FoodFight.ie - Food and Drink in Ireland - The tastiest content from around the Irish blogosphere

For the uninitiated amongst you, a lepidopterist is a butterfly expert. I wouldn’t know a Painted Lady if she landed on my face and a Comma would only give me pause, as it were. I do a pretty passable job of butterflying a leg of lamb but that doesn’t makes me a butterfly expert. As I was feeling fairly lazy when shopping, I bought my leg of lamb butterflied. So, I spent my time thinking about a marinade.  Continue reading »

The Cork Summer Show 2017
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Town and Country Get-together in the sun.  Continue reading »

Night of the Long Table
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Four Hundred Dine Out on Cork’s South Mall

Phil (standing) wishes Happy Birthday to fiancée Veronica; they get married today.  Continue reading »

The 2017 Killarney Beerfest kicked off on a sunny Friday at the end of May. As per, I headed down on the train and used the spare couple of hours to catch up on a few bottles that had been sitting in my fridge a little too long.
First up, as we pulled out of Heuston, was White Gypsy’s Toasted Special. No style is specified, only that it’s dark and leans heavily on its Munich malt. And so it proved. It’s rather muddy in the glass and smells rich and wholesome.  Continue reading »

The convoy set out across the Blasket Sound and on their arrival the wedding feast began in earnest… Nine barrels of Bandon Rattler, brewed by Allmans in west Cork, were consumed at this feast, according to Méiní, and the fact that in Maurice Keane’s memory it was eight barrels plus a gallon of whiskey confirms that it was certainly an occasion when thirsty souls were amply refreshed… and no doubt the island musicians did their share.  Continue reading »

The beer that held the record (until today) of languishing longest in my drafts folder without a proper write-up is Stone Imperial Saison. That picture there was date stamped 12th March last, taken in The Tap House in the aftermath of their White Hag event. I feel terribly guilty about not getting to it sooner because it definitely deserves a recommendation. Normally I’d run a mile from saison at 9.4% ABV but it was the end of the night and my guard was down: you know how that works.  Continue reading »

A City by the Sea. Exhibition at St Peter’s

Is this the oldest outdoor advert in Cork?  Continue reading »

Italian Wines From Recent Tastings. 
A Short List Of Favourites!

With a little help from the recently published The Modern History of Italian Wine, we have been tasting our way through quite a few wines from the peninsula and its islands. Such a range of terroirs, such a range of wines from the cool foothills of the Alps to the heat of Puglia out to the hot islands with their cooling breezes.  Continue reading »

It's hard to believe that Taste of Dublin has been in existence since 2006, where it started in the grounds of Dublin Castle before moving to the Iveagh Gardens, entertaining and feeding people for the past 11 years.  The 2017 Festival kicks off tomorrow at midday and I'm here to give you a sneak preview of what to expect once you've bought your ticket.

Read more ».  Continue reading »

Today’s beers were picked at random from an off licence shelf in Utrecht. It wasn’t until I got them home that I noticed they’re from Austria. The branding is very different from my pre-conceptions of sturdy traditional Austrian brewing, but then I suppose it must have an awesomely epic craft beer scene these days, same as everywhere else. Both are by Bevog brewery, founded in 2013 in the far south east of the country, hard by the border with Slovenia.  Continue reading »

A good friend in the food industry left me thinking when he described lemon chicken as being “very nice, but it doesn’t taste of lemon”. The irony of the statement was not lost on me. So I set about getting some lemon chicken cooked. This time though, it tastes of lemon, for sure. It tastes of chicken too. So, lemon chicken it is.
As with so many of my recipes, this depends upon top quality meat and a small number of quality ingredients.  Continue reading »

Taste of the Week
Arbutus Bread 

Sourdough Bread has fed humanity for 4000 years. That’s an opening statement on the Arbutus Bread website. The company itself doesn’t go back that far!

Declan Ryan founded Arbutus Bread in 1999, after selling his previous business [Arbutus Lodge Hotel]. “I knew that retirement would not suit me, and that I had to be active . So I converted a small two car garage in front of my house into a tiny bakery.  Continue reading »

Cream Donuts
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Sweet, Colourful Creations

Cream is one of the new wave of donut outlets in Cork City,  its counters loaded with colourful creations, backed by excellent coffee and top drawer ice-cream.  Continue reading »

I always have a bit of back and forth when new Cloudwater beer lands. I know everyone will be talking about it and I’d like to be part of the conversation, but the beers are terribly expensive and too many of them aren’t any good. The phrase “sucker juice” always jumps to the front of my mind when I’m looking at those arty cans in the off licence fridge.  Continue reading »

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Stellar Food and Crew at the Castle Cafe

Some go to Blackrock Castle to learn about the Universe, extreme life forms on Planet Earth and to explore life in outer space!  Continue reading »

Food markets have been floating around Dublin for several years now, but most are daytime events, servicing local office areas. Irish Village Markets currently run three weekly markets around the city, while the market operated by Waterways Ireland on the Grand Canal at at Lower Mount Street was recently denied a renewal of its planning permission following objections from local businesses and residents.  Continue reading »

The apartment was abjectly appointed on the corner of the second of three poured-concrete stories. The front window gave onto a distressing view of purple Christmas cabbages. Rain raised oily puddles in the grocery parking lot, peacock blue and burnt orange, and until well after midnight a corrosive smell of exhaust stole through the vents. The aisles of the grocery store were filled with college students.  Continue reading »

A trilogy of beers from Colorado today, mostly ones that have been around a while that I’m only catching up to.
Mountain Standard, brewed for when the clocks change in the autumn, has a kind of built-in freshness indicator. I’m guessing you’re not meant to be still buying it in April but there I was. It’s a black IPA, and a big one at 8.1% ABV. Held up to the light it’s more a red-brown colour than properly black.  Continue reading »

I can’t blame you for thinking that I’d disappeared off the face of the earth – I’d lost my writing mojo, you see.  After a much longer recovery from surgery than I expected, I was knackered.  I barely had the headspace to cope with the post-op blues, never mind a frenetic return to the day job with an awful lot of travel, so something had to give.  I’m sorry that it had to be Babaduck, just for a little while.  Continue reading »

Entries are about to close for the 2017 Blas na hEireann Irish Food Awards.

The Blás na hÉireann Awards (which are now in their 10th year) take place alongside the Dingle Food Festival, in late September each year.
Last year there were more than 2500 entries in what are the largest blind-tasted Food Awards on the island of Ireland.

The 2016 Supreme Champion was the delicious Rós Rhubarb Cider from Stonewell Cider, Cork.  Continue reading »