Traveller in Ireland – 2018 Cork, in search of the Irish stew
Cork town. We are in Cork because we want to see the Blarney Castle. It’s famous for the Eloquence Stone. They say that if you kiss the stone …, but no, I already talked about that… Check the Blogs section if you missed it.
Cork, a place that seemed to have grown big a bit too fast and the old got swamped in the new.
We are on the road since morning. We check in a cosy B&B, but in town are strong smells from the garbage on the streets. We want local food, the famous Irish stew. We are close to the pub-strip, the host tells us, so we head out in search for a pub for warm food (me) and a cold beer (Ivan). A short walk and we find the street. Burger, fish and chips, pub (no food, just alcohol and a cigarette smoke that comes all the way out), a pizza place, a hotel, Chinese restaurant, Italian restaurant, fish and chips again. Finally, to the other end, oh, bingo, another pub. Decent, and smells good food. But people are queuing to be seated. We wait for a while, but nothing happens, the hostess is somewhere in the hollows of the pub trying to seat some punters. Fifteen minutes later we give up.
We go down the street and we spot an Italian restaurant. Looks really fancy and clean! But no, we want Irish.
Down the street again. Yes, here is another pub. Loud Irish music. Fast and yet soothing Irish folk music.
This must be it! We go in. No food. Beer, whisky and music, all strong in the air. We turn around and go back to try again the pub with the queue. We are the first ones now, but no waiter in sight. He shows up. Yes, I can find a table for 2 but (he looks at a couple by the window), it may take about… half an hour? He finishes the sentence with a question mark. Does he want me to confirm if the couple are done in half an hour? No, we cannot wait, sorry. And we move on, again. Ivan thinks he spotted another pub the other side of the street.
Soon we find it, and there is also a menu on the door. Wide variety of sandwiches. Somebody seated at a table outside tells us there is also Italian food inside. We are hungry and tired. We give up our search and we go in. A traditional Irish pub, the usual pleasant hum, lovely style and indeed – a huge menu with Italian food. We order a beer, a coke and Italian pasta. We are so hungry we completely forgot about the much-wanted Irish stew.
He brings us the drinks, the cutlery and 2 big plates. And we wait.
After twenty-minutes I feel ready to faint and I tell Ivan – they went to Italy to bring that pasta.
Ivan tries a joke, but a man stops to our table. Your pasta orders? We nod happily. And he drops a paper bag on the table. He must have thought that we are rude, we even did not thank him! We were left with open mouths. But the smell? Divine! We take out from the bag two plastic boxes with hot and lovely pasta, one with tomato sauce and one with cream and mushrooms.
Ivan (after he managed to close his mouth) –
-I thought you were joking with going to Italy for the pasta!
-So, did I!
Only now we read the fine print on the menu. ‘Serving Italian food in collaboration with such and such Italian restaurant.’ We recognised the name of the restaurant; it is the fancy Italian that we declined more than an hour before.
We decide to eat straight from the boxes and Ivan is proud to inform the bartender - we saved you the washing!
I did not enjoy the bill, but the food was SUPER!
And this is how we find out that best pasta and sauce are cooked in Ireland.
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