The Mixed Grill Experience

Due to the power of modern technology I am posting today from Starbucks in Piccadilly Square in Manchester. I have been working here for the entire day and have literally been through the entire menu with caramel hot chocolate being the latest. The good thing is that if I miss my aeroplane back to Ireland later the amount of caffeine I have consumed will enable me to swim across the Irish Sea instead.

The blog has been quiet for a couple of days and I would love to say it was down to hard work but it was actually due to the fact that I was playing golf on the beautiful Mount Juliet Course near Kilkenny in Ireland. The game of golf included a free meal which after a 7 mile trek I was looking forward to immensely. To my surprise an old classic that has totally gone out of fashion appeared on the menu, The Mixed Grill. Now just the name brings back memories of an age gone by with old smelly hotels from the 80s springing to mind. The Mixed grill was as much a mainstay on menus of the past as risotto, eggs Benedict and sundried tomatoes are abundant in our restaurants and bistros these days. Despite other exciting choices on the menu I thought I would dip my feet back into the water and see if it had somehow evolved into the new and improved Mixed Grill of 2008.

The good news is that it has! I'm not sure if it was the novelty or the plush surroundings or the fact that I had walked half way across Ireland but I needed a real mans dinner and that is what I got! Stick your sundried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and slow roasted peppers up your arse; I want lamb chop, slow roast shoulder of pork, bacon, sausage, fried egg, and lots of bread all on the one plate from now on! It was a plate full of meat, it was hot, it arrived promptly and it did exactly what it said on the tin! I must commend such a prestigious hotel and their chef for having the balls to put something so outdated on their menu and making it a huge success. Even though I wouldn't eat a mixed grill everyday of the week I just wish more chefs would cook classics like that instead of hiding behind their bottle of walnut and coriander oil. Am off to get some sort of coffee flavoured lunch now!

Dublin Cooking School (Cooks Academy)

Ballymaloe is the name that first springs to mind when you think of cooking schools in Irleand but there is a new kid on the block that is hoping to join the Cork powerhouse as an established name on the international cooking scene! Tim Greenwood and his staff have an ideal premisies in Dun Laoghaire and after speaking to him this morning things seem to be booming! I found it fascinating to hear that their customer profile is mostly young professionals rather than the older crowd you might normally assosiate with cooking classes, as Tim said "cooking is cool at the moment". The great news is from next week we'll have a few of their videos on here so you'll be able to see some of the great facilities yourself!

You can never have enough people learning to cook I say!

Check out the website

Dylan McGrath Mint Restaurant

I've never had a huge temper in the kitchen and could always laugh things off but I always remember one guy who could get under my skin and now I am not surprised to see he has just been awarded a prestigious Michelin Star for his restaurant Mint in Ranelagh, Dublin. Dylan McGrath was a lowly chef de partie when I knew him but you could see in his eyes he was going places. The thing with great chefs is that it is extremly rare for them to have a personality and Dylan is falls comfortably into that category! Now I havn't seen him in 6 years but my guess is that when you watch RTE tonight and see him in action you will see exactly what I mean! Don't get me wrong, all the great chefs are driven and care little for what other people think and I think that is exactly what you need to suceed in the hard world of gaining Michelin stars. I havn't eaten Dylan's food since the Peacock Alley days but my guess is that it is outstanding and that he is still a grumpy arrogant young man!

Mint restaurant
Ranelagh Dublin
Website

Home delivered food review.

The biggest problem that many people like me how live on their own is what to eat at night. Now you would assume that being a chef I would be cooking up a storm every night but the reality is that takeaway food is often the most realistic option. The biggest problem I have with takeaway options here in Ireland is that the choice is limited to Pizza, Indian or Chinese, it really doesn't stretch any further than that! The Irish food scene has come a long way in the last ten years but sadly the standard of food delivered to your door has lagged way behind the standard of other modern cities. Takeaway is a way of life in many big cities but unlike Ireland there is a huge variety and particular emphasis being placed on healthy options. There really is a massive gap in the market here in Ireland which I hope entrepreneurs start to exploit but until then here are my thoughts on some of the options we currently have...

The Bombay pantry has been around for some time and its reputation along with the number of stores are growing rapidly. Very good standard of food with only drawback being often slow delivery. Head and shoulders above the rest of Indian Food in Ireland.


Le Diep has long been a famous restaurant in Dublin but their big success has come with the opening of their takeaway and delivery service from Ranelagh. Mostly Thai food with nice packaging and wonderful choice. Only drawback is the popularity of the place and extremly high prices!

Four star have been around for some time and the only reason they are on this list is because I like them when I am pigging out and drinking beer! So different from the real traditional pizza you would find in Italy and not exactly a gourmet meal but it is always cheap, always on time and never lets you down!



The sad thing is that in a city of over a million people I have had to think really hard to find 2 examples to review here. We deserve better here in Ireland and should be able to order fresh, healthy and interesting food from the comfort of our homes! It's a very sad reflection on the Irish food industry and one that I hope will change over the next couple of years.

