Sri Lanka - food

Here is a much belated selection of shots from Sri Lanka......the other Green Isle & haven of food. We ate everything from egg hoppers with coconut sambal to fresh platters of amazing local fruits. It also gave me the chance to understand the origin of spices and curries that generally arrive dried and packeted to Ireland. 

An Egg Hopper - basically a crepe cooked in a small hot wok-like dish. Often served
with an egg cooked in it. 

Nutmeg fruit with the nutmeg seed centre and the mace covering it. 

It is amazing to drive through a countryside where the markets, streets, fields, everywhere is just lined with the freshest of fruit....literally everywhere. Coconut groves, banana trees, stalls of avocado & papaya fresh from the local market..........

Papaya

Bananas! Absolute (-ly amazing) bananas

.........and then of course there are the tea plantations.....and the tea that tastes like.........tea! It's tastes flavourful, rounded and so drinkable. I am not a tea drinker on any normal day of the week but having seen the production of the real deal tea, smelt the oils being released when the leaves are rolled and then tasted it freshly poured from the pot, I am a convert. 

Tea Plantations outside Kandy

Rolling the tea ......not cigars :)

Stag's Head Guinness

Need I say more?

Picking Olives in Emilia Romagna

A spilt but very much alive and very old olive tree

When it comes to training and education there is little that beats hands-on experience. Possibly (massive pinch of food obsessed salt) this statement is most true in understanding the food chain and how it can result in perfection, or in contrast be fouled.  Therefore the invite before Christmas to join the UK Carluccio's team on a trip to meet one of our expert olive producers in Emilia-Romagna was an opportunity not to be missed. Not a herd of wild horses, as they say was going to stop me joining them....and what a fantastic experience it was!  

A big bowl of olives

Tom Mueller's 'Extravirginity' (my bedside reading at the mo.) gives an interesting but negative perspective into the Italian olive oil business. However, it sells a very different reality to that of the passion, care and effort which I encountered with the Lo Conte family, who produce Carluccio's Olio Novello (new season E.V.O.O.) every year.

An olive picking rake lying on the olive net

The family go to great effort to ensure the quality of their E.V.O.O. by taking more than just a few simple steps to ensure extravirginity..... the basics of which are...carefully picked and netted olives, all (and only) from their own groves, pressed within 24 hours, under temperature controlled conditions (27 degrees ideally). 

The Lo Conte olive groves

Biggin' up the little guy - Terra Madre

I am labelling Terra Madre a 'must-go' restaurant for 2012. 

Taste of Emilia was my eye catcher for 2010, with the best fare from Emilia-Romagna in a wonderfully informal setting. I will happily while away an evening with friends over a platter of meats and bottle of Lambrusco.  In contrast, Eastern Seaboard Bar and Grill and its wonderful baking neighbour the Brownhound, stand out from all the rest of my Irish-oriented food trips (Sorry Cafe Paradiso - you came close) in 2011. I need to refresh my memory with a second trip very soon.  

Terra Madre has already made its mark on me as perhaps the best local restaurant on the northside, if not greater Dublin.  It is definitely the best Italian restaurant (in the purest sense) on the northside, with Plan B having burnt some serious bridges with price hikes no-longer justifiable for a bowl of meatballs and a decline in level of service. Peppe's the "ITALIAN RESTAURANT" in Stoneybatter is a quirky but reputable little venue, but has caved somewhat to the Irish palette...the obsession and need for cream added where it should not - it is by no means a stalwart of Italian cooking ingredients. 

And so to the point - Terra Madre. I booked a table last minute on Saturday night for myself and four good friends - indeed my best-men included.  I had fortunately, or unfortunately, just missed a call from James in Rigby's Deli who had a cancellation but fate drove us to the basement of No. 13 Batchelor's Walk.  When we arrived, we were warmly greeted and I offered up my name for the booking......."Sorry, when did you book?". "Um, two hours ago!?".....as I scanned the twenty of so covers available, none looked like a free table for five. This was not to be a problem. I did not have to beat Ciaran Cuffe out of his seat in one corner, or the table of Italians, who were clearly in some way related by friendship, bed or blood to Marco and the crew who run this little spot. 

