http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites Just another irishtimes.com weblog Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:24:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This morning dawned dark, wet and windy. And thanks to the howling gale that used our bedroom chimney as a kind of...er...wind instrument throughout the small hours, not much sleep was to be had. We live on a hill so we can watch the plain below getting flooded, but the ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/19/tar-in-a-jar/ According to a report from the Restaurants Association of Ireland one in three Irish restaurants are in grave danger of closing. It also confirms what many of us have believed for quite a while: that some 80% of restaurants are trading at a loss. The RAI are not putting forward any ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/16/restaurants-on-the-brink/ You may have seen the list of 100 things that restaurant staff should never do. Now restaurant staff have hit back with 700 things that we customers should never do. Yeah, 700. I think there's just a hunt of an imbalance here. Or are we customers (you know, the people ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/14/700-things-we-shouldnt-do-in-a-restaurant/ It seems a bit incongruous. Here I am sitting in the Crawford Gallery Cafe in Cork, and enjoying the essential Ballymaloeness of the place (that lemon cake with butter icing, for example) and browsing through The Dubliner 100 Best Restaurants 2010 which is just out. Maybe it's a good way ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/14/the-dubliner-decides/ My first visit to The Storehouse at the Guinness Brewery in St James's Gate (or "The Brewery as my grandfather called it) this evening and I have to say I'm not surprised that this is Ireland's leading tourist attraction. The self-guided tour is quite brilliant and the Gravity Bar at ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/13/iveagh-in-premier-league/ I like coffee. I like it too much, indeed, and have to ration myself. What kind of coffee? An espresso after a meal, a proper cappucino (strong coffee, shaving foam on top), turbo-charged plunger with hot milk on Saturday morning, an occasional macchiato as a pick-me-up. I'm not a coffee ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/12/156/ I have just come across 100 tips (of the non-financial kind) that all waiting staff should bear in mind. It's an American list, mind you, so there are a few that relate specifically to that culture but most of them are very sound (and some of them are very obvious). ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/11/for-those-who-wait/ I've never been a great lover of foie gras. Yes, I can see the appeal, especially when it's properly trimmed and cooked to the precise nanosecond of perfection but, on the other hand, I have never told myself that I could murder a piece of fatty goose liver. The production ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/10/foie-gras-on-the-wane/ The annual Bord Bia Food and Drinks Awards were presented yesterday. And the Bord took the opportunity to tell us that more people are cooking stuff at home. Which, I suppose, is good news. But it was the following passage in the report of the event that really caught my eye: "The ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/06/bord-stiff/ There is much money to be made in predicting trends, and in the US a firm of consultants has recently posted their clairvoyant notions (this is a pdf file) of what will be big next year. In the US, if they are to believed, fried chicken (in various guises and borrowing ... http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/megabites/2009/11/05/resturant-trends-and-the-death-of-the-pub/