Showing posts with label Aniar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aniar. Show all posts

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Getaway to the City of the Tribes. Two Days in Galway.


Getaway to the City of the Tribes. 
Two Days in Galway.
Banners of the tribes

Galway city centre is compact and it is often packed. Finding parking can be a problem so we’re happy when our guesthouse suggests we park there on College Road and stroll into the centre even though we arrive well before the given check-in time. 


Eight minutes after leaving the car we arrive in sunny Eyre Square, so sunny in fact that people are seeking shade. A group of French students have gathered under one particular tree and have squeezed into the roughly circular shadow underneath.
Wine bottles in museum

The sun is at its high peak, signalling time for lunch. We exit the square and head for the pedestrian area, amble right down to the Spanish Arch and a lovely restaurant, simply called Kitchen, attached to the Galway City Museum. Enjoyed the meal here

Later we take a walk by the waters and find our own patch of shade for a siesta of sorts before heading back to the museum. Opened in 2006, and still a work in progress, the museum proclaims itself as a “collecting museum”. So you see many objects associated with the area, some donated by locals and friends (not mutually exclusive) and quite a few shared by the National Museum. 
Galway Hookers in the museum - not the life size one!

There are six main headings: Prehistoric, Medieval and Post medieval, World War 1, The 1916 Rising and aftermath, Pádraic Ó’Conaire, 19th and 20th Century Galway. Objects include some beautiful old wine bottles (probably 17th century). Galway had a shell factory during the Great War and there is a shell on display here.  You’ll also see some old clay tobacco pipes (dúidíns). 

In the mid 1960s, Galway won three All-Ireland football titles in a row and that feat is enthusiastically celebrated. The bigger items include an Ó’Conaire statue and the biggest is what looks like a full size replica of a Galway Hooker. No, not a pint of the local brew, but the famous work-boat of the area. Admission is free. Details here.  
Rear of the restaurant Ard Bia at Nimmo's

After that, we retraced our steps, more or less, under the Spanish Arch, up through Quay Street, High Street and Shop Street, shuffling along with and against the other pedestrians, listening to and looking at the various buskers and street entertainers, and finding ourselves back in Eyre Square. We had a seen an illustration of the Tribes of Galway in the museum and in the square they are commemorated with a series of large banners.

The tribes were the families that effectively ran the city from the 15th to the 17th centuries. They were: Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Darcy, Deane, Font, French, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris and Skerret. In 1493, the mayor and magistrate of Galway James Lynch FitzStephen, condemned and hanged his own son, an incident that is quoted as giving rise to the term “lynching”. The building, Lynch’s Castle, still exists and is now used by AIB. 
Students in the shade

Fishery Watchtower
Later we were back in the city centre for dinner at the Michelin starred Aniar, details here,  and then it was time for a night at our excellent base, the Ardawn House. Here, we had everything we needed, including that private parking!

Mike and Breda are exceptional hosts, always willing to go that extra mile, so that their guests enjoy themselves, not just while they’re in the house, but also when they go out and about during the day. Nothing is a problem here - they’ll give you all the local information you’ll need but in such a way that it’s your choice. In other words, they’ll give you the info but won't force their opinions on you. And, by the way, you’ll also have an excellent breakfast before you’ll leave their friendly place.

On the second day, we visited the very small fisheries museum, tracing the fishery story from 1283, in a restored Fishery Watchtower at Druid Lane. 

The highlight though was our cruise on the Corrib Princess. You join the boat in the Woodquay area and head up-river passing the cathedral, the university campus, a couple of castle ruins (Terryland and the more impressive Menlo), before reaching the impressively expansive Lough Corrib, the biggest lake in the republic. It is a very pleasant trip, especially in the exceptional sunshine, and out and back takes about 90 minutes.

We had lunch earlier, and a very nice one too, at McCambridge’s, a Galway icon, details here.
And later, we called in to Sheridan’s, the famous cheese mongers and picked up a few bits and pieces, cheese not so much as most of it is available in Cork. 

Dinner would be at the King’s Head Bistro, a delicious meal based on local produce including fish of course. And we then adjourned to the lively King's Head bar in a medieval building, But nothing medieval about the food and drink here, lots of craft drinks (including Galway Hooker), cocktails galore, music (after the World Cup game) and lots of craic. Read about it here. A terrific evening to remember a terrific visit by. Slán go fóill!



