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Travel Tuesday: Eala Bhan Restaurant Sligo

January 6, 2015 in Restaurants, Travel by traveleatlove | 1 comment

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday season and a fun New Year’s Eve and are ready for a fun-filled 2015. In case you missed my Best of 2014 posts, you can find the travel post here and the Best of Boston post here.

Two trips to Ireland were definitely 2014 highlights. On our most recent trip we spent some time in Sligo, where we discovered lots of natural beauty in Ben Bulben in Rosses Point and some culinary beauty in the Sligo town restaurant Eala Bhan.

Eala Bhan means white swan in Irish, and since Sligo is Yeats Country, the restaurant name fits right in.

Decor is whimsical and elegant, and Yeats’ influence is apparent in bits of poetry around the restaurant. Twinkly fairy lights add a magical feel to the space, and overall it’s airy yet cozy, with dim lighting and windows out onto the River Garavogue.

Like many restaurants in Ireland, Eala Bhan utilizes the amazing Irish ingredients available to them, including local seafood and meat.

As we often do, we decided to share a bunch of small plates rather than go with entrees. We started with bowls of piping hot vegetable soup; I pretty much always get soup when we go out in Ireland.

{Creamy Vegetable Soup}

From there, we feasted on a couple of seafood appetizers which were creative and beautifully displayed. I loved the perfect scallop with the sweet courgette puree.

{Taste of the Sea: Pan seared diver scallop, kattaifi prawns and house cured salmon with fresh spinach and courgette purée}

This cake made of smoked salmon and prawns encased in creme fraiche was like nothing we had seen before. It was so decadent! It’s something I would love to recreate at home.

{ Smoked Salmon and Prawn Timbale Cake: Light layered pancakes of smoked salmon and prawn encased in créme fraiche and beetroot cream}

Heading back to land, we had the outstanding warm chicken salad which, with punchy blue cheese and sweet almonds, was way better than your average chicken dish!

{Crispy Herb Basket of Warm Chicken Salad: Edible herb basket of warm chicken salad tossed with cashel blue cheese, candied almonds in a crispy herb basket, topped with garlic croutons, balsamic reduction}

The wine list at Eala Bhan isn’t extensive, but I found a lovely Barton &Guestier Chardonnay that was a nice pairing with all of my food.

Eala Bhan is known as one of Sligo’s best restaurants for a reason. Everything was so fresh and tasty, and the service was paced perfectly, allowing us to enjoy leisurely conversation and our various courses, If you are in Sligo and looking for a special meal, Eala Bhan is definitely one great option.

How do you choose restaurants when you travel?

Tags: Dining out, Food, food blogger, Ireland, Restaurants, Sligo, Travel, travel blogger, wine, wine blog, wine blogger

Aniar Galway

December 22, 2014 in Food, Restaurants, Travel by traveleatlove | 3 comments

With just over a week left in 2014, I have my winner for the best meal of the year. We ate a lot this year and had the opportunity to do some great travel (Best of travel coming tomorrow!), so it was tough to decide. Our experience at Aniar in Galway was just so exquisite though, I couldn’t NOT choose it as the best of 2014. My photos don’t do this meal any justice; the lighting was perfect for a date night but not great for photos. And I definitely know I am leaving details out, since it seems like this dinner was ages ago. Below is my best effort at sharing with all of you an evening that delighted so many senses and left us singing Aniar’s praises all over Galway and beyond.

Aniar means “west” in Irish, and much like wine makers, they are driven by terroir. You won’t find lemon in your water at Aniar because lemons don’t grow in Ireland. Our tasting menu feast highlighted meat and produce from Ireland; it was a great testament to the fact that Irish food can be REALLY good, something I have been trying to get across for years. Ireland has some of the best raw materials for amazing cuisine, and it’s great to see places like Aniar showcasing that.

We decided to go all out and do the tasting menu with wine pairings since this was my belated birthday dinner, which we didn’t make due to a flight cancellation from Scotland.

I was so glad that we did the wine pairings, as they were spot on perfect. The service was even better. The wines weren’t listed on our menus, and when I asked about them at the end of the meal, our server hand wrote each one on the back of the menu. Throughout the night there were so many little added touches where the staff went above and beyond.

A light, fun, Prosecco kicked off our night, and went nicely with our first course, a fresh piece of mackerel. I love pairing a fatty fish with bubbly, and our first bites set the tone for the whole meal.

We had a table right by the window, so we were able to watch the hustle and bustle of a rainy Galway evening while we dined. It was cozy and romantic, and despite Aniar being a Michelin star restaurant, there was nothing stiff or pretentious about the place. It felt so homey and relaxed.

