the tartan knive: 2013

Saturday, 14 December 2013

marco pierre whites courtyard bar and grill pg2

Marco Pierre White Courtyard Bar and Grill: the only wow of the night is the bill.

Restaurant Title: Marco Pierre Whites Courtyard Bar and Grill

Proprietor:

Address: 1 Belmont Avenue , Donnybrook

Phone: (01) 5510555

Website:

Cuisine: French

Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 01:00

First published:Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 01:00

Her herbed chicken is probably the best dish of the night. The meat is juicy and chalk-pale as if it’s been brined and then finished with a herby crust, with yet more sauce on the side and some decent fondant potato.

My rack of Wicklow lamb (which is five cent short of €30) is disappointing. The meat is sinewy, fatty and a touch watery. The fiery mustard dressing, with more micro-chives, is way too punchy for the lamb. The lowest point is a €4.95 side of five onion rings, so drenched in oil that they drip when you bite down. There’s another €4.95 “beef tomato basil salad” side and it’s just that: a single beef tomato, sliced with yet more micro-herbs and some finely diced shallots.

Desserts are decent but small. My plum crumble has salty nuts in the crumble topping, which is a great touch. Carol’s bread-and-butter pud is an excellent rendition, but thinking about the mark-up that turns such a small portion of bread, eggs, cream, sugar and raisins into an €8.95 dessert hurts my brain.

The only wow of the night is the bill. We’ve had just a glass of wine each, and a lot of tap water. One of us had the early bird and it’s come to almost €60 a head. Good food is worth the spend and I’ll happily put up with catering quantities of guff from chefs if they put something gorgeous on my plate. But that’s not what’s happening here. It’s 2005 again, folks. This place is jumping on a weeknight. Forget green shoots. Ordinary, overpriced food is back.

Dinner for two came to €117.05.

THE VERDICT: For these prices there are better places

Marco Pierre White Courtyard Bar and Grill,

1 Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook

tel:01-5510555

Facilities: Mercifully Marco-free

Music: Background pop

Food provenance: Lots of place names for the fish

Wheelchair access: Yes

marco pierre whites courtyard bar and grill pg1

Restaurant Title: Marco Pierre Whites Courtyard Bar and Grill

Proprietor:

Address: 1 Belmont Avenue , Donnybrook

Phone: (01) 5510555

Website:

Cuisine: French

Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 01:00

First published:Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 01:00

Let’s try to ignore the elephantine ego in the room. Forget the ceiling lights angled to light the caricatures on the wall. Ignore the lifesize face with fag dangling from his lips on the placemat in front of you. Feel the relief that they haven’t put his picture in the loos. I can’t vouch for the gents. There’s a giant M on the door of the gents so maybe it’s a tribute cave where a cardboard cutout hands out the facecloths you can use to dry your hands.

Let’s take Marco Pierre White out of the picture. We know the London chef is not in the kitchen here in his second Dublin restaurant, in partnership with the Fitzer restaurant family. But everywhere are signs of a man in love with his own legend: once rock star, now older, stockier (pun fully intended) god. So lionised is the image you feel he might write menu suggestions in squid ink on the bodies of flunkeys, or carve them into Parmesan wheels and pitch them down steep mountainsides to roll up at the gates here at Marco Pierre White Courtyard Bar and Grill. It’s a mouthful of a name, seven words where one (Fitzers) would probably do.

Anyway, baggage stowed in the overhead locker, what’s it like? Well, it’s a lot like 2005. Inside this Donnybrook redbrick is a smart Londony-New Yorky fitout in 50 shades of brown. Outside is a courtyard with fires burning in glass boxes and a garden-centre label still attached to at least one of the trees.

Expensive as it looks inside, with its Jules Verne diving-bell lamps, the mock-mahogany tables have a slidey finish. This means the cutlery skitters like a compass needle on a stormy ship rarely fastening on true north. The service, like the place, is more solid, handsome and smart.

The a la carte menu is strikingly pricey, even for Donnybrook. So we’re taking the Jack Sprat approach, one early bird, one splurge.

It’s a meat- (steak six ways) and fish-fest kind of menu. He-who-shall- not-be-named takes pride in not offering a vegetarian main course. So if you’re not inclined to order anything with a face, you can eat six spears of indifferent asparagus with a tablespoon of hollandaise over them for €8.95.

This is all predictably macho so I’m surprised by the matronly touches dotted throughout the meal. There are dolls’ house copper pots of sauces on the side, as if a D4 dieters’ club had a hand in the mission statement. My Castletownbere crab comes with “sauce mayonnaise” in a piped splodge on the side. The crabmeat is fine but the muslin-wrapped lemon it’s served with isn’t particularly juicy, which seems like a waste of effort. There are surgically scissored micro-chives and a tangle of micro-basil and parsley. This is not the last we’ll see of these garnishes. Carol draws the short spear with the asparagus starter. It’s a Ronseal dish: asparagus, hollandaise. The end.

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

A BIT OF FUN !

Homebaking

“After a long day at college and listening to the wife moan about Christmas I came across this article. I decided to give it a go !!! Think I might have got carried away !!!”

