Saturday, June 03, 2006
L'Gueleton for Lunch
Now that I have made good for yesterday's forgetfulness, I can move on to today. My mum and I had another food-filled day - not surprising considering that it was Saturday, a day that, in my life is always dominated by food, and that our love for food is one of the few things that my mum and I really have in common, although it still takes completely different shapes. In fact, we are exact opposites and as such complement each other perfectly. I love to shop and cook, whereas she likes to buy and eat. I chose my words quite consciously here when contrasting shopping with buying. I love the browsing, the exploring and the adventure of shopping. My mum on the other hand feels lost in a situation like that. She is a typical supermarket shopper who makes her list at home and then expects everything on it to be acquired in one spot. Seasonal or spontaneous shopping is largely out of the question. Also, she considers cooking to be a chore which she dislikes as much as, if not more than, doing the dishes. But she does not mind paying good money for good food. So, whenever we get together, I do the planning and shopping while she does the paying and eating. And we both profit as I get to buy things that I would normally consider too pricey and she gets to experience the shopping without the insecurity of not knowing that she'll get and chaos of such places as Temple Bar Market.Not that there was any insecurity there today. We avoided that problem by simply buying everything that either of us liked the look of: Two different mixes of salad leaves, radishes, leeks, mint, spinach, rhubarb, mushrooms, beetroot, smoked cod, halibut, scallops and two steaks. We could have easily bought much more, but luckily the fridge was full. My mum really likes the look of the quiches, tarts and cakes on sale at the market, but I find that they promise more than they deliver. When we first discovered the market Lofty and I tried a number of these yummy-looking bites and every time decided that I could do better at home. If you're peckish, I personally recommend one of the many ethnic food stalls. The kofta were brilliant and the Mexican food looks quite good too. Or go for a burger - they're slightly plain, but well tasty - or my personal favourite, some fresh oysters. We, unfortunately, did neither.
The day before I had made the mistake of pointing out L'Gueuleton. This small French bistro first came to my attention when a colleague suggested it as a venue for our team dinner. Unfortunately, with only 40 seats the manager felt that it was too small to accommodate a group of 15 and we never got to go. But on my short visit I had seen and smelled enough to be interested. I am normally very suspicious of any restaurant in Dublin 2 and even more so of anything that calls itself French bistro. My pretentiousness alarms go wild when they pick up such signals. But this time they were entirely wrong. The trendiness was limited to the interior and the customers, the waitresses were very down to earth and friendly and the food was quite simple and very tasty.
My mum and I had duck-egg mayonnaise with celery salt on watercress salad for starters. It sounds thoroughly poncy, but was actually a very tasty twist on an old country favourite. Lofty skipped the starter and went straight for Breton sausages on a huge bed of vegetables and potatoes. They smelled and looked lovely and, according to him, tasted equally good. My mum was a bit more adventurous with her main course: Tarte tatin of black pudding and Bramley apples. It looked great and my mum claimed that it was wonderful. I can't really comment on the issue because I personally do not like the combination of meat and apples and I hate black pudding. But I can see the culinary value of the dish and cannot fault the presentation in any way. I thought that after a big starter I should opt for something small and chose a salad of with grilled vegetables and chicken. That was to prove to have been a mistake - the German metaphorical 'Griff ins Klo' (the English translation of 'reaching into the loo' doesn't really cover the emotion behind it - just imagine reaching into a jar expecting biscuits and finding, well, you get the picture). It wasn't bad, but ... The grilled vegetables were too crunchy for my taste, the chicken was rare in parts, there was no dressing on the salad and a few minutes after I had begun eating the leaves had collapsed under the chicken - steamed in the juices. Oh well, you learn new things every day and today's lesson was to ask what to expect when you are in a new environment. As Lofty likes to say: "Never assume, it makes an ass of u and me."
Christine at 10:54 pm
