Search for Delicious 6: Dublin (Surf)

If I was a bit taken aback by the dynamism of Dublin's terrestrial fare, I was blown out of the water by its seafood.  Located right on the coast, Dublin and its surrounding environs offer a cornucopia of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and shellfish.  After almost being blown away while walking around the cliffs of the seaside fishing village Howth, I stopped in for a late lunch/early dinner at King Sitric Restaurant. 

Unfortunately they were out of oysters by the time I got there, and I wasn’t in a position to order their two person seafood tower.  But I was still able to treat myself to an order of crab mornay and a cup of their Howth seafood chowder with a glass of white wine from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.  The smooth and creamy chowder was chocked full of the local catch, and the mornay elegantly walked a tight rope of sweet and savory.  The slightly tart wine cut through both like a hot knife through butter.

The best meal of my trip was also my last one in Dublin.  I popped in for lunch at Matt the Thresher, a slightly more upscale restaurant famed for its maddeningly fresh and local seafood, all sourced from the immediate area, like the bay that’s no more than half a kilometer from the restaurant.  I ordered the Dublin Bay prawns, two oysters on the half-shell, and another glass of white wine. 

The prawns were poached, a form of preparation I had only previously seen used with eggs, and they were amazing…tender, sweet, and bathed in just enough garlic butter to add flavor without blurring the delicate flavor of the prawns themselves.  The poaching left the prawns cooked, but still juicy and very fresh, somewhat similar to the cooked-but-not-cooked texture of ceviche, although obviously sans the cold and the lime. 

The oysters were out of this world.  The experience of eating an oyster, especially an oyster of this caliber, is a multi-phase affair, a succession of different flavor profiles and textures from the moment you put it in your mouth to when you swallow it.  Much like sushi, each bite is an event in and of itself, a collapsing of the act of eating into separated and powerful bursts of flavor.  The oysters were served with lemon and Tabasco on a bed of ice. 

A little bit of lemon and a little bit of Tabasco and down the hatch.  The bright tang of the lemon is soon followed by the heat of the Tabasco, after which a swell of seawater takes over your mouth as the oyster itself gently gives way to the softest bite, and you swallow and have to take a second, a bit like taking a shot of liquor, your body both thrilled and a little unsure of what has happened.  An experience to be sure, and one that reminds you of the power of food, divorced from the so often banal and necessary act of eating, a liberating reclamation of your own taste buds, for only 2,90 €.  It’s also common (and this place offers specials apparently) to pair oysters with Guinness in Ireland, a combination that I find absolutely no fault in. 

Matt the Thresher is also open late into the evening, so if you don’t want to shell out the cash for lunch or dinner, you can just come eat oysters and drink beer.  They also had rave reviews from both Michelle Obama and Anthony Bourdain on the front door, so pretty much it’s solid gold. 

Search for Delicious 6: Dublin (Turf)

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish.”

                                                    ~ Joyce, Ulysses

The Irish are traditionally not renowned for their culinary sophistication.  Much like their island neighbor Great Britain, the majority of their food seemingly serves to either prepare one’s self for heavy drinking or recover from said drinking.  Meat pies, the full breakfast, coddle and other types of stews, fish and chips, bacon and cabbage, lots of meat, lots of potatoes.  Which is all fine and good, but what stuck out to me the most was the way that these heavier and heartier foods belied an complexity and variety of flavors and textures.

I got into Dublin late Friday night and, after a pint or two at a nearby pub, retired to my hostel along the River Liffey.  The next morning I got up and had the free but also just cold cereal breakfast at my hostel before setting out to explore.  After walking around the Trinity College campus and Grafton Street area, I found myself a bit peckish, and soon happened upon a spot named the Hairy Lemon to try and alleviate said peckishness. 

I ordered the full Irish breakfast and a Guinness, the “full” breakfast living up to its moniker, consisting of one poached egg, two pieces of white bread toast, a piece of brown bread, Irish butter, two thick slices of bacon, white beans in tomato sauce, black pudding (blood sausage), white pudding (less bloody sausage?), sautéed mushrooms, one grilled tomato, two sausages (bangers?), and French fries.

I thought brunch was a big meal. And it was also just very good.  I was surprised by the variety of textures and flavors in a meal that upon first glance seemed like it would be homogenously hearty.  The different sausages were all quite distinct, variously crispy, sweet, and savory, and combined with the tanginess of the tomato, earthiness of the mushrooms, and smoothness of the egg, the dish as a whole was much more dynamic than I expected.

