The recession must be over. On walking through the door of a certain city-centre restaurant (whose name no-one can seem to pronounce…) the missus and I were patiently informed by a waiter that they did not open for another five minutes. O-kayy. There was no “would you like to order a drink while you wait?“; no “sure, come on in anyway“. It didn’t piss me off or anything, I was just surprised. Funnily enough, we weren’t really in the mood to stand outside the door for five minutes, so we went elsewhere. All I can say is that business here must be positively booming…
So we opted for the nearby Market Bar. It’s on Fade Street, just off George’s Street. It fancies itself as a tapas bar, but in truth there’s only a smattering of tapas-like dishes on the menu. It’s a strange place, like it can’t make up it’s mind whether it’s a bar or a restaurant. There is some limited seating at the bar, but if you want to sit at a table you must wait to be seated. It’s not a great place for a drink because the waiting staff are usually all over you to order food. Despite this, I like it a great deal. On reflection, I’ve been here three times in the last month and each time I visited I’ve been delighted at the great value it offers.
On my last visit to the Market Bar, I was accompanied by The Editor. Many of the dishes on the menu are available in small and large versions. Greedy-guts that we are, we ordered large versions of far too many dishes: A dish of meatballs accompanied by fried potatoes, skewers of chicken and chorizo and that old favourite, patatas bravas. We also munched on a basket of bread and a dish of marinated olives. The olives, which came complete with stones, were truly some of the best I’ve ever eaten in a restaurant (nothing soggier or sadder than stoned olives in a restaurant. Salamanca, please take note…).
Two hours later, after much eating, drinking and nattering we were presented with a bill for €40. Wow. I know a lot of people that don’t like the Market Bar; granted, the place is a bit cavernous and noisy. But the food is excellent and it offers some great value.
Verdict: 7/10
The Market Bar [website]
Fade Street, Dublin 2
Did anyone watch “Economy Gastronomy” last night? It’s a new BBC cookery show presented by Paul Merrett and Allegra McEvedy which attempts to educate people on how to eat better for less money. In last night’s show, Paul Merrett stated that lamb shoulder was a “cheap” cut of meat and claimed a 2kg shoulder should cost about £12. That’s less than €14. Perhaps Paul and Allegra should pay the Emerald Isle a visit. I’ve never paid less than €20 for a shoulder of lamb. I find myself getting frustrated by reading food writers who claim that cuts of meat like beef shin, pork belly and lamb shoulder are cheap. This is absolute rubbish.
According to Tim Hayward in the Guardian, the current economic climate is the cause of rising prices for cheaper cuts, but I don’t agree. These “trendy” cuts were never cheap here. So, are we being ripped off? Again…?
Read Tim’s article here.
My dreams of slurping on carrot and coriander soup are almost ruined. With just two weeks left until harvest, my children, I mean, my carrots are not exactly thriving. But there’s still hope… Come on boys!! (Those folks at Suttons are full of shit, man… 
)
I like to cook without resorting to looking up recipes. As such, I tend to adapt all of my soup recipes to use similar amounts. Nearly all of my soup recipes use one litre of stock as standard and most start off by frying onions, celery and garlic. I’ve given my own Tom Kha Gai soup a bit of a Malaysian makeover using some inspiration from Gordon Ramsay’s Malaysian Curry recipe (from his “Sunday Lunch” book. There’s also a good laksa recipe in Nigel Slater’s “Appetite“). I’ve used a red curry paste here and upped the spicing. Try it, it’s really good.
Ingredients
- 2 free-range chicken breast fillets
- 750ml chicken stock (cube is fine)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 small courgette, chopped
- 2 tbsp Thai red curry paste
- piece of cinnamon stick, 3 or 4 cm
- 2 star anise
- 400ml can coconut milk
- 3 kaffir lime leaves
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1-2 limes, juiced
- 1 cup frozen peas
- noodles, enough for 2 people
- 1 red chilli pepper, thinly sliced
- fresh coriander
- fresh basil
Method
- Cook your noodles according to the instructions on the packet and refresh in cold water, then set aside.
- Bring the chicken stock to the boil, then add the whole chicken breasts. Cover the saucepan, reduce the heat and leave to simmer very gently for about 10 minutes while you get on with making the rest of the soup. I find cooking the chicken fillets whole like this gives the meat a softer and more satisfying texture.
- Heat some oil in a heavy saucepan and stir-fry the onion and courgette for about 3 minutes, until they’re just starting to colour.
- Add the red curry paste, star anise, cinnamon stick and stir-fry for a minute or two to coat the vegetables in the paste.
- Remove the chicken breasts from the hot stock and add the stock to the spicy vegetables. Slice the chicken breasts thinly and add to the soup. Add the coconut milk, lime leaves, sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and the juice of 1 lime. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, adding the frozen peas for the last two minutes.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. (At the very least, you’ll need the juice from another ½ lime, but adjust according to your own taste.)
- Divide the cooked noodles between two deep bowls and ladle the soup over. Garnish the bowls with the sliced chilli and a handful of chopped fresh coriander and basil. You could also garnish this with some chopped roasted peanuts.
Serves 2.
