Simon’s latest culinary post has motivated me to mention my weekend of food. Went to the Ivory Tower on Friday night and apart from the great company, the food was superb. This was my third time there and the first time impressed me a lot but I wasn’t so happy the second time. Third time was the charm.
Carrpachio pigeon was the surprise starter. Think serrano ham but done with a pigeon. Yeah, raw, rolled and spiced. The next course for me was Korean style bacon and cabbage. Gorgeous and really spicy. D got the duck and hedgehog starter. Yes, hedgehog. For the next course I got the miso oyster soup and then had baby Octopus for the main meal. Got a lovely fresh tropical fruit salad with a lovely lychee sorbet for desert. Whole meal was washed down with Brightwater Sauvignon blanc which the Ivory Tower gets from Bubble Brothers I would guess. They were out of sancerre. I was disappointed.
Treasa and myself went to Gusto on saturday for lunch (brekky for me). I got their Jamaican Jerk on pita. The coffee in there is better than most places in Cork. The tea is good too. Go visit if you are visiting Cork.
On Saturday I went to Rossini’s for a really good Italian meal. Service as usual in Rossini’s is dead slow. The pinot grigot in there was great and I had *cough* just a few glasses before my starter arrived. (They had messed up the damned order and I had to order it again about 30 mins after giving the order to the waiter.) I then moved on to a lovely red – Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (though the one Bubble Brothers stock is a diff vineyardI think) and had a few glasses of that with the Tris Ala Rossini dish, which is three types of pasta. The portion looked small but I was barely able to finish it. I managed the tiramisu after though. Today, all I want is more of that red wine and pasta. Possibly watching too much of the Soprano’s on dvd is making me like this.
Hedgehog, really?
I remember as a kid I saw a hedgehog it was dead and it’s belly was crawling with maggots when I flipped it over with a stick. Ever since I associate hedgehogs having maggot bellies.
Went to Ivory Tower once about 5 years back. Excellent food but worst service of all time.
The best bit was that they were doing the carpaccio of pigeon back then too but as a a freebie taster. Catherine said she couldn’t have it as she was pregnant (I know I know, when wasn’t she) and they took it away to replace it with something else raw!
I must go back when things settle down here, I’d love to try the hedgehog.
Perhaps Ivory Tower should get their Sancerre from us too… But I hope it was the shortage of first-choice wine that disappointed you, and not the Brightwater Sauvignon. I think that’s a great wine, even at 14% alcohol.
Sounds like a weekend very well spent though.
Twenty: Yup. No maggots. Apparently to de-spike them you bake them in clay.
Conor: Service was quite good and when I left half the octopus behind they came back with the menu and asked me to choose something else that I might prefer. I was stuffed by then though!
Julian: Yup, I’m a huge fan of sancerre. The Brightwater was so good than I called into the shop in the market and got a bottle off Austin. 14%? Never copped that.