Loam – Galway

On July 25th, we headed west after leaving work early. We were doing part of the Wild Atlantic Way, beginning in Galway and ending in Sligo. Our first destination in Galway was dinner in Loam, one of the two Michelin star restaurants in the city. We had been meaning to visit for years because we had heard the seasonal nature of the menu was a huge selling point. They only use what’s in season so the menu changes quite often. The last time we were in Galway, it was booked out but this was a Wednesday evening so we had no issues.

After chatting to food critic Leslie Williams at an event a few weeks before, he recommended going while it was still summer to get the brightest experience before the winter vegetables kick in.

The food was stunning, easily the second best in Ireland after Chapter One in Dublin. I haven’t written about Chapter One yet as I’ve only been once and despite having a mouth infection which seriously affected my sense of taste, it was still the best food I had ever had. Loam is close in terms of food but it just lacks the cosy atmosphere of Chapter One. Another thing is that they only seem to serve wine. I saw no evidence of beer or spirits in the restaurant or on the menu. To me, that misses the mark when it comes to a gastronomical experience. Wine and food make a great pairing but beer is just as good and even better than wine in certain instances.

Rant about lack of beer over, we did of course opt for the wine experience with the tasting menu. This gave us a small glass of wine with 5 of our 6 courses. Why one course was missing, I’m not sure. It was a dessert but I feel a port or possibly a sherry might have worked nicely here.

My overall thought about Loam as this. Go for the food, not for the atmosphere. There’s no real atmosphere in Loam, the hush is like that of a library. The building has an industrial feel. There’s no real warmth in the place. The staff are knowledgeable and our wine sommellier was clearly an expert but also entertaining.

The food is the hero in Loam. It seems simple on the face of it but what arrives is anything but simple. One note about our menu is the second course. Described as squid, shiitake and egg, this was an orgasmic experience. The squid had been turned in to a thin pasta. I imagine the calamari rings were placed in a pasta machine and rolled out to make them long and thin. The broth was just exquisite. I’m only sorry I didn’t take a photo of that dish as it was my overall favourite and I could easily have enjoyed a large portion of it as a main course.

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Skyscraper is the latest Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson disaster movie. I went with my Dad and Nephew last night knowing very little about the movie other than the obvious. It clearly looked like a cross between the Towering Inferno and Die Hard. I went in to the movie under no illusions that this would be anything more than a popcorn fest, despite the fact I don’t usually bother with popcorn.

There will of course be spoilers below.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple on the face of it. Bad guys set the tallest building in the world on fire and The Rock has to save his family. Of course setting it on fire isn’t good enough, they also storm the building in order to get what they came for.

As plot holes go, this movie must be up there with the best of them in terms of the number of them but let’s start with the one that was the most obvious to me. The Rock’s character, Will Sawyer is hired to test the building security for an insurance company. For some reason, the whole building’s security is controlled by a single tablet which has been bio-metrically locked to Will’s face using facial recognition. Will’s old friend has ensured that he gets the insurance gig so he can betray him by distracting him and his family for the bad guys to steal said tablet.

The bad guys perform their duty and steal his bag, assuming it contains the tablet. That was the entire root of their plan. Steal the tablet from him. Will should have been safe. Will’s family was supposed to be at the zoo and not in the building. With me so far? So no one in Will’s family was supposed to be hurt and the tablet simply stolen in order for the bad guys to use it to do bad things with the building. Here’s the problem, since their plan was to simply steal the tablet, how were they meant to unlock it? It was bio-metrically locked to Will! He needed to unlock it first.

The plot holes go downhill from there I’m afraid.

The movie is preposterous but here’s the thing, it’s not really trying to be anything more than what it is. It’s an action movie full of spectacle. It’s a rare movie where the main hero is a cripple. Will lost a leg when he was an FBI agent so the movie makes great use of his prosthetic limb. It has a tendency to fall off. I’m only disappointed he didn’t pick it up off the ground and beat a bad guy over the head with it.

