Fumbally Cafe for dogs and their humans!

We visited Fumbally Cafe on Saturday morning for what I call the best eggs in Dublin - Bones agrees too!

Wild Goose, Ranelagh

We visited the "Wild Goose"  for their Early Bird menu the other night.  They call it their "Early Goose" which is a bit of fun!  

The menu they offer is below and it is €21.95 for two courses and €27.95 for three course.  It appeared to be extremely good value and offered some nice choices.

Ciaran had the sole for starter (tempura of Lemon sole with a mixed leave salad and a creme fraiche sweet chilli and coriander dressing). 
To me it looked like the batter was way to thick to be considered a tempura and he said it was under cooked and that the batter was very soggy on the inside.

For starter I ordered the Rillette of Goose Leg, Puy Lentils with Red Wine Jus.

The Goose was melt in your mouth delicious but the puy lentils were a bit over salted for my taste and the red wine jus was generally tasteless.

For mains we ordered (for a €5 supplement) the Rump of Irish Beef Steak served with sautéed spinach, caramelised onions, creamed potatoes and Béarnaise sauce.
Our thoughts were that the meat was very good and cooked very well (we both ordered rare) and that the char was very flavourful. 
I found the potato to be inedible (I think they had some cheek referring to them as "creamed" - to me they tasted like watery day old mash) - so Ciaran ate mine.  I don't like spinach so he ate mine also while the caramelised onions were very very tasty.
I think they could look at presentation - the sauce in a ramekin was bit naff - a teeny weeny jug might look better if they wanted to serve it to the side.

We had a French Malbec blend which Ciaran enjoyed but I thought lacked oompf.  

Generally we liked the ambiance in Wild Goose but felt let down by the food.  If we were given a lower quality meal because it was the Early Bird - shame on them while if this is the type of food that is always served I think Wild Goose is over rated.  We probably won't return, but if we did, I think I would like to try the Cote du Boeuf for two which looked to be very good.

I should mention that we saw nothing on either the Early Bird or A La Carte Menu for dessert that appealed to us which was a little disappointing also.  If I was to rate this restaurant I would give them a C and a "must try harder".  

New art piece!

Ciaran painted a new picture and had picked a spot to hang it.  It was delivered to our house this morning.

I'm not quite sure what I think of it yet!!

For more of Ciaran's art have a look here.

Slow Cooker - Pulled Pork

As outlined in my previous post I made Pulled Pork in my slow cooker.

To finish it off today I took the meat out of the cooker and shredded it up.

I poured the sauce from the meat in to a pot to reduce.

It went from a thin watery sauce to a thicker sweeter tastier sauce.

I then added the meat back in to the sauce,  Voila I had pulled pork in a delicious sauce!

I should also add that I am celebrating exam results.  For the past three months I was studying Professional Irish and today I found out that I passed.  Phew what a relief!  
So I'm drinking wine out of a Flamingo Glass for fun because I am so happy!  

Pulled Pork in the Slow Cooker

On the drive home from work I decided to make Pulled Pork in my slow cooker. 

The butcher didn't have a shoulder of pork so I got a loin of pork instead.

To make the sauce I used a mix of different sauces and flavourings from my fridge and cupboard.

Firstly I rubbed Chinese 5 Spice and paprika in to the pork.

I lined the base of the slow cooker with onions and garlic to flavour the meat.

To make the sauce I used a can of chopped tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, beef stock, garlic, maple syrup, chipotle sauce and tomato puree. 

I added the meat to the slow cooker (crock pot for my American readers!) and then covered in sauce.

I added parsley to the sauce and also a Knorr stock pot for extra richness.

All I have to do is then cook it on low for 10 hours and hopefully I will have lovely tender Pulled Pork for dinner tomorrow tonight!

Dog wash!

I've been looking for a new groomer for Bones for awhile and looks like I have found one.  They have a shop where he can be dropped to or they can come to your house with the mobile grooming van.  The mobile option is actually the same price as where we currently get him groomed - so it makes sense to change!

Here he is on a road trip with Declan.

Bad weather in Ireland

The weather has been fairly bad in Ireland for the past few days - there even has been a bit of snow outside of Dublin!  Yesterday was bitterly cold and tonight we are expecting "Storm Rachel" to hit.  Gusts of 150km an hour are forecast for the night.

This morning on the way to work the road was blocked for a short while as a car was pulled out of the ditch.  It seems that the car had got stuck in the mud and couldn't reverse out.  Not good!