Independent 27^th October 2013,

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/

Feeling depressed? Maybe you need to knead: New research reveals how baking is helping to lift thousands of people out of depression

What with all the cupcakes-at-dawn hype over BBC2's Great British Bake Off final last week, which concluded in dramatic fashion with a surprise winner amid accusations of misogyny, it can be hard to forget that baking isn't all about the frivolous.

But new research into the industry has revealed baking's more serious side: as a crucial therapy that is helping to lift thousands of people out of depression.

John Whaite, the GBBO 2012 winner who has described suffering from crippling depression, believes baking is emerging "as a form of pill-less Prozac". In a report today for the Real Bread Campaign, he calls for more people "suffering from mental health issues, or who are simply going through a tough time to get the chance to try their hand at baking real bread to see how it could help them". Mr Whaite, ambassador for the campaign group Baking a Smile, said he is inundated with people contacting him to discuss "how baking helps with their various mental health issues".

Bakeries are being set up all over the country to help people facing a range of different challenges, from acclimatising to life on civvy street to struggling with learning disabilities. They include the Better Health Bakery in Haggerston, east London, which provides training placements for adults living with mental health issues; Aberdeen's the bread maker, a social enterprise that runs an apprenticeship scheme offering work experience to 24 adults with learning disabilities; and Dough Devils, a co-operative bakery in Manchester run by a group of ex-offenders.

Paul Youd, in Taunton, Somerset, runs bread-making sessions for parents and children in homeless shelters, and sufferers of domestic abuse. He writes about his experience at his No Bread Is an Island blog. In Yeatman Hospital, in Sherborne, Dorset, the community mental health team runs a therapeutic baking group for its elderly patients with dementia and is working on a recipe book called Baking Memories.

The Real Bread Campaign, which received a four-year grant in 2009 from the Big Lottery's Local Food programme to bring real bread back into local communities, said the potential number of people who could benefit from a spot of kneading "runs into the hundreds of thousands or even millions". About one-quarter of the population has mental health issues in any one year, the report said.

A gift from the kids !!!!

i dunno what there trying to tell me lol !

italian cuisine

Here's a few pictures taken of italian food effort in class it was a great effort from all , this is our effort we worked in pairs for this class and i think for a first effort we turned out a couple of nice plates and i feel that my presentation is coming along and gradually improving ! pictured here is our take on tagliatelle,roast peppers&goats cheese,mushroom.

Saturday, 7 December 2013

the homemade burger !

The homemade burger !!!

heres my take on the homemade burger , simple but certainly different to any sort of burger i had made before this was a fresh look at a classic , the thinly sliced onion rings made all the difference.

Monday, 2 December 2013

pork!

Gruesome i know but as i was to find out ,there were many things that i didn't know . Chef quinn boiled the head in brine and herbs for about 4 /5 hours and then deconstructed the head showing the class the different aspects to this popular animal, the brain the cheeks , how to use and cook with the majority of the head even the ears !! having seen this i have a lot more respect for the rasher ! i mean the piggy, joking aside i found this class very interesting cooking trotters(crew beans) hocks(knees) all parts of the animal that i wouldnt have considered before . below i have a picture of the pork belly dish with pigs cheek deep fried pigs ear garnish .(pork scratching)
i think it turned out very well considering most techniques we used were new to me. i had made roast pork belly before but as the course progresses i feel i am taking on board other elements that are helping my end results .(hopefully)

fish populette!

fish populette , the class effort was good and it laid the foundations for my effort at home which i thought turned out very well having learned how to go about making this dish not a bad effort .

The home effort served with crushed potato and thyme went down a treat . This dish was fairly easy to do considering i had only ever done it once . Served with my own touch at home delicious! a dish i will do and tweek again and again tip .(the folding of the paper is important to make sure that the fish steams )

fish demonstration !

well here we are coming in to the festive period already! the time has passed very quickly so i have had to take stock of what we have learned as a class and as an individual . some things i found great and others a bit more tricky but hey we aint perfect ha ha ! .

here i have a picture from a demonstration our class watched by chef eric from restaurant la boheme ! in waterford very interesting explaining a few aspects of sea food that i never would have thought of, sourcing , quality,a lovely seafood bisque pictured here was on the menu that day and was duly devoured by the class. cheers eric !!

Add caption

Monday, 25 November 2013

G I Y WATERFORD

GIY “Grow It Yourself”

According to W.L.R, FM,

(Monday 25th November 2013) our local radio station. A fundraising drive has been launched to build a national food education centre in Waterford. GIY need to raise a total of 750 thousand euro for their Grow HQ in Waterford. Which is to be located in Ardkeen. The movement which started in Waterford is in itself growing quite rapidly with 50 thousand members to date. Michael Kelly, the founder of GIY stated that the Grow HQ will be a place for people to immerse themselves in the GIY lifestyle. For all you budding Gardeners who have an appetite for growing your own fruit and veg, check out the GIY web site just follow the link provided http://www.giyinternational.org/

Thursday, 21 November 2013

hmmmm???????