If we inevitability compare this movie with Die Hard, we can see why Die Hard has endured all this time and Skyscraper will be forgotten. Bruce Willis as the hero is far more inspiring. He’s one man with no shoes in a building he’s never been in before trying to save his wife from the bad guys. Bad guys I might add who have a normal reason for being there. Simple greed and theft. I still don’t fully understand what the bad guys were trying to do in Skyscraper. It involved some odd master USB key which much like the ring of power in Lord of the rings, seems to control a bunch of other USB keys with incriminating information on them. One USB key to rule them all doesn’t have the same poetic ring to it though.

Unlike John McClane, Will Sawyer knows the building inside and out. The only person who knows it better is the person who designed it. That means the bumbling bad guys never really stood a chance against their one-legged antagonist.

Oh, and did I mention the duct tape? From fixing gaping wounds to helping him stick to the side of the building before elaborately jumping through spinning wind turbine blades so he can, wait for it, open a locked door? Duct tape can do it all, except to patch all the plot holes in this movie of course.

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I was in Waterford this weekend for my very own stag. There were only 6 of us and we are all at an age where keeping things civil and relaxed is our preference. I booked Bodéga and La Bohème, two of the best restaurants in town for lunch and dinner respectively. Lunch was at Bodega and I can heartily recommend it. Their food is delicious and unpretentious and satisfied us all. I can’t comment on what it’s like for dinner but I imagine it’s very good.

I had booked La Bohème for the Saturday night dinner but when my friend and I arrived on the train in to Waterford on Friday night, we were met with Indian restaurants and uninviting hotel restaurants along the quays so we turned a corner and there was La Bohème so we decided to try and get a table which luckily we were able to do.

I have to say, while we were both famished, we didn’t want a massive meal so we skipped a starter and just ordered main courses. I went for the rib-eye because the makings of a good restaurant is how well they do their rib-eye. Thankfully, mine arrived cooked to perfection, exactly as I ordered it. The meat was tasty and I was happy with my choice. It also meant I could indulge a little more the next evening. My friend for some reason decided to play it safe and ordered the free range chicken breast. He said it was lovely but at the end of the day, it’s chicken and I know what he means. No one ever gets excited about chicken in the food world, though I personally get excited about a well roasted chicken or good chicken wings. That’s different though, that’s a more primal excitement than a snobby foodie excitement.

I have to say, we both felt completely under dressed  at La Bohème. We were in jeans and t-shirts with back packs. In fact, my t-shirt had the word Beer printed in large letters. It goes on to say makes the world go round. We also didn’t order wine which is the done thing in a fancy restaurant. Instead, we ordered local Metalman beers. I ordered Heatsink, their smoked chilli porter as it would pair well with my steak. My friend went with Equinox, their wheat lager which would work very well with chicken or white fish.

After this, we moved on to the recently opened Metalman Bar down the road which I absolutely recommend.

The next evening, six of us arrived in for dinner at 6:30, though actually it was closer to 7 since we were across the road in Tully’s bar finishing off the Ireland vs France rugby match so needless to say, we arrived in to the restaurants in high spirits after Johnnie Sexton cemented his name in sporting history with a last second drop goal to win the match.

I was very tempted to order the pork belly but that’s what I had for lunch so I decided to try something else. Simply because it sounded interesting, I ordered the Trilogy of Creme Brulée of local Crabmeat, House Smoked Salmon, Citrus Gravadlax, Sweet Potato Waffle. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get but when it arrived, I was happy with my choice. I might only question the waffle as it really didn’t add anything to the experience and just seemed odd. It also slightly cheapened the look of the dish I thought.

I had already decided the night before that my meal that evening would be Barbary duck. I was asked how I would like it and said medium-rare but added that I would take it however Chef recommends. The duck comes with a lovely braised red cabbage, a little poached pear and a ginger and honey sauce. I should also add that all main courses come with a selection of seasonal vegetable and potato of the day. I skipped dessert and had an Irish coffee instead.

