Happy Bank Holiday weekend from Dublin!

It's the "little" things that are special and make me happy. 

I made myself a cup of Little's Irish cream flavour coffee. What a gorgeous smell when I opened the jar and it tastes great too. Seemingly only 4 cals a cup...wonder how many carbs?!

Also using my new KW coasters which I got in the gift shop of the Custom House on the last day of my trip. I love them - don't they have a vintage look about them?

 

I bought my cute little jar of Little's coffee in Meadows and Byrne in Dun Laoghaire

Happy Hour in Key West

Alonzo's Happy Hour used to be a big favourite of mine, however, on my recent trip to Key West we didn't do happy hour there and actually ended up doing very few happy hours during the whole trip.

One place that we ended up doing happy hour at (twice) was Half Shell Raw Bar and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.  I've done HH at the bar here a good few times (sampled their 50c oysters - but I don't know if they still run this deal) and always enjoyed it - however that was before I liked Buffalo Shrimp.

Now I love Buffalo shrimp so I lapped up their HH while sitting at one of their bench tables in the super atmospheric main dining area which is right out at the water on the bight. We also ordered beer steamed shrimp, conch and lots more. With friendly staff, great food and good drinks there is nothing to not like this place!

A couple of afternoons we ended up at First Flight on Whitehead Street during HH as it was convenient to the attractions we had just visited (Little White House and Custom House museum). They do great HH drinks and Ciaran partook in tasty Margarita's both days. On one of the days we sampled a sliders option from the HH menu. Two beef sliders with cheese for $7. Tasty little bites but I think Ciaran may have eaten his in two bites and thought it was small. I thought it was perfect!

First Flight was where Kelly's formerly was (previously owned by actress Kelly McGillis) and it is a historical building as it was the original Pan Am office in Key West. See here for further info.

On this Key West trip I visited The Saint Hotel on Eaton Street for Happy Hour as I heard really good things about their cocktails and also their HH burger which is raved about. Their happy hour uniquely starts at 4.17pm as this their address! Very clever indeed!! 

The Burgundy Bar is to the right as you enter the lobby and it is very salubrious and darkly lit, the perfect place for a special date.

The cocktail list is very cool - it is based on the 7 deadly sins. I had the "Wrath" which was a rum based cocktail which was very good indeed and was 40% off for Happy Hour. The cocktails here are top notch as they use top shelf liquors which always makes me a fan!

After most Happy Hours we ended up back in The Green Parrot listening to brilliant live music. This is a great chilled out joint full of locals and tourists having a great time. I reckon it is my favourite bar......I think it may also have a happy hour but am not sure what time it is on for and because they don't do food it is just drinks specials.

Eating out in Key West

Here's a selection of some of the restaurants we visited on our recent trip to Key West, Florida.

Bistro 245 at Margaritaville Resort
As a treat for Amy because she graciously hosted us in her gorgeous conchy cottage we went to the fabulous brunch with the million dollar view on Front Street in Bistro 245 on the Sunday that she was off from work. Truly, is there anything nicer than sitting in the sun drinking mimosa?!
Check out some of the delights we feasted on.

Sarabeths
We visited Sarabeths twice. Once for their famous fried chicken on Sunday night and then on our last day for their fat and fluffy french toast for breakfast. There was a special offer of 2 mimosa for 1 so I partook - sure it would be rude not to!

The fried  buttermilk chicken was so delicious, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. With sides of mashed potato, coleslaw and gravy it made for a nice meal.

Origami
We love sushi and our favourite sushi spot in Key West is Origami. It's a little place at Duval Square and to me it has a really authentic Japanese feel. The sushi is soooo good and we asked for a suggestion as to what we should order next and the chef made an amazing off menu spicy Mexican sushi roll for us. Unbelievably good!

 



Flaming Buoy
We had planned on making a visit to Flaming Buoy but it looked like were going to be disappointed when we cycled past the restaurant on Margaret and Packer and saw it all shut up. However, we then heard they had moved to a new location on the very convenient Eaton Street.
We had a wonderful meal here, the food was great and the venue is really lovely - a perfect place for a nice date night meal.  And they still have their Star Wars memorabilia in the bathroom!

