weekend bites

THIS WEEK I’LL BE EATING...

BUTTER, more specifically Cuinneóg Irish Farmhouse Country Butter from Co Mayo which is remarkably good. It has a depth of flavour and a creaminess that is seriously impressive. But how to eat it? It seems a shame to turn it into garlic butter (but I’ve been known to do so). On toast it’s lovely but perhaps it’s at its best when melted into floury potatoes or when I toss our own garden peas with it with a few mint leaves.

PICHET PALS

Pichet is one of my favourite Dublin restaurants and I’m happy to report that it’s having another Friends of Pichet evening on Sunday, August 23 at 4.30 pm, hosted by executive chef Stephen Gibson. The Friends, in this instance, are Josef Zammit and Nicola Curran Zammit of the very highly regarded Two Cooks restaurant in Sallins, Co Kildare. Tickets are €65 per person, or €100 to include a wine pairing for each course, pichet.ie.

A FINE FINO

Tio Pepe En Rama is a very special dry fino sherry released every year since 2009 by Gonzalez Byass. It’s very lightly filtered so you get masses of flavour and I have to say this 2020 release is the most impressive I’ve tasted. Intense and vivid, bone dry and breathtakingly fresh, it needs to be drunk chilled with olives or toasted almonds. The late Michael Broadbent MW, probaby the most experienced palate ever, used to have dry fino sherry with fish and chips from newspaper.

KINARA CALLING

The Kinara Group of restaurants — Kinara in Clontarf and Ranelagh, and Kaijal in Malahide— specialise in Pakistani dishes and have just relaunched their early-bird menu which you can have 5pm to 7pm Wednesday and Thursday, until the end of August. Machali Achari is what I would go for: hake simmered with pickles, spices, curry leaves and coconut milk. Dessert includes Kinara’s legendary rice pudding. Three courses for €26.50 is a bargain, kinara.ie.