After we were finished, it was back to Tully’s for a few before going back to the Metalman Bar until closing time.

I just wanted to add one other thing about Waterford. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and had a wonderful breakfast at Hook & Ladder. After this, we walked down to the Viking quarter and came across this giant, wooden Viking sword which has been carved from an entire tree. It’s absolutely massive and even has the base/roots still attached. I highly recommend taking a look if you are in Waterford.

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This time, they aged the whiskey in barrels last used by Franciscan Well to age Chieftain IPA. Strangely enough, I don’t recall actually having a barrel aged Chieftain IPA before so either it was a limited release and I missed it, or else it just hasn’t been released yet. Thankfully, I had appropriate Franciscan Well glassware to house the can of Chieftain they sent me but alas, my Jameson glass has either smashed or been packed away somewhere. I picked a non branded glass for the sake of the photos.

So how is it? Well, I got honey and grapefruit on nose, the grapefruit expected from the IPA influence but still rather unexpected at the same time. It’s like a mellower Jameson, Softer and slightly buttery. Pairing with Chieftain, the toffee, grapefruit and hint of butter is magnified in both drinks. Chieftain contains some butterscotch, diacetyl notes which works nicely with the beer and this really transferred into the whiskey.

In fact, I needed to compare it to regular Jameson and thankfully, Pauline had picked up a litre bottle of the stuff on a recent trip so I cracked it open to do a side by side. No need to take a picture as they look identical.

Compared to regular Jameson, the regular is sharper with more alcohol on nose. It’s fruitier with dark fruits and some orange marmalade.
Caskmates is a little thinner in body but a little oilier of that makes sense and all about the toffee and butterscotch with just that hint of citrus / grapefruit.

There are only 2000 bottles of this available, of which a few hundred are available to the on-trade and the rest is exclusive to your local O’Briens off-license for €38. In Dublin, I know for certain that Bar Rua and L. Mulligan Grocer have it on their shelves if you want to try a glass of it. Personally, I think the stout version (still available) worked a little better but it was really interesting and surprising to see some of the IPA characteristics come out. I suspect that this will work really well at Christmas time, paired with some Christmas pudding so I’ll be testing my theory in a couple of months time I guess.

Keep your eye out on social media as there might be a whiskey and beer tasting featuring Franciscan Well, Jameson and some craft beers on November 1st. It hasn’t been confirmed yet but I believe it’s happening at L. Mulligan Grocer on November 1st. Tickets, which include your beer and whiskey will be €20 as far as I’m know. Again, none of this is confirmed so for now, keep an eye out for it on social media over the coming week or two.

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Image from l’Ecrivain website

Being a fine dining restaurant, I didn’t feel it appropriate to be snapping pictures on either of my two visits there with one exception. I took a picture of my tasting menu last year so I could recall what I was eating. The good thing about l’Ecrivain is that there seems to be an ever present deal available on certain deal websites. I made use of one such voucher in April last year and took my now fiancé to dinner.

The tasting menu above is what I had last year and it was delicious in almost every way. It was my first time in a Michelin star restaurant at the time and the attention to detail by the staff was clinical. Without being obtrusive, they were there every time a glass needed filling or if I left crumbs on the table, they were there to clear it up. Everything from the food  to the service was clinical.

Both myself and my fiancé then won gift vouchers for l’Ecrivain a few months ago which totalled €300 so we decided to bring her sister and fiancé for dinner on Tuesday gone. It was the first time meeting my future brother in law and we had a great time. On this occasion, we opted for the regular seasonal menu and it’s a shame I didn’t take a picture of it. While the tasting menu is €90, the regular dinner menu is only €75 and to be honest, it was actually far superior. This worked out because the €300 voucher would cover our 4 dinners in terms of food so all we would need to pay for is drinks.

