ITALIAN FOODIES

                                  
                                         

How nice has this weather been and it's coming back on Sunday - yahoooo!! It's been a pretty hectic week here, we are finally moving in to our new house next week so it's all about the final touches now, going accessory shopping the weekend, Bru is very excited as you can imagine - cushions and candles are his favourites;) I will probably have to watch extra football as punishment:)

The new place is also keeping us busy, how nice to be moving house and opening a new business and running the old business at the same time, I'd recommend it to anyone, no stress involved at all - I DON'T THINK SO!!:) I think there is so much going on that I actually am not getting stressed at all but then me and Bru are pretty laid back, probably a bit too much sometimes but it helps in times like this!! I hate this stage of the new business as it's all the legal and engineering stuff which I'm a bit allergic to, I prefer the nicer stage of doing the menu, design, PR, sourcing wine etc etc but it has to be done! We met with the engineer last week and one thing I'm really bad at is reading a plan so I was so confused by the end!! The thing is they think you understand all the architect and engineering jargon so I had to tell him to stop him at one stage and explain what the hell ME was as he kept saying it, for anyone who doesn't know it's Mechanical Engineering. He thought it was funny so I asked him what were the ingredients of pesto????? he got the message:) They are doing the plans for the layout of the kitchen, toilets etc and the main specs for the fire cert!! When opening a new restaurant the Fire Cert is the most important part in the initial stages and it takes 2 months so the pressure is on!!

We also met with the solicitor yesterday for the initial reading of the contracts so that's all been sorted out next week, once that's through I'll start posting some pics so you can get an idea of the place. We also met an Interior Architect yesterday as we are going to need some help with the design as it is such a big space, we will bring all the furniture and bar from Italy but we need someone to put it altogether and make it look good and not something we threw together ourselves!!

With the busy week we've had and the lovely weather there hasn't been a huge amount of cooking but we had this bruschetta the other day as I got some lovely bread at the french market and really good sliced gourmet mushrooms in Superquinn.


                                           

what you need:

 - 400g mushrooms - sliced

 - 250g sliced gourmet mushrooms(optional)

 - crusty bread

 - 2 tbsp flat leaf parsley finely chopped

 - juice of half lemon(optional)

 - 2 garlic cloves finely chopped

 - half white onion finely chopped(optional)

 - olive oil

 - sea salt and black pepper

 - 50g unsalted butter (about 2 tbsp)

 
what to do:

 - toast your bread under the grill on both sides.

 - melt your butter over a low heat, add the onions and garlic and cook for a few minutes until softened. Add your mushrooms and cook for about 10 mins. If you like cream you can add some here if you like but I'm watching the hips;)

 - add your lemon juice and parsley and season well. 
 
 - serve the mushroom mix on your toasted bread and dine "al fresco" with a glass of "vino bianco"!!!

                                         

You can vary this recipe by adding some pancetta, parma ham or a poached egg on top!!

buon appetito!!!

p.s. there is something wrong with blog.com so apologies for the layout and to anyone trying to use the tag list or read older posts!! I have to move but I don't even know where to start, a friend of mine has promised he's going to move me to wordpress so hopefully it will happen soon!!

                    

Here are a few pics of the fabulous Riverfest which takes place every year on the May Bank holiday weekend!  The weather was so nice which made it even better if not a bit too busy as I think the whole of Limerick city and county turned out, but it was a great success and really enjoyable, I think we need more festivals like this on an ongoing basis in the summer!! 

                            

The world BBQ cook off was held on Saturday and the chef's BBQ competition was held on Sunday!! We were actually supposed to enter this year but with everything that's going on at the moment we didn't have time in the end but maybe next year.




The main sponsor was Complete Cuisine which is the company I worked for as a Sales Manager for 4 years before venturing out on my own, this is my former boss Dermot above on the left!! I've mentioned my local butcher Jim Flavin before on this blog and himself and his crew were busy cooking their award winning sausages on the right!!



The famous "pig on the spit" from the Milk Market was there, supplying their tasty pork sandwiches to the hungry public!!



The French market was back too with a huge selection of hot food, cheeses, olives and some really nice bread which I used for "bruschetta di funghi" today which I will post later in the week!!



There were 2 fondue stands and of course I couldn't leave without having a taste so I got this little beauty below BUT some stooopid man pushed me and it fell:( I didn't even get a bite, probably better for my hips anyway!!

                                             

Till Riverfest '09!!

Ciao!

                  

Alessandro has been in Italy for the last month so has only seen the new place through email and excited descriptions from us, so he flew back yesterday!! We decided he should fly into Dublin and we'd pick him up and stay up for the night and do a little bit of "food and wine" research - oh life is good:) There were a couple of new places that I wanted to try like Carluccio's and the Cornerhouse Grill so we made a day and night of it!! We decided to stay in the Trinity Capital Hotel which just had a complete refurbishment last year and I have to say I highly recommend it. It's so cheap compared to other city centre hotels, is in a great location and I love the new decor so it's my new place of sleep when in Dublin.

As usual we tried to pack as much food and drink in as one's body can physically handle, Carluccio's was first on the list but only for a sandwich as we were going for steaks so we only wanted something small for lunch. I'v eaten in Carlcuccio's in London lots of times and I really like it!! Ok, so it's not Italian food like "mama would make" but it is a chain at the end of the day and the quality is very good for a chain. The Dublin outlet is pretty impressive I think, very modern, fresh and absolutely spotless, everything shines. The presentation in the deli is excellent as you can see from the picture above and I wanted to buy everything but we just settled on 3 very good panini. I think it will do very well but if you're looking for more traditional Italian food I suggest Dunne & Crescenzi around the corner, they even use tazza d'oro coffee which anyone who has been to Rome would have heard of, it's the most famous spot for coffee in Rome!!

                                  

I've spoke of Fallon & Byrne in my last post on Dublin so this time we went down to the wine cellar and had a couple of glasses of vino and some oysters as an "aperitivo" which were delicious and the boys loved!!

            

Dinner was booked in the Cornerhouse Grill at 9pm and I was interested to see what it would be like as it has had some pretty bad reviews recently. We started with the spicy chicken wings, lamb skewers and the roast beef salad.




For mains we had 3 rib-eye's, chips and a side of broccoli

 

I wish I could tell you it was a great meal as I love the concept and think we badly need this kind of dining option but it really wasn't up to standard and is pretty expensive. We all agreed the quality of the steak was really good with lots of flavour but that's where it stopped!! The service was good with really friendly waiting staff but other than that it was a big disappointment. We tried to get in there the last time we were in Dublin on a Tuesday night but it was packed but last night it was fairly quiet which is such a shame as it has everything going for it but at the end of the day no matter how nice the place is, it's all about the food!! 

                                          

There's lots of discussion lately about the best steak so my question to you today is what's your favourite???

 - fillet
 - sirloin
 - ribeye
 - striploin
 - t-bone

I'm loving ribeye at the moment, would love to hear your favourite, it's a little bit of market research for the new place!!

Ciao!!