The Menu: From Patrick's Day feasts to whiskey tastings
Tom Stafford of Vice Coffee is offering an especially refined take on the Irish coffee featuring Menu favourites, Teeling’s Whiskey and Imbibe Coffee, delivered to your home for St Patrick’s Day
The Menu takes great pleasure in welcoming back his great culinary compadre Leslie Williams this weekend as he reviews Dublin’s justly renowned Bujo. Bujo is celebrating Paddy’s Day with a limited edition St Patrick’s Weekender Kit. Actually it's three kits in one — alongside the usual excellent burger kit there’s a Bujo Breakfast (containing signature breakfast sandwiches of: Luke Bogue’s Rarebreed Hampshire pork sausage patty; Beechwood Smoked maple bacon; Margaret’s egg; Coghlan’s Artisan Bakers BuJo brioche, and Innocent orange juice) and a Bujo Brownie kit (Coolhull Farm chocolate brownie; Salted caramel & blueberry coulis), all available for nationwide delivery (one day only, March 19), €55 plus €7 delivery charge. (Optional extra of Wicklow Wolf Irish craft beers.) www.bujo.ie
The Irish Coffee was by all accounts created in winter of 1943 by Joe Sheridan, head chef at Foynes airbase near Limerick, and The Menu — on foot of a tour to the Foynes heritage centre in 2019, and, following a fascinating and extensive tour of one of the flying planes — reckons he’d have required at least half a gallon of the stuff to ever take off in such a bockety contraption. And were he to treat himself to a fine exemplar of the globally-renowned hot cocktail, then Vice Coffee’s new limited edition Irish Coffee Kit sounds just the ticket, featuring as it does Teeling’s Whiskey and Gary Grant’s superb Imbibe coffee (a single-origin Colombian), all sweetened with a Demerara syrup. Pre-batched in a 500ml bottle priced €22.50, with Georgian Irish coffee glasses available as optional extras. Free delivery nationwide. www.vicecoffeeinc.com
Teeling’s Distillery, in Dublin, creators of some of The Menu’s favourite whiskey experiences, have a pair of Patrick's Day packages for sale in their online shop for a limited time only. The hamper includes flagship Teeling Small Batch, Teeling’s pineapple canned cocktail, Teeling’s beer collab with local craft brewer Dot Brew, Teeling’s Paddy’s Day T-shirt and Paddy cap. Option two features two Paddy’s Day flat caps, T-shirt, Teeling hip flask, and iconic black whiskey glass. teelingdistillery.com
Irish whiskey options are always an obvious option for the national holiday but if your sipping is to be truly patriotic, then you’ll opt for the original Irish alcoholic beverage as supped by good old St Patrick himself and no better way to do it than courtesy of an online tasting, a virtual Mead Parade (March 17 at 8pm) from Kinsale Mead. Broadcasting live from an especially bedecked Oak Bar in the Kinsale Meadery, participating imbibers are instructed to adorn themselves in all manner of verdant greenery and celebrate with stories from our history, Irish tales and legends of Irish-made honey mead, along with tips, cocktail recipes, and suggested food pairings and snacks to nibble on as you sample each of the four meads. Kits can be ordered in advance from www.kinsalemeadco.ie/mead-shop
The Farmgate Cafe, in Cork's English Market, are superb practitioners of finest traditional Irish cooking all delivered with a most contemporary sensibility, so their special celebratory offering would be fit for the great saint himself: Beef & Stout Pie (potato top), roast root vegetables, apple and rhubarb crumble (hazelnut crumb), custard, all easily serving a family of four to six people. €60. (Additions: Bottle of wine, €17; Ballycross Sparkling Apple Juice, €5). Collection, Tuesday 16 only. www.farmgatecork.ie
One of The Menu’s favourite lockdown dining experiences has been the gorgeous finish-at-home kits from Restaurant Chestnut in Ballydehob, so their St Patrick's Day special with a main course of lamb leg with truffle, glazed carrot, cooked in carrot juice, and a sauce of the braising liquor finished with house vinegar and ramson, comes highly recommended. www.restaurantchestnutwestcork.ie
Market Lane’s Paddy’s Day feast, a very simple heat-at-home box with full instructions includes options of: Ballinwillin Venison Pie with Wisdom Ale; Slow-cooked Rosscarbery Bacon and Mustard Glaze; or Spiced Veggie Moussaka with Toonsbridge Feta. A two-courser, including sides and dessert, is €25 pp. The children’s menu is €9.50. Elbow Lane beers, signature cocktails, and wine also available along with free Always Cork tote bag. www.marketlane.ie
Chef Terry McCoy offers free shipping of his cookbook, , worldwide until March 22, with over 60 recipes inspired by the life of the bould Pádraig himself, featuring fifth-century cooking techniques and native ingredients along with a number of recipes adapted from the Roman Empire and featuring modern ingredients — that’ll be the St Patrick’s Panettone, reckons The Menu! www.saintpatricksplate.com
It is hard to believe such a delicious syrup might wind up in the health food bracket, but Erica Sheehan's Homespun Chicory Root Syrup offers a most pleasing sweetness and a honey-like viscosity that suggests all manner of saccharine sins — yet contains just 14g of sugar per 100g. (Honey is around 80g sugar per 100g).
Now, The Menu would never spurn premium Irish honey for reasons of sugar content alone for the complexity of good honey’s flavours and its other myriad health benefits will never be eclipsed. But, for those seeking a source of sweetness that is proven not to spike blood sugar levels, Homespun Chicory Root Syrup makes for an astonishingly pleasurable alternative, a gentle, balanced syrup with a delicious caramel finish. What’s more, chicory is a rich source of inulin, a natural prebiotic fibre, most beneficial for digestion, gut health, and the reduction of inflammation. The Menu enjoyed it recently, drizzled on exquisite Velvet Cloud sheep’s milk yoghurt, served with toasted hazelnuts and chopped apple for a most delicious breakfast.