To start, I ordered a lobster risotto. Now, I don’t actually like lobster very much. I find the meat too sweet for my palate but I do like risotto so I gave it a chance. I’m glad I did because it was outstanding in every way.

For my main course, I bucked the steak trend everyone else went with and ordered the Sika deer. It was melt in the mouth perfection. Of course I tasted the steak which was also fantastic but this was without doubt, the most tender deer I’ve ever had.

My dessert was a cheese board which I paired with the leftovers of my Paddy Borthwick Pinot Noir and then a bottle of Westmalle Dubbel and Lagavulin 16 year Scotch. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening. It’s also worth noting that in between courses, we were given little palate cleansing dishes. One was a steamed oyster which was lovely, then there was some kind of raspberry sorbet and at the start, there was an amuse bouche which I don’t recall I’m afraid.

One thing I did notice, and perhaps it was just me, is the service. It wasn’t as clinical as last year. There were delays this time. Now, we are not talking the sort of delays I would unfortunately expect from the average Irish restaurant, merely that they weren’t quite as on the ball as my first experience. They even served the wrong starters between the sisters. No big deal of course, it was rectified after a few moments but perhaps that’s the kind of thing that could potentially lose you a Michelin star?

To be clear, the service was exemplary both times, it was just slightly less so on Tuesday.

Overall, l’Ecrivain is a fantastic restaurant in Dublin and one that is worth the odd visit, especially if you manage to get a meal deal or are lucky enough to win a gift voucher.

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I was kindly invited along to the launch of the new Morelands Grill on Westmoreland street. It’s actually beside/part of the Westin hotel but also serves as its own entity rather than simply being another hotel restaurant. It has its own separate entrance which highlights that point.

Inside is tastefully decorated but since I was at the launch where all of the seating was in use when I arrived, I spent my time standing. The first two images are media images from the press release to help highlight the food and interior.

The highlight of the restaurant is the Spanish style josper grill, yeah I had to google it. Apparently it’s some kind of indoor BBQ which is like a combination of an oven and a grill. It chars meat at up to 500c which apparently encloses all of the flavour. The end result is a mouth watering experience, or so all of the spiel says. It looks like the Morisson hotel also has a josper. Above you will see the menu of small bites that were floating around. I had the tiger prawn skewer, salt aged steak and mini burger along with the sundae. All were delicious but the steak blew both myself and Pauline away.

It’s rib eye that has been aged for 30 days on Himalayan salt. The salt removes the excess water and allows the enzymes to do their work and break down the tissue. The result is usually expensive but juicy and delicious.

The steak is sourced from McLoughlins Butchers in Ballyfermot, an award winning butchers since 1965. They in turn source it from Peter Hannan in Northern Ireland. Pat was there himself explaining the ageing process that Peter uses but rather than relay it third hand, here’s a link to their website which seems to explain the process.

There’s an excellent wine menu available and we were treated to a couple. The red was Domaine de Valmoissine Pinot Noir which according to their menu is €43.50 per bottle. It was a bit on the fruity side for my taste. They also served a decent Chardonnay which seems to be €39 per bottle. Both of these wines came under the brand of Louis Latour. They were also doing gin cocktails but I didn’t venture over to get any as I was happy with the wine choice. I didn’t come across any beer options which is a pity. As far as I’m concerned, any restaurant that’s not promoting beer to match their food is missing out but I’ll gloss over that since this is a pretty much beer free blog. If you want to read my thoughts on beer, go to taleofale.com

Now, something to add here. Since we were only getting small bites, essentially samples of items on their full menu, we didn’t feel like we had eaten a good dinner so we left and headed to Marco Pierre White’s for some, you guessed it, salt aged rib eye steak. Marco’s steak was delicious but we both agreed that it actually wasn’t as good as the small pieces we were served at Morelands so we definitely want to go back there and try a full dinner as that steak was just amazing.

