Showing posts with label Red Strand Coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Strand Coffee. Show all posts

Monday, October 21, 2019

Holy Salads and Sandwiches at St Francis Provisions


Holy Salads and Sandwiches at St Francis Provisions
Super salad

There is a white tigín in Kinsale. It is the home of St Francis Provisions, a café com deli that is causing something of a stir in the town and beyond.

Hardly because of its size - it would be hard to squeeze twenty diners in here. Not because of its furniture: three basic 2-person tables and perhaps ten basic high stools. Not because of the ware, lots of odd plates here, some the worse for wear! So, why the fuss? It’s the food, stupid!

Take this glorious salad in the top photograph. “Perhaps the best salad ever,” according to first time customer CL who paid €9.50 for this colourful flavourful plate that is also seasonal and local. The tasty bounty of the season is deliciously expressed in the ever so pleasing melange of mixed leaves, fig, spelt, nuts and seeds, roasted parsnips, pumpkin and sweet potato, soft creamy cheese.

I’m also a St Francis novice and ordered one of the two daily sandwiches: Gubbeen pistachio salami, Gubbeen cheese, fig and ginger chutney on focaccia, served on their own focaccia. On advice from the kitchen - there are certain advantages in sitting at the counter - I had this toasted and this too was excellent, local produce expertly handled.
Apple & Blackberry Pie and, right, Sticky Orange Cake

By the way, the day we visited (Oct 9th) was the day that they finally became truly their own bakery with chef Darren Kennedy and baker Sarah Walsh adding the sourdough to their repertoire. The bar has been well and truly raised here and it’s a pleasure to see such a young enterprise (it opened at the start of the summer) progress so impressively under the direction of owner/manager Barbara Nealon, a woman from the Banner who arrived in Kinsale via San Francisco (hence the tigín’s name).

And the output of the ovens is spread across the counters, lots of tempting pastries, both big and small. My pick was the Sticky Orange Cake, sweet, moist and delicious, enhanced no end by a cup of the excellent Red Strand coffee.

Rock and roll was playing on the record player - it is all vinyl here boy - with a voice from my past knocking out “Here comes my baby. Here she comes now…” as we settled up, €27.00 in all, before stepping out in the sunlit Farmers Market (a mega shower had just finished).

It is not just lunch that they serve here. Breakfast is available from 8.45, brunch is well worth checking out on Saturdays and Sundays, and there’s a dinner service (with some superb wines) available every Friday and Saturday from 5.00pm. They are closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Short Quay
Kinsale
Co. Cork
tel: 0830636879

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Bantry Market. Every Friday

Bantry's Massive Market Every Friday
The Toy Show

The regular Bantry Market is one of the biggest around. The Market occupies the central town square and spills out into the adjoining roads and car parks. Organic fruit & veg, hot food, baking, cheese, fish, meats, olives, eggs, honey, preserves, plants, local crafts, pet supplies, bric-a-brac & collectables are among the items you'll find here. 
Take a seat

And it gets even bigger on the first Friday of each month (the traditional Fair Day) when it's not unusual to see donkeys tethered to lampposts and cages full of ducks and hens for sale. 
Shane serving up his Red Strand coffee.

Here'll you find Henry Hegarty working his magic at Wokabout, Shane and his locally roasted Red Strand coffee, and delicious freshly baked bread and pastries from the Dunmanway Baking Emporium. Want a pair of gloves for the garden - here there's a huge selection, not just for the garden, for the farm too, for the factory and so on. Tools of all shapes and sizes, new and secondhand. Looking for something for your home wine-making? Thirty corks for three euro. Books, vinyl records, old toys, carpets and mats, clothes and more. All here in this colourful gathering. Well worth a visit!


Links for this visit:



Chilling out


Books galore

Jewellery Box


How about a cuppa?

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Taste of the Week. Red Strand Coffee


Taste of the Week
Red Strand Coffee

I’ve been tending towards South America, especially Columbia, when I buy coffee nowadays and tending towards local roasters for a long time. So when I saw Columbia and a new local roaster in Bradley’s, I took a closer look and left with a bag of Red Strand’s Rio Magdalena Oporapa. 

The beans are grown at a height of between 1600 and 1650 metres in the Huila department of Columbia and roasted by Shane Kelleher in Clonakilty, West Cork. It has that recognisable Columbian profile of sweetness (Caramel) and acidity, rich and mild with a medium body. The label notes indicate Milk Chocolate, Caramel, and Orange and it is certainly a very drinkable, very satisfying coffee, now appearing in some local restaurants as well as local markets.

Shane was inspired by these markets and the producers around him to start the Red Strand Coffee Roastery. “My ethos is to only roast coffee I want to drink myself. Life's too short for bad coffee!”

If you would like to sample the coffee, please look for the Red Strand Coffee vans in Kinsale, Clonakilty, Bantry, Skibbereen and Schull markets. They’ll be serving up Lattes, Cappuccinos, Flat Whites, Mochas, Espressos, Americanos, Hot Chocolate, even tea!


Red Strand Coffee
Cois Fern, Fernhill
Clonakilty, Ireland
Tel: 087 656 6800