Local competition is fierce, and restaurants offer inventive, tempting menus. Kinsale, in the south of Ireland, is one of the country's gourmet capitals, offering a satisfying mix of upscale traditional fare and creative modern cuisine. O'Shea's Merchant Pub also hosts a " Food, Folklore, and Fairies" evening (more culturally highbrow than it sounds), where a filling three-course meal is punctuated by soulful Irish history and fascinating Irish mythology, with occasional live trad tunes in between. In Dublin, you can enjoy your Guinness stew alongside traditional music, with experiences like the Musical Pub Crawl Dinner Show. Pub menus consist of traditional dishes, such as Irish stew (mutton with mashed potatoes, onions, carrots, and herbs), fish-and-chips, bangers-and-mash (sausages and mashed potatoes), and coddle (bacon, pork sausages, potatoes, and onions stewed in layers). This hearty comfort food is served in friendly surroundings for about $20 a plate. When it comes to pub grub, these days it can be Ireland's best eating value. Restaurants typically provide a three-course menu, a good-value early bird special, and the regional specialties. These days, you'll find everything from risotto, to tapas, to Asian-fusion dishes on the menu. These kinds of quirky foods come from the off-cuts of meat - and the Irish proudly turn the trimmings into delicacies.Ī good menu incorporates local and seasonal ingredients. And all across Ireland, you'll encounter traditional delicacies like tripe and black pudding. Galway is famous for its oysters (with an annual oyster and seafood festival), Kerry and Dingle have excellent lamb, and County Wexford claims the best strawberries (grab some from a roadside stand in spring or summer). These days, few Irish folks start their day with such a feast (and thankfully it's easy to find healthy alternatives in Ireland), but indulging in the occasional fry-up is one of the joys of my trips here.īe sure to try each region's culinary specialty. To top it off, it's served with juice, tea or coffee, cereal, and toast with butter and marmalade. This big fried breakfast - traditionally what farm workers ate to get them through a day in the fields until dinner - is jokingly referred to as a "heart attack on a plate." With eggs, bacon, sausage, a grilled tomato, sautéed mushrooms, and optional black pudding (sausage made from pig's blood), it's no light fare. It's a tasty reminder of Ireland's workaday roots. When I'm in Ireland, I like to start my day with an old-fashioned "Irish Fry" (or an "Ulster Fry" in the North). Expatriates have come home with newly refined tastes, and immigrants have added a world of interesting flavors. With these fine ingredients, Irish chefs work hard to put their cuisine on the map. Streams full of trout and salmon and easy access to saltwater fish and shellfish mean a bounty of seafood. And Ireland has much more to offer: Irish beef, lamb, and dairy products are among the EU's best. Though potatoes are still important here, there's no longer a reliance on them, and modern Irish menus often replace potatoes with rice or pasta. Long considered the land of potatoes, Ireland's diet once reflected the country's dire economic circumstances. But that's an outdated notion: Travelers today find fresh, inventive, flavorful meals there - and many Irish towns are working to establish themselves as foodie destinations. Irish cuisine has long been the fodder of jokes - a kind of penance to suffer through in order to enjoy the people, music, and lush scenery of the Emerald Isle.
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