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If you don’t like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, best move on a few paragraphs below to some other recommendations on Netflix. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency was another series of books that Adams wrote in the late 80s. There were only two books, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and then The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

The intended 3rd book was meant to be The Salmon of Doubt but Adams never finished it and part way through decided it fit better in the Hitchhikers universe than Dirk Gently’s. In the end, the book was released posthumously as a series of short stories.

The BBC Version

A few years ago, there was a 4 episode British TV series starring Stephen Mangan. I enjoyed it a lot and it was fairly true to the spirit of books. Unfortunately the BBC had to cancel it for some bullshit reason about money and concentrating on importing foreign shows. Begs the question, what does the British license fee payer want? British made drama or foreign shows?

The 2016 version

Queue 2016 and I recently came across a new adaption on Netflix. This one is a little different than the BBC adaption. It stars Samuel Barnett as Dirk and none other than Elijah Wood as a new character, Todd Brotzman. I don’t want to give too much away here and that means I can’t actually say much at all about the show or plot but the gist of it is this. Todd works at a hotel and comes across the scene of a weird murder. Weird stuff happens, Todd meets Dirk breaking into his apartment where it turns out he was hired to solve the murder. Oh and this is set in the US, not UK.

Other than the premise of Dirk and how he operates in a holistic, “everything is connected” way, this show bears no resemblance to the books or BBC version.

Who will like this show?

If you area Hitchhikes Guide fan or have read the Dirk Gently’s novels, then this is for you. If not, it still might be. If you can imagine Dirk Gently as Sherlock Holmes meets The Doctor (Doctor Who) then and that sounds interesting to you then you will love this show. The Doctor Who thing makes total sense when you consider that Douglas Adams created Dirk Gently after writing a couple of episodes of Doctor Who. Dirk believes in “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”

A piece of advice I can give you is don’t fall at the first hurdle. There’s a lot going on in this series and very little of it makes any sort of logical sense. That is, at first it doesn’t but remember, the premise of the show is that everything is connected so as the series progresses, stuff that made you think WTF starts to fall into place.

There are little nods to Adams in the show too. There’s a group of supernatural nutters called the Rowdy Three which consists of 4 members and eventually a 5th. If you recall, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was a 5 part trilogy. It was described as a trilogy on the release of the 3rd book. Then a “trilogy in four parts” on the 4th book. The US edition of the 5th book said “The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy” on the cover.

I have read some extreme fanboys being horrified that it doesn’t stick religiously to the books and anyone who says different doesn’t understand Douglas Adams and to them I say that they themselves don’t understand Douglas Adams. They seem to forget that Douglas Adams couldn’t even stick to his own plot-lines when bringing out a new version. Hitchhikers Guide for instance started as a radio show and then a series of books. He also wrote movies, TV series and computer games. He was forever changing things to see how it worked. I think Adams would have been very happy to see this version on the small screen.

Where to now?

The first season deals with the whole hotel murder case in a very roundabout way. There are many sub plots and one that remains unresolved at the end of the season. This plot may play a part in the second season. The original novels were set in the UK and we know that this show is set after those events because when Todd asks Dirk if he ever solved a case, Dirk replied “Sure. Tons. Well, some. Well, a few. There was a bit about a sofa, a thing with Thor…” and these are the plot-lines of the two books. This might lead us to believe that we won’t be seeing these plots in the new series but then again, this is Dirk Gently’s world and pretty much anything is possible.

There are so many possible ways for this show to go and that’s what makes it exciting. I think there’s a real chance for this to become a major cult hit like Doctor Who.

Two things we do know from the first season is that everything is connected and Karma is a bitch.

Other Netflix Shows

I’m just pasting in something I wrote on Facebook a few months ago. Very quick recommendations of shows to watch.
OK Netflix junkies, recent shows I have started watching and I think are really good and worth a look.
– Luther – About a broken and violence prone London detective. Really interesting.
– Power,  About a drug lord/nightclub owner in New York.
– Marco Polo season 2 – Brilliant, watched the first episode last night and am still fascinated by Genghis & Kublai Khan/Mongolian Empire. I know it’s an entertainment show but some of the things in the show are fascinating. Khan showed a strange tolerance to all religions and even encouraged his subjects to convert at will, strange for a conqueror. The Chinese Swallow opening scene thing is also real, amazing stuff. I had never heard of that war tactic before.

