All posts tagged: cheese

Review – The Cavern, Baggot Street

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One of the surest ways to my heart is a good cheese board. I don’t tend to order them in restaurants as they are often a menu’s lonely, back of the fridge afterthought, dragged out and given a quick shave in the hope the diner doesn’t notice. We do. It’s like the guy who douses himself with Lynx instead of showering. We just know.  So I was very excited about seeing what the Cavern, the new baby offshoot of Baggot Street Wines, offered on their cheese board. I’m a big fan of the wine shop, their staff are lovely, unpretentious and helpful and when they introduced a very good selection of Sheridan’s cheeses ‘to go’ by their cash register, I hoped it would evolve into a wine cellar. Enter The Cavern. I went on a Thursday evening with a very good friend who kindly ordered champagne to toast a recent happy event. It was delicious with star-like tiny bubbles. The staff members were attentive and warm, answering any questions we had and topping up drinks at just …

Cheese Revolution

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This was originally published in The Sunday Business Post a few years ago. Sadly, the wonderful cheesemaker and person David Tiernan who I interviewed for this piece has since passed away. He is much missed. Food Special: Cheese Revolution CHEESE, and particularly Irish cheese, is one of the great loves of my life. It’s been there on my soggy school sandwiches. It’s been there at supper time, when I decided to get adventurous with spaghetti bolognese. And it’s been the only thing I could stomach during the glory and heartache of falling in and out of love. My parents instilled an appreciation of this wonderful food in me from an early age, but in the last few years it has become a passionate pursuit and daily obsession in my cooking, eating, discovering and learning. I have it with marmalade with my toast, I’ve used blue cheeses with bacon and chocolate, and I’ve been known to swoon on sight when a restaurant has a cheese-board, or the ultimate – a cheese trolley – on its menu. …

Restaurant Crush: Isabel’s

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When restaurants are called by a girl’s name, I like to imagine it must be in honour of the heroine of a magnificent love affair, or an ode to a romantic encounter or some other grand and heart breaking tale where  you can almost hear Maria Callas sing ‘O Mio Babbino Caro.’ Isabel’s is so called, indeed from love, but not from any heartache. It is named after the owner, Ian Keegan’s daughter, which is immediately heart warming. It’s on the corner of Lower Baggot Street and after taking the few steps down to the basement entrance, you find a softly lit, warm and sensuous  restaurant and wine bar that’s tiny and perfect. I often have misgivings about wine bars with food, as  the menu can sometimes present a world of shocking misunderstanding. Cajun wings and a delicate Pinot? Yum. Thankfully, Isabel’s are tiny and perfect with their menu too. Ian and head chef Niall O’Sullivan have created a delicate, exciting, and delicious menu whether you want to nibble on lighter bites, a cheese board, …

Buffalo butter

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There’s a first time for everything. And yesterday was the first taste of Irish Buffalo butter. Thanks to my talented friend Kevin Powell who treated me to a superb lunch of toasted Le Levain bread with Toonsbridge Buffalo butter and some delicious Corleggy soft cheese. The bread was crusty and perfect from the talented Rossa Crowe who has a stall in Temple Bar market. Then the butter…….soft and deceptively angelic in colour, it works in devilish pleasure in the mouth. Toonsbridge in West Cork make superb delights like fresh buffalo mozzarella, ricotta, feta and this heavenly butter. Produced by Toby Simmons of The Real Olive Company and farmer Johnny Lynch who impoted buffalo from Italia to West Cork, it is delicious. I am of the ‘Would you like some bread with that butter?’ scale of the knife spread and could happily have taken a spoon to this. Find it in Dublin at Temple Bar Market, but not if I get there first.

Recipe – Smoked Gubbeen Soufflé

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I was lucky enough to spend a week in Ballymaloe Cookery School two years ago. And fell in love with food, Cork and found my food hero, Darina Allen. My whole attitude towards food, sourcing, saving and cherishing food changed in that sun blissed week in Shanagarry,East Cork. I learnt how to make mayonnaise, how to chop an onion and to always keep eggs at room temperature. I also got to taste Smoked Gubbeen in the same county it comes from with a glass of red wine outside the pink cottage where the group of us were staying on the grounds. The sun would go down on some very blessed and content cookery students every evening. It was one of the best week’s of my life and I dream of going back. I try to include cheese in most of my meals and this recipe is adapted from Ballymaloe’s http://www.cookingisfun.ie I’ve adapted it to include the delicious Smoked Gubbeen and it works a treat as an impressive dinner party starter: Smoked Gubbeen Soufflé 15g Parmesan …