Town Bar and Grill Restaurant Kildare Street

There is nothing that gets me more excited or tells me more about a chef's ability that a menu. Seems like an obivious thing to say but the art of writing a great menu is not a simple one and many great chefs have fallen at this first hurdle. In my humble opinion the key is simplicity and any understating on a menu is good thing as there is nothing worse than reading a menu with 100s of ingredients per dish. There is nothing worse than becoming dizzy as you stare at a billboard size piece of card with the chef's life story spread out in front of you. All I want is 5 starters, 5 mains and a few desserts thrown in to keep everybody happy but you will find that it is only chefs with the utmost confidence in their ability that can pull this off!

It was business that brought me to Town bar and Grill on Kildare street this week and not being a huge fan of basement restaurants I wasn't expecting much. Turns out my doubts were misplaced as the atmosphere and ambience in the room were excellent and i suppose one shouldn't expect anything less from a premises that used to house Mitchell's wine merchants.

After walking through the door four things happened in succession which are remarkably simple but are often neglected by restaurants thus setting a bad precendent for the rest of the meal; First my jacket was removed and taken for safekeeping in the cloak room, we were then swiftly brought to the table, offered drinks, brought a menu and served warm bread. Now you can leave me sitting for 20 minutes after you have done that without even looking in my direction and I would be perfectly happy but as it happens the efficient staff were back topping up water and taking orders as soon as we looked ready.

The menu was faultless with simple choices at at 22.95 excellent value for lunch. The chef had kept everything simple and without creating any fuss had designed an apetizing and elegant menu. I went for the Carpaccio of Tuna to start which was perfectly acceptable without being outstanding and followed it with a "10oz Ribe eye steak with mash, greens and herb butter" which did exaclty what it said on the tin.

The only other blemish on an otherwise enjoyable lunch was one waitress pouring me flat water followed by fizzy water, followed by flat water into my fizzy water! That just took the service level from a 10/10 to a still (or fizzy) respectable 8/10.



All in all a decent meal



Town Bar and Grill
Kildare Street
Dublin
Ireland

La Havana, George's Street, Dublin Review

After travelling the world several times over working on super yachts and tasting some of the best and most diverse food on the planet there will always be a special place in my heart for Cuba, it's people and especially strangely it's food. The reason I say strangely is that for those of you not familiar with the Cuban political situation lets just say that Tesco's or Wallmart don't exactly have a shop on every corner. There are pretty much 2 ingredients that you will see with every meal in Cuba and they are rice and beans.Even ingredients like chicken and beef are rare commodities so to say that Cuban Chefs have very little to work with is an understatement. What they do turn out and the passion they have while earning next to nothing blows my mind. Now at the other end of the scale was La Havana on George's Street in Dublin which is one of many Cuban inspired restaurants popping up around the world.

La Havana sits on George's street in Dublin in what must be the the area most densely populated with restaurants in Ireland. We arrived by pure chance on a busy Saturday night looking for some fast food and lured in by the offer of jugs of mojitos and to be honest that is about as good as it got! Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect to be served poor quality rice and beans but I never saw chorizo once in the 3 weeks I spent eating out in Cuba but it featured 6 times on a limited and boring menu in La Havana. Not only was the chorizo heavily featured on the menu it also happened to be the nasty cheap variety that I suspected came straight out of a packet pre-sliced and my suspicions were confirmed when i saw a chef opening a packet as I walked by the kitchen! Now in fairness my sister can open a fecking packet of sliced meat, cut some bread and put it on a plate and she is only 10 but she doesn't charge me 10 Euros and call it tapas! You know what else wound me up? The prawns. Now I'm sorry but if you are going to serve prawns in a so called tapas bar its very simple; peel them, fry them in garlic, chili and lemon, toss in parsley and charge me what ever the hell you want to. When I go out I like to concentrate on conversation and drinking cocktails and resent the fact that I have to spend 10 minutes of my precious time peeling greasy tasteless prawns that some lazy chef has thrown on a plate and called them tapas!

One thing that I do have to mention is that the service was fantastic and one of the waitresses chased me down the street twice after I left my scarf and phone at the table so even if they havn't trained their chefs properly the staff have certainly know a thing or two about Cuban hospitality.

So if you are thinking of going to La Havana or any other poncy place claiming to be a Cuban Tapas bar this weekend I say don't bother and save up your money instead and go to the most magical country in the world!

Tribeca Restaurant Dublin

People are always asking me if I am fussy about food when I eat out being a chef, and I always tell them that i am not in the slightest. See when you spend your entire life behind the stove it is such a pleasure for somebody else to actually be cooking it for you that i really enjoy the simple things like a good roast dinner or a simple homemade soup. One of my other favourites and a Saturday morning ritual that I share with a couple of my friends is to have a big fry up in a little local cafe that is slap bang in the middle of D4 but so well hidden away that only a privileged few know about it. It's basically a greasy spoon but it's not unusual to see Colin Farrell and a whole host of other stars in there having there there Saturday morning treat. Of course you are now wondering where it is and the bad news is that there is no way I could possibly share that information as there are literally 10 seats in the place and it's already packed by the time I get there. Due to work commitments we had to push our sacred fry back to Sunday morning and panic broke out when we arrived and found the cafe closed! Undeterred we sought an alternative venue and after much discussion settled on Tribeca in Ranelagh.