7 Fish
With a new location on Truman Avenue, we were looking forward to visiting 7 Fish. The food was as good as ever with the meatloaf being enjoyed by Ciaran. I had their delicious signature fish curry. It was really good but perhaps a little pricey. I missed the old location it was a cute tight for space little restaurant.  The new venue just doesn't have the same charm.

Goldman's Deli
Is there anything as American as sitting at the counter in a deli eating breakfast and reading the newspaper?

Santiago's Bodega
We saved our favourite for last and sat outside as we can't do that in Ireland. The food was divine and the ambiance and setting in the Bahama Village was chilled out. We started with blue cheese wedge salads and then ate lots of different tapas dishes including lamb and beef.  If you are visiting Key West make sure Santiago's Bodega is on your to do list!

Keto Egg bites!

I was introduced to Starbucks Egg Bites while on my recent holiday to Florida. They are sous vide cheesy eggy delicious bites.

I wish they were available here in Ireland but for the moment I have do by making my own.

In my first batch I made them with eggs and cottage cheese and also cheddar with some bacon bits.

For my second batch, I switched out the cottage cheese (too low fat) for some ricotta and also some cream cheese. I made this switch because I am back on keto due to too much Key Lime Pie on holiday!

I also added a little parmesan cheese when I was adding the cheddar - this was added for taste along with a bit more hot sauce than I added to the first batch.

So voila!  Here they are.....

One tip I would say is that you should whip the eggs with a blender and then add the cream cheese or cottage cheese. I don't think you would get this mixed properly if you were doing it by hand.

Fishing in Key West

Just back from visiting my twin sister in Key West where I had a brilliant time catching up with Amy and hanging out with her.

Amy had a few days off so we were able to get up to some of our favourite things. Namely brunch, beach and fishing!

On Saturday we were booked on to the Salty Goat (a super boat - I have fished with them before and was glad to be able to fish with them again) but headed to Cuban Coffee Queen for a nice cup of Joe before we got out on the water.

We had a fun day fishing with a so so catch by the three of us - enough for dinner and a little left over to go in the freezer.

Here's a few pics from the day....

Strong coffee to start the day and a cooler bag with strong drinks for later in the day!

Salty Goat is a great boat. Perfect size for a nice group of people to have a comfortable day fishing.

Amy lit up the barbeque and cooked up the fish on lemon - so delish!

Looks great and tasted even better :-)

And the perfect ending to a perfect day, came in the form of:

PIE!!

Look out for a few more blogs all about my Key West trip over the next few days.....

"Pigsy" short film - now online!

Woo hoo!

Film maker Mike Andrews 8 minute short about Pigsy is now available to view online, after featuring in Film Festivals across Ireland and the UK

Press play below!

In the sunny South-East for the weekend!

We spent a lovely  few days in Dunbrody House this weekend. 

Good weather was forecast and we set off in the sun on Friday to drive the 2.5hrs down from Dublin to Wexford in the Smart car.

For dinner on Friday we went to the pub on site at Dunbrody House. It is called "The Local" and we had the best fish & chips ever!

Our room was incredible. It was massive and really comfortable with a balcony out on to the garden. The arrow below shows the room location.

On Saturday we went for a short car ride to Ballyhack and then spontaneously drove the Smart on to a ferry over to Passage East. What fun!

We booked in for dinner on Saturday night in the Dunbrody House dining room.  Originally we were in for 8.30pm but then changed to a much better time of 7.15pm. This worked out great and we went straight for dinner after watching Leinster v. Saracens in the Heineken Champions Cup. Sadly Leinster lost :-( 

Pictured below is the duck breast from the tasting menu.

We had a bottle of malbec - my favourite!

Here's the tasting menu. My favourite was the duck while Ciaran liked the fish best.

There was a good continental buffet for breakfast and there was also a cooked to order hot breakfast. As well as the usual full Irish there was such things as omelettes (I had one on the first morning) and pancakes which I had on the second day.

It was a wonderful weekend and I really enjoyed relaxing, reading a lot and chilling in the sunshine.  Ireland is a wonderful country when the weather is good.