The next day I ended up having a chic re-imagining of the full breakfast at a place called brother hubbard, which I stumbled upon after the place I was originally trying to go was closed.  An over-easy egg was covered with a whipped feta yogurt sauce and topped with sumac and za’atar, all on a bed of cannellini beans and chorizo in a tomato sauce, with sourdough bread on the side.  Take the tangy, savory, crispy thing I described in the last paragraph and add creamy and spicy to that and you have an idea of what this tasted like.  Also, damn good coffee. 

As evidenced by the spice selection, brother hubbard likes to combine Arabic/Middle-Eastern influences into their takes on more traditional Irish fare.  Turkish and Moroccan breakfasts sit alongside smoked salmon sandwiches and an award winning pulled pork bbq sandwich in a menu that is in constant flux and under the direction of some fine food minds.

I also had some most excellent coffee from 3FE, a café located slightly outside of the center, towards the south-east.  I came in primarily to charge my phone, but I ended up having an espresso tasting, two tasty espressos, one from Colombia and one from Bolivia, for 4 €.  All of the coffee is roasted on site in Dublin.   

And lest we forget the local beverage.  The Guinness is better in Dublin. Period.  For no other reason that if you’re in Dublin, you’re probably no further than 5 miles from where the stuff is being made fresh at St. James Gate Brewery. 

The best pint I had the entire trip was from the Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub, dating from 1192.  The smoothness, the notes of chocolate, the toastiness of the malt, the way the whole process of pouring a pint takes a good two minutes or so is a wholly inimitable experience.  I saw a van driving around Dublin with GUINNESS QUALITY TESTERS written on the side.  They take their beer very seriously. Blessed be. 

Search for Delicious 5: Berlin

Bodacious beer and meat in tube form were my two alimentary expectations for Berlin.  I was not disappointed in this regard.  Little did I know, however, that I would also have the best Turkish food I’ve ever had, as well. 

I flew in late on December 19.  I stayed at Plus Hostel, right by the Eastside Gallery, an open-air art gallery featuring street art on the Berlin Wall.  My dinner that night was an excellent schwarma kebap right down the street from the hostel.  The morning of December 20^th, I got my breakfast from one of the stalls at the Alexanderplatz Weinachtsmarkt, one of Germany’s Christmas markets that attract Germans and tourists alike to eat, drink, and browse a variety of traditional and not so traditional goods, from Santa Clauses to alpaca-wool socks.

I washed the bratwurst down with glühwein, or mulled wine, which would end up being a close ally for my trip through a very cold Central Europe over Christmas and New Years.  

About twenty minutes late, I tried a particularly Berliner staple, currywurst, which is more or less cut up bratwurst with a curry infused ketchup, sometimes served with fries.  Definitely more of a late night food, but I jumped at the opportunity to get it in the Christmas market.   

Besides the sausage, the majority of my meals consisted in kebap, or other variations such as durum, all centered on slowly cooked spiced meat.  The perfect marriage is that of kebap/variations and German beer, which was always plentifully available in a variety of styles.  I fell hard for the hefeweizen and helles styles, but it was hard to go wrong.  Even the pilsners and lagers had a complexity to them that tends to be lacking in the US, where I won’t touch them with a twenty-foot pole.  Here’s a shot of me with both parties, the metaphorical priest of the holiest of unions.

And while I was very happy in the above shot, I was even happier the next day when I found myself at Gel Gör Inegöl Köfteci, right down the street from the Schöleinstrasse U-Bahn line close to the Kreuzberg neighborhood.  I had some great lentil soup, smooth with hints of mint and spice. 

The sandwich was on a very fresh and crispy Turkish version of a baguette.  Köfte are often rendered into English as meatballs, but that’s a little misleading.  They’re more like mini spiced meat patties.  Regardless, this place does them extremely well.  The sandwich is topped with a variety of fresh greens like arugula and even mint, both yogurt sauce and spicy sauce, tomato, and more spices.  I also added on a couple of slices of halumi, a Greek/Turkish style of cheese that’s kind of like a mix between feta and mozzarella.  Combined with a solid Hefeweizen, I was in heaven.  Although this was several months ago, I still haven’t had a better sandwich in all of the others places that I’ve visited. A true gem.

That night for dinner, however, we had a much more Western meal, a tradition returned to its native land:  the hamburger.  Burgermeister is a bit of a local legend in Berlin, and one of their restaurants is located in a space not much larger than a train car, underneath a bridge right by the River Spree. 

We had to wait about 15 minutes in line, outside, in the rain, but we were rewarded with an extremely fresh and well-prepared burger, along with fries and another good local beer.  Definitely not a pretentious place, some might even call it a little grungy, but you can’t deny that they make a damn good burger. 

And you can never forget about the beer...