But still I ramble. What of the food?  The menu is compact. Two bruschetta, three anti-pasti, three pasta, & one meat.  Either bruschetta would have kept me happy - one with caper sprouts ...a revelation....warmed slightly and dressed with olive oil and the other with Lardo di Colonnata... thinly sliced cured pork fat, again warmed onto the bruschetta.  Both were excellent.  Two of us opted for the anti-pasti - mine a 'carpaccio of porchetta' and the other a 'vitello tonnato'.  I have always been quite thrown by the idea of vitello tonnato - thinly sliced veal served with a tuna mayonnaise.  It sounds like never the twain should 'meat' but oddly it's a great dish and Terra Madre's version would hold its own in any Italian deli I have eaten it in.

I say three pasta but in truth it was one gnocchi and two pasta.  We all opted for pasta - perfectly portioned bowls of fettucine with a rabbit sauce or tonnarello with a pheasant ragout.  You can go wrong with neither but I did prefer the pheasant.  The pasta is a fresh one, which is imported in from Italy, by a supplier who shall remain nameless, because they would not tell me.... but I could take a stab at it. It did raise the question - which is better - fresh or dried pasta?  The answer is - it depends on the dish!

All of this was supported brilliantly by a big Primitivo di Manduria red.  Puglian wines have been a revelation to me in the last couple of years, along with Umbrian.  I will hands-down order either ahead of Chianti's, Barolo's or indeed any other Italian wines. At €20 a bottle for any of the three reds (not listed on the menu), it's a wonderfully simple, uncomplicated way to manage your wine-list.

And this is at its core what I loved about the meal in Terra Madre on Saturday night - it represented the simplicity and straight-forwardness that I love about Italian food culture.  It's not fussy, pretentious or confusing and does not strive to be something else.  Terra Madre is what it is, a room to enjoy good food with good people, just as they do it all over Italy. 

Put Terra Madre on your list of 'go-to' restaurants in 2012. I cannot wait to go back. 

Bill was €180 for five of us, including three bottles of wine. We all had desserts!

Tips - 

- Have an espresso, at very least to taste the chocolate-ness of it....that dry unsweetened flavour you get from 90% dark chocolate.  And then add sugar, for the 70% sweetened version. 

- Have a slice of the fig jam tart - the winner by a margin of four to one. 

- Do book. Phone: 01/8735300

- If you smell pizza being cooked out the back at the end of the night.....do compliment the smells and you might be lucky like us and get to taste it when it's ready. 

Italian love of presentation extends far beyond personal preening!

Via Drappiere, Bologna

Here are a few more shots from my meanderings around Bologna the week before last.  No doubt the Italian love of self-presentation, preening, style and fashion extends through to their food and merchandising! Or perhaps it's the other way around - chicken or egg?  Either way, in and around Via Drapperie in Bologna, displays move from the beautiful to the bizarre......and your stomach growls with hunger and temptation.  

Where's Wally? Waste not, want not

The variety of food available with which to create these presentations is astounding. The average butchers have far more than rashers, bacon, sausages, a few chickens & a side of beef.  The pasta stands include such a selection of shapes and sizes, you can easily eat a different pasta shape every night for a month and only have skimmed the surface of options.  The fruit and veg. stands have such an array of dried, fresh and cured produce the mind boggles at where to start. 

Which mortadella would you like?

What really struck me was, on a street of six or seven fantastic delis, is how you can watch a local shopper work their way from one to next.  They have clearly defined a pattern of shopping that shares the wealth across the retailers but also targets them for specific quality, price or perceived value.  It's fascinating to watch, and reminds me of my Granny (Dad's mum), who would single out the right butcher for the right meat........and if she wasn't happy with it, the butcher knew all about it next time!

Pasta, gnocchi, pasta, pasta, pasta

Tip: If you love Italian food, a long weekend in Bologna is a must. 

Packaging to match the product - Atti's of Bologna

It goes without saying that packaging can make all the difference in marketing a product. From the own-brand factory biscuit to the artisan chocolate maker, packaging sets out the manufacturers stall for how they want their product to be both perceived and priced. For the customer it can be complete trial and error when blitzed with countless options for the same product! 

In Bologna last week in Paolo Atti's deli, I discovered product and packaging that grasped me in equal amounts....and neither let me down. In short, the best handmade tortellini, boxed like I have never seen pasta boxed. Atti's, a fourth generation family business, have been on the go since 1900 and clearly know their customers and their food.

The tortellini were beautifully boxed, wrapped, ribboned with full storage and cooking instructions.  In one minor hiccup, I forgot to ask what to serve them with so I made a simple cream sauce - cream, a little pasta-water as stock, some parmigiano, black pepper and a little nutmeg! Worked a treat.

Clams on a hot stone in Riccione

A small part of dinner in Il Pescatore last night.