SUP: On the Corrib river, and below


Menloe Castle ruins



Sunday, July 1, 2018

The Aniar Experience. Tastes of the West

The Aniar Experience. 
Tastes of the West.

When I was a boy, I would fish for pollock in Belderrig with my Mayo cousins, using eels we had caught earlier in nearby mountain streams as bait. Later, with adult help, the pollock would be cooked over a few sods of turf. Not the handsomest of fish, but a delicious one.
Strawberry, woodruff
The Michelin starred Aniar in Galway city has a modest exterior. Inside, it is cool, the air conditioning at a perfect pitch to keep the temperature down to comfortable levels during the late June heatwave.


Goat, fennel
Pretty much everything is at a perfect pitch: the service (chef Killian Crowley came to explain the details of most of the dishes), the provenance, cooking and presentation. We have booked in for the Inis Oirr menu, a six course tasting menu. It costs 72 euro and we know that before we arrive. 
potato, charcoal
The drinks are on the expensive side, 9 euro for a bottle of Kinnegar beer for example. We take a look at the 80 strong wine list, looking for something light, something versatile. With excellent guidance from sommelier Zsolt Lukács, we settled on the excellent Terres Dorres L'Ancien Vieilles Vignes produced from Jean-Paul Brun's oldest Gamay vines in Beaujolais.


eel, kohlrabi.  The eel is Lough Neagh.

You are eased into the meal with four small bites, a multiple amuse bouche if you will. Three are pictured (above) and the fourth was a kelp and sea radish dashi. All were “amusing”, each tasty and each interesting.
bread and butter
 Bread is an integral part of the meal here, a sign of friendliness and informality (Aniar is not a stuffy place). And when the selection (with a couple of butters) arrives on the table, there is a poem with it: Bread by Brendan Kennelly and, before you leave, you get the recipe for their Brown Soda Seed Bread. 
pollock, pine

So on we go to the Pollock and the Pine, a few green pine needles included so that you can try the citrus taste for yourself.  Another eye-catching palate-pleasing dish is the Oyster and Wrack, the oyster has been slightly charred on top. The sea, oh the sea. 
oyster, wrack
Chef-patron JP McMahon likes to foster old cooking and preservation methods such as curing, pickling, smoking and fermentation.  It seems that next we are getting eggs but the shells contain mostly fermented potato and under that there is some chewy pollack, a worthwhile chew I hastily add. As with many dishes, the eye and the stomach are well satisfied.

potato, pollock
Here comes the mains. The lamb and the baby gem have both had the Green Egg treatment. Hardly tradition but quite superb, a McMahon Galway mix of colour, flavour and texture.

lamb, baby gem
So now we start to wind down with a "pre-dessert": an ice-cream of rapeseed (organic, of course) and birch (foraged). Perhaps I said wind down too soon. For it is followed by the main dessert of Strawberry and Woodruff, more foraging, more fermenting. The alpine strawberries are fermented to make a gel. Smooth and delicious.


rapeseed, birch

Elderflower
Now we have two more. Beetroot with goats cheese is one. The other is Elderflower Meringue. And that is the finalé of a lovely meal, a menu that tends towards the lighter side, certainly lighter than the tasting menu enjoyed in Chapter One three years back.

You are not stuffed - nor should you be, anywhere -  but neither are you in any way hungry. In that regard, it is comparable to the 12 course menu at Ichigo Ichie in Cork. Indeed, I thought I saw a Japanese character on the front of the Aniar menu but when I looked properly I saw that is Ogham, an ancient Irish alphabet, and of course it spells Aniar.

 The menu, which changes daily, is seasonal and local. Virtually everything on it is from Galway with a nod to one or two of the near neighbours, so maybe not quite as radically local as the 12-mile menu at Kevin Ahern's Sage in Midleton. If you want something different while you’re in Galway,  Aniar is the place to go. Very Highly Recommended.

beetroot (and below)

Also from this trip:
King's Head Bistro
Kitchen at Galway City Museum
Getaway to the City of the Tribes. Galway


Aniar
53 Lower Dominick Street
Galway
Twitter: @aniargalway
Facebook: AniarRestaurant
Tel: 091 535 947