (it's illegal to serve a main course without)

Deserts:

Apple pie with ice cream (also from Centra)
Profiteroles
Some manky sh*t we call cheesecake

Coffee, Tea and for the gentleman a pint.

*
It's true! C'mon, admit it! The Irish eat an absolutely staggering amount of chicken. What's with that? Why? Answers on a postcard...

Are Irish food and restaurants underrated

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