Each bite of the meal was perfect; this fresh hen egg was swoon-worthy.

Halibut dusted in fennel, deliciously flaky and meaty at the same time, paired with Chardonnay from Beaujolais (Terres Dorées 2012 Classic) that was acidic and crisp, full of mineral and lemon.

Somewhere along the way (I am missing a course, pork neck.) we were served a wine that I was able to instantly recognize as Gamay, the grape in the oft overly fruity and awful Beaujolais Nouveau. This Gamay, by Jean Paul Brun, was a perfect example of how good Gamay can be when aged and finessed the right way. Big, dark cherry notes and a little earthy funk made this wine a new favorite, and I am definitely hoping to get my hands on it in the US.

A beautiful local herbal tea sorbet was the perfect mid-meal palate cleanser.

The tasting menu included some things I don’t normally go for, like venison, but I was adventurous and tried it all. And I hate to say it, but I thought the venison was incredible. It was so tender and flavorful and paired perfectly with the earthy, seasonal vegetables served with it. A gorgeous Rhone Valley Syrah rounded out each bite. This was my favorite course of the night.

Dessert was a fun and foamy blackberry, apple, and buttermilk concoction paired with a Chateau Jolys Cuvee Jean, a dessert wine that had so much balance with its honeysuckle sweetness that even I, one who does not like sweet wine, loved it.

I wish I had taken the time to take more photos and notes along the way, but the way this meal flowed, the chat with our servers, watching the people go by and peeking into the insanely clean and busy kitchen all caught my attention before the thought of blogging creeped in. This night was a delicious, long breath of fresh air, filled with flavor and obvious love of food and of Irish ingredients. Bravo to Chef Ultan Cooke and the Aniar team, and thank you for being my best meal of 2014.

Tags: Dining out, Food, Galway, Ireland, restaurants in Ireland, Travel, travel blog, travel blogger, wine, wine blog, wine blogger

Wine Wednesday: Quivira Winery

November 5, 2014 in Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 4 comments

It’s a Northern Sonoma County must-visit! Wine, gardens, views for days, Quivira Winery, in the Dry Creek Valley in Healdsburg, California, has all of the above and more. This property had just so much life peeking out from every corner that you could spend an entire day checking out flowers and chickens and vegetables, not to mention stopping back in the tasting room for a sip of wine here or there.

We visited Quivira on the same day we visited Lambert Bridge and Truett Hurst, a hot, dry, perfect blue sky day, where splashes of cold Sauvignon Blanc went down a treat.

Quivira is in a beautiful location in the Dry Creek Valley, surrounded by vineyards and trees, and there is something super calming and soothing about their property. The way it is laid out, with gardens all around and farm animals not far down (piglets!) is made for wandering, and the welcoming staff definitely encourage it.

summer flowers in wine country

The tasting room is bright and airy, and there were a couple of small, fun groups tasting wine and enjoying the day. There was such a nice vine in the room. As I said above, we went in and out of the tasting room, bringing our tastes out in the garden to soak up the sun. I think I maybe stored enough to get me through to January?

I was really loving mineral-y Sauvignon Blancs on this trip, bursts of lime, hints of grapefruit, mouthwatering acidity but also balance, like in Quivira’s Fig Tree Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. I’m also loving Mourvedre more and more and am excited to see it appearing on more California tasting lists. Like the tasting notes say this wine offered juicy dark cherries and more importantly, those pepper notes that I seek. I love when a wine hits my tongue and there is an immediately recognizable spice.

As you probably know, I will never turn down a Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel, and despite the heat (or maybe because of it) the 2011 Quest Zinfandel was amazing. A texture like velvet, and again, that spice, a bit of jam, yum.

The Wine Creek Ranch Dry Creek Valley Rosé wasn’t on the tasting we chose, but we got to have a taste anyway and ended up taking home a bottle of this GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) blend. It was perfect perfect perfect with the warm sunshine and dusty air. Strawberry notes dominated with subtle spice on the finish. This wine is sold out for a reason. It is the perfect summer wine.

Quivira practices biodynamic farming which is interesting, a little mystical sounding, and something I’d like to learn more about. Biodynamic farming involves the entire ecosystem of the vineyard and results in the smallest carbon footprint possible. Their site offers a good bit of information on what biodynamic farming means and how each living thing on their property contributes to that.

I probably sound by a broken record at this point, but we have visited a LOT of wineries in our travels, and Quivira is definitely one I would put at the top of your list for spending at least an hour at. The vibrancy of the property, its people, and of course, the wine all draw you in and make it so that you don’t want to leave. Then again, that’s Healdsburg for you.