And the big one, Stranger Things! How good this show is can be hard to convey but the internet has been raving about it. I finally watched the first 2 episodes last night but I was hooked 5 minutes into the first one. It’s like an adult version of Erie Indiana with hints of Stephen King and Stephen Spielberg. It reminds me a lot of the movie Super 8.

After finishing Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix, I needed another show. Netflix suggested a number of French shows for some reason but eventually suggested Master of None with Aziz Ansari from Parks & Recreation. It’s absolutely brilliant. It’s not a sitcom, it’s sort of like a funny look at life. Each episode has a specific theme but revolves around mostly the same characters.
It’s charmingly funny and insightful too. Watch it!

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I was invited along to Indus Spice in Stillorgan on Tuesday by Love Belfast. Yeah, that sounded a little odd to me at first too but here’s how it happened. The first Irish curry awards were actually hosted in Belfast last month and Indus Spice won the Best Newcomer at the awards. Love Belfast were involved and decided to help promote Indus Spice in Dublin. It just so happened that Tuesday was their one year birthday so a bunch of media types such as TheTaste.ie were invited along and I was among the invitees.

The restaurant itself was mostly empty when I arrived which was great as I was able to get a shot of it in pristine condition before the hordes descended. It’s modern but tastefully decorated with a bar down the back and a little corner for waiting which can double as a small dance floor.

I later realised there’s a party room out back, or is that the front? I arrived at what I thought was the front door (thanks Google Maps) . That brought me straight up to the main room. When the rest of the media people all shuffled in from the party room, I realised I should have gone in there as I probably missed out on some information about the restaurant. Now that I think about it, I think it worked out better that I didn’t because everything I experienced was as it happened and wasn’t pre-influenced by a briefing.

Between each course, we were entertained by some Bollywood dancing as pictured above. It was very enjoyable and looks like a lot of fun.

I was with my partner and we were both starving. When the starters arrived, I think we were first served. Probably because we were among the longest waiting in the restaurant itself. I did pause just long enough for a picture before digging in. From top left going counter clockwise, there was a succulent tandoori lamb chop, aloo tikki potato pancake, tandoori king prawn and a chicken tikka (chicken tender). There was also various sauces and a leaf salad with beetroot and carrot spirals. Everything was delicious but the chop and potato pancake was particularly good.

Due to a number of people who had unfortunately RSVP’d and not showed up, there were extra plates so the owner Syed brought us two more when we were done and we took our time to enjoy the second helping. I was worried there would be little room for the main course though….

Thankfully, I needn’t have worried because before the main course, we were treated to a cooking demonstration by head chef Tony. He made a prawn dish and invited us to have a small taste before we headed back to our tables for the main course.

The main course was a help yourself buffet of some of their traditional dishes. Starting with the naan bread on the right and moving counter clockwise, we start with chicken biryani, saag paneer (tofu), butter chicken then some raita before moving on to lamb jalfrezi and tandoori prawn. OK, I’ll admit that I might have some of those dishes wrong because I neglected to take note but the meat is correct at least, I promise.

After some more traditional dancing, we had a dessert of cheesecake with half a strawberry and a mixed berry topping. It was pretty delicious and in fact, if the place was turned clockwise, it looks a little like a Christmas tree. Perhaps that’s just the festive spirit starting to see things that aren’t there but it was my girlfriend who pointed it out.

A big thanks to Syed and the team for putting on a fantastic show and more importantly, some amazing food. It’s a shame that both myself and my girlfriend had to drive from different locations because the wine was flowing.

Also, a big thanks to Love Belfast for the invite.

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