Compiled by MARIE-CLAIRE DIGBY
Chinese food and music
Chinese flautist Guo Yue will be performing at the Kilkenny Arts Festival next weekend as both a musician and a chef. His Chinese cuisine masterclass is on Saturday at 4pm (€10) and the following evening at 5pm he will be telling the story of his childhood in Beijing through music (€15/12). Both events take place in the historic surrounds of the Hole in the Wall, 17 High Street, and can be booked online at kilkennyarts.ie or by telephoning 056-7752175.
Countrymarkets.ie
Farmers’ markets are all very well, but for a real taste of locally produced food – home-baked cakes, pies and biscuits, family-recipe brown bread, still-warm hen’s eggs, seasonal jams and jellies, and just-dug vegetables, you can’t beat a country market. There are 60 of these co-operatives across the country, and you can find the location and opening hours of the one nearest to you on this website’s map.
“In June alone, 21 new members started to sell their produce in their own locality at our markets, and we received six requests to open new markets,” says Margaret Sweeney, chairperson of Country Markets Ltd.
Take your mother to Saba restaurant in Dublin for lunch any day between August 1st and 28th and she will eat for free, in honour of the birthday on Thursday, August 12th, of the Thai queen Sirkit. When two people eat from the €19.15 set lunch menu, a third person dines for free. Book on 01-6792000
How generous are you?
“Pay what you think the food is worth.” That’s quite a novel idea, and perhaps a dangerous one for a start-up business, but patrons of Killarney’s restaurant with no name, and no price list, have been generous with their patronage and their cash, say joint owners Rob O’Reilly and Barry McBride.
The restaurant, which has become known as Pay As You Please, was set up in January. It opened initially for two days a week, but is now serving morning snacks and lunch Tuesday to Sunday, and dinner on Friday and Saturday. It’s almost too cool for school, with silent Charlie Chaplin movies and old blues concerts being projected on a wall, comic strips pasted on the bathroom walls, and an eclectic approach to furnishings. It’s in an old warehouse on New Market Lane, behind Quill’s Woollen Market.
Rob O’Reilly, who works front-of-house, came across the concept in Melbourne, and so far he is very happy with the donations being made.
“The amount people pay varies a huge amount. We notice that people pay more for the same pizza on a Saturday night than a Wednesday lunchtime. Because the amounts are anonymous, we don’t know how much people pay for individual dishes. We’re just left with the total takings at the end of the day.
“The idea is that you’re not just paying for the food, but for the whole experience. Irish people – when you give them really personal service, and good fresh food with a twist, and a nice atmosphere – are really generous.”
Barry McBride is the chef and his specialities include soups served in hollowed-out bread loaves, and pizzas. Bookings are recommended for dinner, tel: 086-3068253, and the restaurant is BYO, so if you want wine, bring it with you.
This little piggy
Saturday, October 8th might seem like aeons away, but if you are interested in learning how to turn half a pig into sausages, bacon, chops, roasts and more, including crispy ear salad, book early for what promises to be a sell-out event at Justin and Jenny Green's Ballyvolane House in Fermoy, Co Cork. Frank Krawczyk, whose salamis have featured on the charcuterie trolley at Chapter One restaurant, will be running the nose-to-tail butchery and curing demonstration, and the
€49.50 cost will include lunch. Krawczyk is the father of Robbie Krawczyk, head chef at the Greens' other business, O'Brien Chop House in Lismore, and Robbie will be serving the Ballyvolane porker at a "Piggie Feast" in the Chop House
the following Friday, October 14th (€22.50). You can book the butchering day by telephoning 058-53810 or e-mailing
info@obrienchophouse.ie.
