Hot Potatoes!

 

I fell asleep on the plane dreaming of the food in Ireland.  I was being a stereotypical dreamer so I was dreaming of potatoes and cabbage. Once in Dublin I was eager to find out if the food was anything like my dreams.  Kylie and I went to the Temple Bar area for our first dinner and went to a typical Dublin pub and had pub food.  It was loud and crowded and just what we wanted.

We were pleasantly excited to find out that there was more than potatoes and cabbage on the menu, but it was the base for a lot of the dishes.  Coddle is a famous dish of the Irish people but the most famous and beloved is their stew.  It is delicious, hearty, full of lamb and vegetables and what else…potatoes.  But my favorite part of all the food, well I guess it’s tied with the stew, is the soda bread.  It is full of texture and flavor, doughy but crispy and just all around amazing.  Dunk that bread in an Irish stew and you’ll think you’ve died and went to Irish heaven. Another thing that goes well with Irish stew and soda bread is a nice cold Guinness.

 

Guinness is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness.  Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London.  I made Kylie taste her first Guinness and she had to chase it with her food so I think it is safe to say it’s growing on her. One of my favorite moments in Dublin wasn’t one I had while enjoying a Guinness but instead an oyster stout. There is a  bar called Porterhouse right by the Molly Malone statue that serves all different types of beer.  The oyster stout is a stout so not much different than a Guinness but they put fresh oysters shucked into the conditioning tank; so basically my dream beer.

 

 

The picture above and to the right is coddle in case you were wondering.

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