What We're Reading, Eating & Watching | August 2023
A delicious digest of satisfying suggestions...
Hi friends, welcome to another edition of our free monthly digest shining a light on some of the best things we’ve eaten, cooked, listened to, watched/streamed or read recently that we hope will inspire you.
Watching
We haven’t been able to bring ourselves to watch S15 of MasterChef Australia yet, even though as it’s a shorter season it’s already concluded Down Under and we’ve already had the winner spoiled. Usually we keep up as it broadcasts weekly in Australia via dodgy streaming links but due to judge Jock Zonfrillo’s untimely death the day before the season premiere we’ve just had a mental and emotional barrier on it. The season will be landing on UKTV Play/W from next week, Monday 7th August, screening weeknights at the respectable time of 7pm so you can plan your dinner around it. We’ll be watching with excitement and the weight of a heavy heart.
Meanwhile, obviously we’ve binged the entirety of The Bear (Disney+, Hulu) and adored it. Maybe even more than season one, and we already are voracious for a season three. Naturally we’re keeping up with And Just Like That… too (Now TV, MAX) to a far lesser degree of excitement or interest. One final recommendation if you haven’t come across it yet is kind-of Million Pound Menu meets MasterChef: The Professionals with a bit of Great British Menu and Dragon’s Den thrown in. It’s called Five Star Kitchen.
The premise is professional chefs with a restaurant concept compete over several weeks and different challenges to win the contract to open their concept in the historic Palm Court restaurant at London’s iconic Langham Hotel. The judges/mentors are Michel Roux Jr, Ravneet Gill and Mike Reid. It’s enjoyable, short and sweet (just six episodes) with some fairly high stakes, good personalities and some great cookery with a dollop of drama too. For our American readers, it’s streaming on Netflix as ‘Five Star Chef’ but for our UK/Ireland-based readers, you can catch up on Channel 4.
Eating
We kept our heads down with work in July (whilst shielding against the biblical daily downpours; why has summer been forsaken?) but we did manage mini weekend trips to Waterford and Belfast. More definitive dining updates in next month’s digest but we *DID* just book another trip to Lisbon in mid-September. For those who have followed us online for a while you’ll know Lisbon is a major love of ours and a destination we’ve covered extensively. Our guide to Lisbon on GastroGays.com and this 13 Places to Eat in Lisbon Reel have been so well received (and used!) over the last couple of years.
Over on the Sunday Times Ireland, July was a bumper month of five Sundays and our spread ranged from Connemara to Rosslare, Dungarvan to North County Dublin. We covered three street food icons: Misunderstood Heron for Ireland’s most picturesque street food perch; La Cocina Cuevas’ new dine-in menu of Cali-Mex dishes at a converted container on a family farmyard in The Naul; and Eunice Power’s brilliant modern fish and chips concept, AndChips in Dungarvan.
In between those we headed to the stunning Sea Rooms, the new destination restaurant at Kelly’s Hotel in Rosslare and A Fianco, Grano’s little sister wine bar in Stoneybatter. Don’t forget –– Paid subscribers have access to our exclusive map of restaurants we’ve written about around Ireland, below 👀
In further Sunday Times news, Patrick has been penning a lot more travel for the paper –– from 13 iconic places to dash to when the sun (eventually) shines across Ireland to a mini series of ‘36 Hours In…’ itineraries. First was a Guide to Cork, then a Guide to Dublin, Galway follows this weekend then Belfast the next. Super handy, succinct, suggestion-packed itineraries for different cities across the island of Ireland.
For Russell’s solo escapades for Dublin Delish (tune in every Tuesday, 10:30am on the Suzanne Kane and Brian Dowling show on Dublin’s 98FM) this past month he’s been to: Nomo Ramen for noods, split opinion by showcasing comfort favourite coddle at The Gravediggers and dropped anchor at The Salty Buoy, popping up in Skerries all summer. He’s covered 20 spots in the city/county so far, catch them all over on our Instagram.
Reading: Substack
Keeping the love within the platform, here’s three fellow Substack writers and publications we’ve been enjoying reading recently.
We found Gabrielle de la Puente’s article People of the Salt on
so compelling, covering a topic (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or PoTS) which we know so little about in such an irreverent, informative, all-encompassing way. We felt every bit of frustration in the piece, but we also felt optimistic by the end that the same recipe challenge she set herself before long Covid diagnosis had transferred to this new food challenge for herself.Our great mate and sommelier supremo Adam Lovell has just started his
writing about wine in his unique way. Based in Portugal and devout to the wines of the Iberian peninsula, check out one of his first pieces Fuck, I Love Chardonnay for similar grapes and alternatives to one of the World’s favourite grapes.If a deep dive into pancakes sounds like your kinda way to have a good time, don’t miss
by Beth O’Brien which documents her deep-dives into recipes. The recent fluffy pancake post is super, and will most definitely deliver you to the kitchen at once to fry some fluffy flippers.As ever, a little “Thanks!”
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