Galway wine news

Thu, Oct 25, 2012

Cases Wine Warehouse’s sixth annual winter wine fair has been confirmed for Thursday November 15. At the fair will be wines the company imports directly from the likes of Cava, Castilla (organic and biodynamic) Rioja, Sicily, and Burgundy. Also included are Pinot Noir from the Central and Leyda valleys; Malbec, Syrah, and Carmenere from Colchagua, plus a wide selection of wines from other great Irish importers such as Celtic Whiskey, Taserra, Mitchells, Karwigs, and Liberty Wines.

A very tasty diversion

Thu, Oct 25, 2012

In the village of Oranmore, Péarla na Mara is well worth a detour off the main road. Serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it has a Mediterranean style menu with a heavy Irish influence and there is a warm welcome from one half of the husband and wife owners, Justyna, at the front of house.

It opens early daily with options such as a full Irish breakfast; a mushroom, ham, and cheese omelette; and a chef’s breakfast of smoked salmon, sautéed spinach, poached free-range eggs, and homemade hollandaise sauce. Even the takeaway breakfast baguette of two sausages, two rashers, and a free-range egg on ciabatta bread is a vast improvement on the garage forecourt version, and at €3.95 isn’t any more expensive.

Warm up your appetite with Artisan Restaurant’s new winter menu

Thu, Oct 18, 2012

Artisan Restaurant, winner of the ‘Best Restaurant in Connacht’ at the Irish Restaurant Awards earlier this year, has just launched its delectable new winter menu. Comprising a host of mouth watering seafood, steak, and vegetarian options, the award winning restaurant has truly exceeded its own impeccable standards with a new set of dishes, which can only be described as a delicious infusion of carefully selected ingredients and mouth watering flavour.

The Boathouse Seafood and Grill opens on main street Oranmore

Thu, Oct 18, 2012

Oranmore’s latest destination for casual dining comes courtesy of local residents Rudi and Frances Rabasse. Future dinners at the Boathouse Seafood and Grill can look forward to meals prepared by a host of culinary experts, who boast impressive performances in the art of cuisine. Rudi Rabasse boasts a 25 year term in the catering industry with a decorative resumé including time spent working in a five star hotel in Courchevel in the Alps, a Parisian bistro, a Michelin star restaurant in London, Roly’s brasserie in Dublin, and is completed by seven years spent as the manager of Kirwan’s Lane seafood bar and restaurant in the heart of Galway city. While working there he joined forces with owner Michael O’Grady and chief chef Mark Hopkins.

Heartwarming seasonal specials at Brasserie on the Corner

Thu, Oct 11, 2012

Brasserie on the Corner, Eglinton Street, steak and seafood specialist and all round foodie haven, has introduced some seasonal changes.

House Hotel to stick to what it does best… cocktails

Thu, Oct 11, 2012

The House cocktail bar and bistro at the boutique House Hotel has announced that it is adding a dine and cocktail offer for only €15 to its exciting menu.

Dinner and cocktails at the House Hotel

Thu, Oct 11, 2012

The House Hotel is one of my favourite little boltholes in Galway. Cool, quirky, and fun, you can't beat it for location. The rooms are lovely and settling into one of the squashy pink couches in the lobby with one of the rather superior afternoon teas is a great way to catch up with friends.

While hotel food in general can be hard to get excited about at the best of times (dry, chewy carvery meat languishing under heat lamps and the inevitable ice-cream scoops of mashed potato), the House Hotel did not earn its popularity without having a more ambitious kitchen. It does a fine breakfast, full Irish or hearty porridge, a great family-style dinner of whole roast chicken on Sundays. There is also great bar food with some retro-comfort dishes including a ploughman's lunch served with a proper pickled egg. Try the spicy chicken wings, they were responsible for the birth of my first child, but that is a story for another time. There is an excellent à la carte menu in the bistro, complemented by a fair-sized wine list where the majority of the wines are priced in the early twenties, and a great value early bird special.

The Book Shelf...

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Cooking Through the Year
100 Recipes Season by Season

On the Wine Shelf...

