The Emerald Isle Continued...

Continuing on in Ireland, I never spoke about my other favourite restaurant, this time in Galway. Galway is famed for its colourful eclecticism which attracts artists of all kinds. It's a wonderful, lively city and the focus point of it seems to be the Spanish quarter where a stroll to the harbour passes craft shops and restaurants and the bustling atmosphere is warm and inviting. In a very European fashion restaurants spill out onto the street in an attempt to  entice you in and trying to decide on a place to spend your money can be difficult, everything looks so good. We chose a place based on its A board menu as it was tucked away upstairs.

The Artisan captured us with it's tantalizing menu for only £25 for 3 courses and the food really was tantalizing. From start to finish it was delicious and extraordinary: the goats cheese starter was served in the form of a pate, the sea bass was subtly seasoned and expertly pan fried and the selection of desserts were delicate and delectable.

Now I just want to detour a moment to speak about hospitality. We were completely underdressed for an evening out in Galway, we had travelled all day and just wanted somewhere nice to eat. We hadn't pre-booked even though the Spanish Quarter was becoming lively and it was pretty obvious we weren't their usual art collecting punter. Despite this, the hosts welcomed us with warmth and cheer and were very attentive to our small cover. While we gazed at the artwork adorning the walls we were offered freshly baked breads and we soon felt very comfortable. When we asked about an art piece the owner came over to speak to us about it and gave us the information of the artist. By the way HERE is his link, strikingly visual topography which can be made to order. The Artisan was more than we could have hoped to stumble across and turned into the perfect romantic evening.

Now back to the food! While in Ireland the majority of my diet consisted mainly of sea food, salmon fillets, prawns, sea bass (at the Artisan) and in particular the delicious combination of Irish bread and smoked salmon. As you would expect being situated on the coast both Dublin and Galway are authorities in sea food, in fact Galway had just hosted it's 60th oyster festival a few days previously to our arrival. It has to be said that I love my smoked salmon, a firm favourite at any time of the day and I always go for quality over price at the supermarket. However, there is a (disputed) claim that Coton in the Elms in Derbyshire, only 12miles away from me, is the furthest point in England from any coastline and despite the quality you can taste the distance. By that I mean that the fresher salmon smoked and served on any coastline is so much richer and deeper in flavour than any which has travelled courtesy of the supermarkets. When you combine that with the dense, grainy and flavoursome soda bread of Irish bakers you get a combination of flavours that are made for each other. Move over salmon finger sandwiches, make room  Scandaweigian open face sandwiches, there's a sexy new Irish charmer in town.

For this post I intended to make soda bread with Irish stew (as the weather has turned colder)  and then smother the left over bread with  sexy smoked salmon for lunch. I'm afraid the leftovers weren't used so I'll have to make do with the original bread and stew!

For the Soda Bread recipe

For the Irish Stew Delia is the queen of traditional!