Now I have only ever heard good things about the place and it all started very well as we were greeted with the newspapers and ushered to our seats swiftly. Being simple folk and in the absence of a full cooked breakfast we ordered 3 "full Irish breakfast omelette's" and sat back licking our lips in anticipation. What arrived was a disgrace and only for the fact that we all had a mild hangover and were staring I might have said something. It was a little miserable omelet that resembled something out of a 70s canteen. There was literally a quarter of a sausage, half a rasher and some weird aniseed flavoured black pudding. Now i love fusion cooking and am all for chefs being creative but don't go trying to reinvent the wheel, if it's not broken DON'T TRY TO FIX IT!!!

   Give me a nice breakfast in the cafe any day!!

I have no problem paying big money if it is good as I understand all the hard work that goes into it but paying 11 euros for crap like that really winds me up! Ireland has changed and evolved at breakneck speed over the last 10 years and since coming back I have noticed that people are adapting their taste in food. The thing is if you go to New York or Sydney they have the most amazing food and tons of variety but if they put waffles or steak and chips on the menu that's exactly what you get! You won't have some idiot poaching the steak and setting it on a bed of wilted rose flowers! See cooking is about playing to your strengths and the cafe we usually go to does that, there is lots of bacon, the toast is warn, the sausages are plump and service is fast. So as far as i am concerned you can take your fancy aniseed black pudding and stick it, you'll find me in the cafe this weekend!

The 3 best meals of 2007

Being a food lover I always try and remember the best meal I have had in the past year and with the list of places I have filled my belly ranging from Miami, Barbados, New York, London, to the south of France and Mexico there were some interesting contenders this year. When talking about the best meal I don't necessarily mean a fine dining meal created by master chefs in opulent surroundings! A great dining experience is made up of many things including ambiance, location, the company and food to name but a few. I had a tough time choosing the final 3 but here they are...

3.Fresh lobster in Tabago keys

Wasn't really sure if i should put this one in here or not as i actually cooked it myself but there is no doubt it was one of the favourite things I ate in 2007. We were in possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been in the world when a fisherman brought us fresh lobsters that he had caught around the corner. He literally pulled them out and 5 minutes later they were wriggling on the chopping board. I cooked them very simply in boiling water and we all ate them in the baking sun with our fingers and a glass of white wine. I could taste the natural flavours and will remember that flavour for the rest of my life!

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2.Nobu on Miami Beach

I had heard a lot about Nobu and actually used their books quite a lot over the years so when i actually got the chance to eat in one of their Establishments earlier this year my expectations were met in every possible way! After a hard day off spent lounging on Miami beach followed by a couple of cocktails the scene was set for an amazing meal. The beautiful thing about the food was that you left feeling light and refreshed not bloated and tired! Great people watching, incredible flavours and a location to die for!

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1.Cheeseburger and chips in St Maarten

This was probably one of the cheapest and unhealthiest meals that i had all year yet totally and utterly satisfying and a winner by a clear mile, let me set the scene....
It was early January and i had just finished a 2 week charter that started on the 23rd December and finished on the 3rd January, not only was i working 20 hour days for 2 weeks but I also had to work on Xmas day and New Year's eve cooking for the most demanding people i have ever met! They had me up at 3 in the morning making them cookies and basically being the biggest bunch of divas I have ever come across! So at the end of two weeks i was nearly a broken man and the only consolation was the fact that they left us a big fat tip! One of us had the brilliant plan of going to a beach bar we knew well where the planes go about 20 feet over the bar for a few drinks as soon as they got off. We arrived in the bar and they had just started a barbecue and i ordered a basket of cheeseburger and chips and a beer. I took my seat to watch the sunset and as i took my first bite I heard a plane revving up, it then appeared above us and they were gone! I swear I have never ever tasted anything as good! Amazing how many factors come into creating the perfect meal!
What was you favourite meal in 2007?

Teppanyaki. Fun but messy!

I was talking to a couple of friends the other night and we wanted to eat somewhere different so we choose a teppanyaki restaurant here in Dublin(the one above Kielys in Donnybrook for you Irish readers). I was a teppanyaki virgin and I must say found the experience very exciting with a couple of fundamental flaws. The whole spectacle was very exciting but we got stuck at a large table with a group of drunkards on an office party so a big factor is who you share the table with, which on this occasion happened to be a bunch of messy office workers on their annual night out! The food was good and very tasty but i found that it came in tiny installments which can often be a good thing but on this occasion led us to being there for 3 hours and drinking 3 bottles of wine which i suppose is a crucial part of the proprietors business plan!

The last problem we had was that we were at a large table which necessitated 2 chefs and although one was plying his trade in an expert manner working with flames that would be classed bushfires elsewhere we were lumbered with a chap who was quite clearly still learning his trade. His party piece was shovelling potatoes around the grill with about as much grace as a hot dog vendor scrapes onions into your bun on a street corner.
All in all a great food experience and a good night out but not something you would end up doing every weekend.