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FOOD AND DRINK |
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Ireland has no real tradition of eating out, but the range and
quality of food has increased enormously in recent years, especially at
the top end of the market, and this edition of the guide includes the
most luxurious and expensive of eating places, along with more everyday
establishments. Outside smart restaurants the best of Irish food is to
be found in seafood bars on the west coast and in the all-too-rare
vegetarian cafés dotted around the country. These aside, the fresh,
though rather plain, selection of vegetables, meat and breads available
in the shops make self-catering a reasonable option; in some areas these
can often be enlivened by a fine selection of Irish cheeses. If your
budget is restricted, the best bet is to fill up with a hearty breakfast
and/or a good lunch from a pub or coffee shop in the middle of the day,
and then concentrate on drinking in the evening - few pubs serve food at
night
Food
Irish food is generally highly meat-oriented, and you don't have to be a
vegetarian to find this wearing after a while. Having said that, meat in
Ireland is generally of a good standard - lamb and steaks, in
particular, are excellent - it's just that, after a while you begin to
long for some variety in your diet and for something which hasn't been
grilled or fried.
If you're staying in B&Bs, you'll most likely be served the hearty
"traditional" Irish breakfast of sausages, bacon and eggs, which usually
comes accompanied by generous quantities of delicious soda bread.
Country pub lunch staples are usually meat and two veg, with plenty of
potatoes and gravy, although you can usually get sandwiches (sometimes
excellent, but often sliced white bread and processed cheese), and
homemade soups can be very good too. Most larger towns have good, simple
coffee shops (open daytime only) where you can get soup, sandwiches,
cakes and scones, and a choice of one or two hot lunches. In the North
expect enormous platters of meat, vegetables - most usually cabbage -
and plenty of potatoes. It's worth remembering that many hotels in the
Republic will offer food to non-residents so you can usually find a
sandwich and a cup of coffee at any reasonable hour, which can be
especially worth remembering on Sundays. You can generally order a plate
of sandwiches and a pot of tea in pubs too - as long as it's before 6pm.
This said, huge areas of the countryside offer no places to eat or drink
at all - and many cafés and restaurants outside the cities close from
September through to May. If you are going to explore the best of the
landscape, you'll probably need to take your own provisions.
Many traditional Irish dishes, served up in abundance in many areas of
rural Ireland, are based on the potato and you certainly do get an awful
lot of them - often served up in several different forms in the same
meal. Potato cakes can be magnificent - a flour and potato dough fried
in butter - as can potato soup. Irish stew of varying qualities will be
available almost everywhere. Colcannon - known as champ in the North -
made up of cooked potatoes fried in butter with onions and cabbage, or
leeks, is delicious. Barm brack , a sweet yeast bread with spices and
dried fruits, is thoroughly traditional; carrot cake is perhaps a more
recent introduction and is seen in coffee shops and tea rooms throughout
the Republic.
Throughout Ireland's major cities it's a different story: in the
Republic the economic boom of recent years coupled with the return of a
large number of Irish people who have been living overseas, means that
increasingly inexpensive lunch and dinner menus may just as easily see
Mediterranean influences as those of the traditional Irish farmhouse -
and vegetarians can expect far more variety too.
Drink
To travel through Ireland without visiting a pub would be to miss out on
a huge chunk of Irish life, some would say the most important.
Especially in rural areas, the pub is far more than just a place to
drink. It's the communal and conversational heart of any Irish village,
and often the cultural centre too. If you're after food, advice or
company, the pub is almost always the place to head for; and very often
they'll also be the venues for local entertainment, especially
traditional and not so traditional music .
Along with Mass and market day, the pub is the centre of Irish social
activity: a cultural cliché, perhaps, but one that wears very well.
Talking is an important business here, and drink is the great lubricant
of social discourse. That said, it doesn't pay to arrive with too
romantic a notion of what this actually means. Away from the cities and
the touristed west coast, there are plenty of miserable, dingy bars
where the only spark of conviviality is the dull glow of the TV. But in
most big towns and cities you'll find bars heaving with life, and out in
remote country villages it can be great fun drinking among the shelves
of the ancient grocery shops-cum-bars you'll find dotted around.
While women will always be treated with genuine (unreconstructed)
civility, it's true to say that the majority of bars in country areas
are a predominantly male preserve. In the evening, especially, women
travellers can expect occasional unwanted attention, though this rarely
amounts to anything too unpleasant. Should your first encounters be bad
ones, persist - the good nights will come, and will probably rank
amongst the most memorable experiences of your trip. In the major cities
and large towns things are a lot more balanced and women drinking in
bars is totally the norm.
In the Republic, opening hours are Monday to Wednesday 10.30am to
11.30pm; Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10.30am to 12.30am; Sunday 12.30
to 11pm. In the North pubs are open Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm, on
Sunday 12.30 to 10pm.
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