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Domaine Horgelus Côtes de Gascogne IGP 2011 (Wines Direct, €9.50)

On the Wine Shelf...

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Arrigo Bidoli Friuli Merlot DOC 2010 (Independents, €14.79)

On the ground

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Tesco has announced a new sticker promotion scheme offering customers savings of up to 85 per cent off its Italian-designed Alessi cutlery range. Customers will receive one sticker for every €20 they spent in store and having collected five stickers can chose from five differently designed Alessi cutlery ranges with the discount. The offer runs until December 30, 2012.

Autumn at Basilico

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Those clever chaps at Basilico Italian restaurant in Oranmore are ahead of the game, again, with their new free range and organic autumn menu. Basilico offers proper seasonal local food, and organic with a capital O; vegetables that have spent their lives knee deep in trillion-microbes-per-teaspoon loamy humus, not drip fed a Lance Armstrong cocktail of who knows what in some climate controlled polytunnel in deepest Alicante, or chickens which never saw sunlight in their life.

Galway farmer honoured at inaugural Sustainable Quality Beef Producer Awards

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Eyrecourt farmer Richard Bournes won a Sustainable Quality Beef Producer Award at the National Ploughing Championships, in New Ross, Co Wexford last week.

Asian Tea House - a world of difference

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

The Asian Tea House on Mary Street is a popular spot and for good reason. Connacht’s Best Restaurant at the RAI Irish Restaurant Awards 2011 still maintains the same high standard, certainly a cut above your average Chinese restaurant.

So Aniar, and yet so far

Thu, Oct 04, 2012

Aniar is the third best restaurant in Galway. If we are to believe the TripAdvisor rankings, that is. Yes, the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the whole of Galway currently takes the bronze behind the “consistently good” Gourmet Tart Company and the “excellent little gem” that is Oscar’s Seafood Bistro. With The Galleon and Kirwan’s Lane restaurant completing the top five, you may or may not agree with this analysis of the current state of dining in Galway.

But a quick look at the reviews for the newly-starred Aniar will show that there is something not quite right with the system. While the contributors are in general fair and honest, now and again an isolated bad experience skews the numbers, often leaving fine dining restaurants like The West in Barna out-ranked by cute, popular, little cafes like Cupán Tae on Spanish Arch. Like is not compared with like.

On the Wine Shelf...

Thu, Sep 27, 2012

Emiliana Novas Viognier Gran Reserva 2010 (Independents, €7.49)

The Book Shelf...

Thu, Sep 27, 2012

Hugh’s Three Good Things… on a plate
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Food champions nominated to represent the west’s food sector in Canada

Thu, Sep 27, 2012

Two of Galway’s best known restaurateurs have been chosen as food champions to represent the west of Ireland as part of a food tourism delegation due to visit Canada next month.

JP McMahon of Eat Galway (Cava Spanish Restaurant, Aniar Restaurant, and Eat@ Massimo) and Fergus O’Halloran of the Twelve Hotel were chosen to represent the best of the food industry in the west on the upcoming trip to Canada’s Prince Edward County.

Eat in or out with the Gourmet Tart Company

Thu, Sep 27, 2012

The Gourmet Tart Company is one of Galway's biggest success stories, as far as food is concerned. The business started out selling cakes from an ironing board in Limerick's Milk Market and now boasts four bakery/delicatessens and a restaurant. What began in 2001 as a small French-style bakery has become a thriving business with very loyal customers. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week and has both sweet and savoury ranges and quality take-home meals. The shops are bright and white, sleek and efficient. Look for the pink and white sign above the door and the trademark grapefruit-sized meringues streaked with raspberry in the windows.

The counters display a large variety of baked treats... tartlets of apple crumble, chocolate, raspberry, almond, and pear; eclairs; Danish pastries, and whole chocolate fudge cakes. Individual quiches, with a variety of fillings including roasted vegetables or bacon with spring onion, make for a quick take-home supper dish. Choose from the salad bar, have a sandwich made to order, or pick up a pre-packed one for convenience.

On the Wine Shelf...

Thu, Sep 13, 2012

Romanico Bodega Teso la Monja Toro 2010 (Independents, €12.99)

E-paper

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