Sally's blog

The hardest working man in Ireland is Zsolt Lukács.
Just look at the guy, haring around table after table at Aniar restaurant, in Galway’s West End, as he tends to everyone’s wine selection.
It would seem that everyone this evening has opted to have the tasting menu with the wine pairing. This is a smart move but, with seven courses on each of the menus – and a quartet of little dishes to start – it means Mr Lukács is changing every table’s wine and wine glasses after every course.

The Snug/O'D’s
It’s long gone 10 o’clock on Saturday night but, for the staff in Bantry’s The Snug, there is no chance yet to ease up, kick back, and call it a day.
Pressure for a table is still intense: the 5 French tourists at the bar are waiting to eat, and there are a 3-top and a 4-top of locals still hoping for a table.

It’s not all about the Wild Atlantic Way, you know.
If you need proof that the rest of the country hasn’t just gone away, and ceded control of the tourist dollar to Dublin and the WAW, then you need to take a trip to the Waterford Greenway.
We turned up at Coach House Coffee, just outside Kilmacthomas, to see what was happening on the WG.

Looking for a Sunday brunch but can’t leave the dog alone at the house? Well, look no further than to Pupp, on Dublin’s Clanbrassil Street.

So, Ladonna McCartan and Mark Healy are sitting in Brother Hubbard on Capel Street. They've taken a rare day off from their busy cafe, The Pantry, in Portlaoise. Ladonna orders a coffee and, from the first sip, she has that Damascene conversion.

Bunsen’s southern branch, on French Church Street in Cork city, is a study in two exacting disciplines.
The first is hamburgers, of course. Bunsen is all about burgers. It’s all about how you create, make and serve, a hamburger, something Bunsen has done with consistent imagination ever since Tom Gleeson opened his first store on Dublin’s Wexford Street.
But just as significantly, Bunsen is a study in style. 

The Hawaiian classic has been brought to Ireland by Niall Sabongi, who we know from his ground-breaking crab shack – the original Klaw – in Temple Bar.

Free egg soup.

Now, who doesn’t want a free bowl of egg soup?

That’s what the Brothers Dosirak offer, at their little shebeen of an eating house, up a walkway beside the meat and fish counters at the side of the Super Asia Foods supermarket, near the River Liffey end of Capel Street.

The brothers are cult. Maybe even beyond cult. Our Dublin friends who know everything about everything know this little eating place, whilst even people who work in this zone have never heard of it. 

There has always been a philosophical strain amongst the best winemakers. Something about the metamorphosis of grapes in a vineyard into sublime alcohol in the bottle invites speculation about our place and our role in the universe.

Whenever we are enjoying the Italian wines which Enrico Fantasia discovers on his travels through Italy, and which he imports through his company, Grape Circus, we find ourselves thinking as much about the philosophy of the winemakers he chooses, as about the grapes they select or their attitude towards sulphites. 

Everyone loves Caryna Camerino’s cakes.

Especially the raspberry cheesecake brownies. And the filligree cupcakes. And the lemon drizzle.

But here’s a surprising thing about Ms Camerino’s bakery and cakery, on Dublin’s Capel Street: they make a demon bowl of porridge.

The porridge, in fact, is made and finished as if it is a cake. The proportions are perfectly judged, and the fruit is arranged on top with the exactitude and precision of a patissier, then finishd with a drizzle of honey. It’s superb.