Some bacon producers have been accused by the Irish Farmers Association of confusing consumers by using labels that suggest they are using Irish pigmeat when tests results showed that non-Irish product had been used in some cases.

The IFA commissioned DNA testing company Identigen to test 300 pigmeat samples and compare the results against a complete DNA database of Irish boars.

The results showed 52 per cent of the rashers and bacon joints tested were not from Irish pigs. The IFA said no illegal activity had taken place and retailers were entitled to label non-Irish products as being “Produced in Ireland” if they had processed them further. But it said that customers had a right to know if items were actually Irish products.

Where your full Irish really comes from

IFA president John Bryan said the products “masquerading as Irish” were undermining the huge investment Irish farmers have put into traceability and quality control.

The IFA DNA certified programme for pigmeat was established to deal with labelling issues and to provide reassurance for producers and consumers on the origin of pigmeat on the Irish market.

Brands using the Love Irish Food label must manufacture in the Republic of Ireland and a minimum of 80 per cent of the brand must be made in the Republic.

The Love Irish Food organisation said member companies undertake in their licensing agreements that the source of the raw material they use originates and is produced in Ireland.

Dunnes Stores fared poorly in the test results with only half of its own brand St Bernard rashers and bacon joints matching the Irish database. Dunnes Stores was unavailable for comment.

IFA Pigs and Pigmeat chairman Pat O’Flaherty criticised Dunnes Stores for using the slogan “better because we’re Irish” while failing to support Irish pig farmers.

“The idea behind this pilot campaign is to help consumers make informed decisions when buying pigmeat products and to increase the sales of Irish product in the domestic and export markets,” he said.

He added he had no problem with Spanish, Danish or British pork being sold in Ireland but questioned why these products were marketed as “Irish” when put on supermarket shelves here.

“It is unacceptable that companies and retailers are using imported pigmeat in their products. In addition, some companies and retailers are relying heavily on imagery and branding that would lead the consumer to believe they are buying Irish when the reality is they are being conned into believing a product is Irish when our DNA testing has proved this is not the case,” said Mr O’Flaherty.

In a statement, Lidl Ireland said its Glensallagh own brand was produced exclusively for the chain by a number of Irish suppliers. “We have developed two distinct logos for packaging of our ow- label products - Produce of Ireland and Produced in Ireland. Many Glensallagh products carry the Bord Bia and Produce of Ireland logos as they contain 100 per cent Irish pig meat. Products that are made by Irish suppliers, but that do not contain 100 per cent Irish pig meat, do not carry the Bord Bia logo but instead have a ‘Produced in Ireland’ logo,” the statement said.

A spokewoman for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) insisted the Irish legislation is very clear.

“Pigmeat products do not have to display the country of origin on the label, unless the absence of this information could mislead consumers as to the true origin of the food,” she said.

Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 20:40

First published:Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 12:40

sourcing local !!

VOGELAARS

locals have known about this apple farm for years i have recently had the pleasure of discovering it to.

last weekend i took the very short trip to the farm and was very happy with the bounty i returned home with. The pure apple juice was delicious a return is penciled in to stock a few bottles to be enjoyed over the festive period .

The crowning glory before it got devoured .
Having found this treasure on my very own doorstep it has encouraged me to start sourcing good foods and ingredients localy as it certainly makes all the difference.

practical exam

Today saw our class have a practical exam , we were asked to cook, plate and serve three dishes 1, a trout and sorell sauce 2, a mushroom risotto 3, a chocolate souffle . i can honestly admit that i was nervous as it has been a long time since i had any kind of exam ,but i realy enjoy cooking so at the same time i was looking forward to the challenge. The day passed quickly enough and before i realised it was over, the experience i drew from the practical exam was to plan your dish prior to cooking anything, have a finished idea in your mind before commencing a dish, i felt myself taking a few minutes before i started any dish to make sure i had a plan in order to cook and assemble the dish as well as i could . (i would never have done this in the past and am slowly but surely changing my way of thinking before creating) I got good feedback from my dishes and draw confidence from a decent effort and look to challenge myself every time i create and plate a dish .

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

A legend recognised !!!!!!

The bread rolls have been granted protection under the EU's protected designation of origin

Waterford's blaa bread rolls have been granted European Union protection.

The soft white bread rolls, whose traditional baking dates back to the arrival of French Huguenots in the late 17th century, have been granted protection under the EU's protected designation of origin.

It is now illegal to use the name Blaa to describe any other type of bread.

It will join a number of other unique Irish products which have already been granted the designation such as Connemara Hill lamb, Timoleague brown pudding, Imokilly Regato cheese and Clare Island salmon.

The blaa was one of five new quality farm products added to the register of protected designations of origin (PDOs) and protected geographical indications.

The others were for a French goat’s cheese Rigotte de Condrieu (PDO); Italian cheeses Puzzone di Moena/Spretz Tzaorì (PDO) and Pecorino di Picinisco (PDO) and for a Slovenian soft cheese Mohant (PDO).

The denominations will be added to the list of around 1,200 products already protected.

the tartan knive