Ireland - 4/21/14

The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
They Call It Stormy Monday

The Route The weather started to change last night and we woke this morning to rain and gusty winds, almost a real storm. The rain slacked off later in the morning but the wind has been relentless. It's days like this when having an apartment (and extra time) is so much more convenient than being stuck in a hotel room. There was nothing we needed to see today and no place we had to go, so we lazed about, reading, nibbling in the fridge, doing laundry and generally enjoying not having to be out and about.

Perhaps because of the Irish climate, the apartment has a clothes dryer in addition to the washing machine. A dryer is a rare luxury on the continent (France, Italy and such), where clothes are just hung outside or on a rack to dry. There are laundromats about, but do you really want to spend half a day sitting in a laundromat in a foreign country? I highly recommend renting a place with a washing machine every 7-10 days. You can do your laundry in your off hours, you'll be able to pack much lighter ... and you'll probably appreciate having a couple of days at a slower pace.

Because we have a less-restrictive schedule (and a mess of frequent flyer miles), we've been able to travel internationally more often than most. Perhaps that colors my perception of how to get the most out of trips like these, but the most common travel mistake I see Americans make is trying to cram too much into too short a time period. As a result, they madly dash about, snapping their pictures before charging off to their next stop, arriving home exhausted and without a real sense of where they've been or its culture.

Travel is one area where less is truly more. When you take that "big trip,"slow down to the speed of life and travel with the idea that eventually you'll be back to see anything you missed this time around. Sooner or later you'll be wrong about that, of course, but in the meantime, you'll draw more enjoyment from what you see and do. You can get photos of anything you want to see on the Internet, but the only way to capture the magic of sitting in the sun at a small Italian cafe, sipping wine and watching village life unfold around you is to be there and do it.

Every country is different and part of the adventure is discovering where life outside the home happens. In Italy and in French cities, it's usually in the outdoor cafes. In rural France it can be found at the weekly street markets. In Ireland it appears to be in the pubs -- not for the alcohol but for the camaraderie. They call it craic (pronounced "crack") and it just means good conversation. Stand at the bar in an Irish pub and you'll quickly find yourself swapping stories with strangers who have no motive other than to be friendly. If you don't want to talk, you can find a table and avoid eye contact with the locals ... but what fun is that?

We had to get out and do something today, and it turned out to be dinner. Kinsale has the reputation for the best food in Ireland so it seemed only right to check out some of the local eateries and see what was going on. Our choice: the Fishy Fishy Cafe. From the name alone, I would expect something like a fish and chips shack, but this is a very sophisticated place that is at the top of every recommended restaurant list I saw. The name, while perhaps a bit misleading, is certainly memorable, so perhaps it's a wash.

For dinner, Margene went with an appetizer portion of the crab risotto and I opted for the fishy fish pie, both excellent choices as it turned out. The risotto, always a difficult dish to get just right, was smooth and creamy with plenty of crab meat. My fish "pie" was more of a thick mixed seafood stew with bits of scallop roe, shrimp, crab and various fish. Tasty ... and a great way to use fish scraps profitably! (Translated into dollars, my fish pie cost about $31!)

There was one particular feature I thought other restaurants using locally-sourced products could easily adapt. It was a photo display that took up an entire wall. On it were professionally done photos of the fishermen who supply the restaurant along with their names and the number of years they had been fishing. The text below the pictures is a slight variation on the lyrics of an old Irish song. It says, "Thou shalt have a fishy on a little dishy, thou shalt have your dinner when the boys come in." I like the idea a lot.

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