AND WHAT SHALL WE EAT MY DEAR?

 

 

Be honest, every time we start packing for a holiday don't we tell ourselves ad nauseam that we will not be lavish with our spending, that we will make sincere efforts to try and curtail over drinking and over eating? Not good for the waist and more important not good for the purse, we tell ourselves. And that the best way would be to book a service apartment so that we can at least cook our own breakfast  and maybe, even a meal, or if not that at least put together a sandwich or some quick and simple stuff for a packed lunch while we take in the sights and sounds. I don't know what happens to all avowed good intentions when you land at the destination; they simply vanish faster than you say, 'lets check out the gas range...' Before leaving for Dublin we had booked a service apartment, swanky kitchen and all, in the apartment right above the reputed/notorious (tick either after you have experienced it)The Temple Bar. After checking in, we very piously checked out the kitchenette - everything in place, everything up to date. Great! And then what did we do? Just used the electric kettle for the bed teas and turned on the gas range once, that too by the spouse to warm up a sandwich that the daughter couldn't finish and left overnight in the fridge. What was that about the harm that good men intentions do (sorry Bertrand Russel)!

If you are in Dublin you have to have Irish breakfast, what with every cafe and eatery listing that on top of the breakfast menu? After the haggis and blood pudding for breakfast in Scotland, the Irish one was rather civilised one save the white pudding: I didn't even taste it and all I know is that it is supposed to contain pig's blood, beef suet and barley and la la la and there is no way I will sully my tongue with such stuff! Give me pork in any other form, any day, any time but blood yuck! To get back on track there would be regular Irish breakfast and many other kinds of breakfast and we would go, 'ugh overate, will skip lunch'. Sure, like the sun doesn't rise from the east! There would be lunch and spirits and dinners and spirits and in between nibbles and more. What is about holidays that makes one throw all cautions to the wind and binge like there is, forget tomorrow, no afternoon itself!

 

  

So, let me count the way love thee, nah blame that on the overdose of Irish writers, literature and biting humour. All one is attempting to do is trying to recall the meals we had and somehow one morphs into another and it seems like one long relay race of meals-running-into-meals! Off hand, the two most memorable that I can recall is first at the Merry Ploughboy with its fantastic live traditional Irish music and literally breathtaking dance and the set course; the other one at Elephant Castle at The Temple Bar Road because of the company we had. 

Incidentally, at Merry Ploughboy the lady serving us was named Mary and as she said whether we called her Mary or Merry depended on how much spirits we had imbibed! The set dinner menu had options - loved my creamed seafood chowder and homemade Guinness brown bread, as did the daughter.The husband's hazelnut crusted honey and thyme goats cheese salad with pickled beetroot, roasted red peppers and so on with honey mustard dressing was just fine; I always like my salad dressing spiked with a pinch of red chili powder, Desi istyle. The mains had all kinds of protein which were good or okay depending on who ate what though I found Irish trout a tad bland and sigh, no chili sauce around to turn it around. When it comes to eating non Indian or non Asian food, one always looks forward to the deserts and the Irish Bramley apple pie with cinnamon Anglaise was too huge and quite ordinary but then again  others in the family say I am too picky and finicky. Hah! But the ambiance, the fantastic musical performance, the service and the company more than made up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there was the other one at Elephant Castle (Temple Bar Road, call it pull of gravity or whatever!), this was one time where the company and the food excelled. There was Father Patrick and Father Marcos, the first from Dublin and the latter from Seville, Spain but of Cuban origin and on a short visit to Ireland. Ahem! if you have studied in a convent school and went on to a missionary run college with Saint preceding the name of both the convent and the college, you can accept that while it is totally possible to love, even adore and respect the sisters, you can't exactly think of sitting down with them and raising your glass to say cheers and discussing every topic under the sun including Christianity and why there are lesser people becoming priests and nuns! I still remember the time when the daughter was in (very) junior school and in convent (thankfully out of it soon) I had gone to meet the principal to ask two days extra leave beyond the given holidays and, for all those going what rubbish, why seek permission for two bloody days its because if a child was absent before and after the stipulated leave a fine (money dear, money) had to be paid for each day missed and worse the parent had to go to the school. So there was I and lets only say that the meeting didn't last long and the child didn't miss class on those two days and my tail was tucked firmly between my legs! Therefore to sit down for an evening of wining and dining session with two priests was totally delightful and one couldn't stop grinning meaninglessly. Father Patrick thought the best place would be what he called the iconic Oliver St John Gogarty Bar &Restaurant but naturally it was packed to the gills so all we could do was somehow manage to wrangle a table outside, right next to Gogarty's statue, only for drinks. For dinner it was Elephant Castle. As some wit said, 'everything good in life is either immoral, illegal and fattening' or something to that effect, but the undisputed truth remains that everything deep fried is so damn finger licking tasty and so addictive, you just want more and more. Among other things we had mussels, chicken wings and spareribs.The chicken wings came first, deep fried and crunchy and then came the ribs, charred black like sin, deep fried and then sheer ecstasy!

 

 

 

 

Father Patrick (Above) and Father Marcos (Below) 

What was that about taking the girl out from the hills but being unable to take hills out of her and all that jazz? This much it has to be put on record-- after a couple of days of being out of the country this Indian family, that is some members of this Indian family will die if they do not get Indian food! It's an experience we have re-lived many times.The daughter's age was still single digit when we had travelled through Singapore and Malaysia (where there is no dearth of good Indian food) but at the Changi airport just before catching the flight back home, she announced in all seriousness that if she couldn't have Indian lunch at the airport - 'even idli/dosa will do' - she would simply die. Then there was the time in Edinburgh that the spouse abruptly announced that he wouldn't survive another day without roti/shoti and shot off looking for an Indian joint. The daughter naturally supported him wholeheartedly and they dived into the first joint they saw that said Indian food. Turned out it was owned by a Pakistani but again naturally that was like splitting hair. And I am not even going into the story of riding a packed train for over 40 minutes in Rome because during the day we had come across this small Nepalese/Indian restaurant and the Nepali lady there had promised to cook mutton and crisp roti for dinner for the husband. It didn't matter that the hotel we stayed in was far, far away and we had to get  back for some reason or the other. By evening I thought he would have forgotten about it but hah, no way can you keep a man and his mutton apart (at the risk of committing a  Freudian slip) and what's a 40-minute train ride and some more walking.

So there we were two times - once at The Kathmandu Kitchen (Indian&Nepalese restaurant) and the other at Montys' of Kathmandu. The welcome was more than effusive in both the places, so much so that at Montys they gave us desert on the house! That too gajar ka halwa with ice cream.  The aloo chaat in a papad tokri at Monty's was another yummy zing-y eat. And I must admit it felt good and reassuring to see the table laden with dal-chawal, crisp tandoori rotis, the chickens and meats cooked with traditional masalas; didn't feel like restaurant meals, felt as if we had been invited over for dinner.

 

       

 

Monty's Gurung Bhai- MBA student and part time waiter

Above all, there is nothing like walking into the old sweet shops, the ones that announce that they sell traditional boiled sweets and making your choice. It's like compensation up for the times when there was only 'Morton' sweets around back home. It's like being in Aladdin's treasure trove, childish delight allright but delight indeed. Then there is also nothing like walking into a patisserie or a confectionery and picking up the outrageously decadent, biggest, fattest piece of sinful sweet something and digging your teeth into it, and never mind the frequency of doing so...........