What We're Reading, Eating & Watching | August 14th
A delicious digest of satisfying suggestions
Hey friends,
Another edition of our free monthly digest where we’re shining a light on some of the best things we’ve eaten, cooked, enjoyed, listened to, watched or read that hopefully will inspire you. This is more of a highlights reel of what we might ordinarily share on social media, so think of it as the Greatest Hits of that particular month! Thanks for your support for Chip Paper so far, whether you’ve signed up as a premium subscriber or just enjoying the free emails and snippets –– we appreciate you! You can always delve back into the archive for each month’s recommendations, and annual subscribers can enjoy the whole hog for €1 a week!
Eating…
We’re just back from a week in Scotland and Glasgow (the likeliest candidate - we believe - to host Eurovision 2023 next May) blew us away. We’d been before, four years prior on a quick whip-round in late winter, but Glasgow exceeded our expectations so much so we bookended our entire time in bonnie Scotland by exploring there. From punchy pan-Asian small plates drunk with Chin Chin vinho verde at GaGa Kitchen + Bar to effortlessly cool, refined Italian with ‘breakfast martinis’ at Celentano’s. Incredible food-led cafes like Outlier for pastry-fuelled breakfasts and Kaf for a take-out lunch with silky coffees. We had a great affordable tasting menu experience at Eighty Eight (and great flat whites next door at Hinba Coffee Roasters) and also splashed out on seafood in several fine forms at Shucks.
More locally, we finally made the pilgrimage to Grainne O’Keeffe’s Mae at long last, and a welcome return to the forever-amazing Chimac for fried chicken burgers with a Korean twist. Likewise a long-awaited return to Griolladh in Malahide for their grilled cheese, which cured a hangover incrementally bite-by-bite. We also had great experiences in Italian spot Bell Pesto in The Liberties and a mid-week dinner in Bryanstown Social in Drogheda. We managed to nab the last three pastries The Rock Bakery in Skerries had to sell one of the days last week. Always sensational. If in the area, we heartily recommend Potager –– click through to our recent review, below.
At home, we’ve been having a moment with tomatoes –– totally ripe, plump, juicy and fit to burst. A tomato salad or pan con tomate is a daily devotion right now. In fact, we’ve been eating mostly vegetarian and vegan for the last month in the welcome heat. We’ve yet to have a Mammy Salad™️, which feels like a major oversight on our part…
Watching…
We’ve just finished rewatching The American Barbecue Showdown on Netflix for the second or third time, particularly because of the balmy weather we’re having and the urge to BBQ non-stop. We really recommend it as a high quality, no expense-spared US competitive food show streaming production, and an example for many others to follow. We’re eagerly awaiting a second season. What’s freshly exciting, though, is Street Food: USA –– the offshoot of the popular food docu-series from Supper Club Studios which began with Street Food: Asia in 2019 and introduced the world to the likes of Yunsoon Cho and her hand-cut Kalguksu noodles in Seoul’s Gwangjang Market, Jay Fai’s flamed crab meat omelettes in Bangkok and other food producers, chefs and dishes from the likes of Taiwan, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam.
A second volume, Street Food: Latin America, followed in 2020. Brian McGinn, David Gelb and Jason Sterman are the trio behind the Netflix exclusive and are also the ones who brought Chef’s Table to the masses following their break-out production, Jiro Dreams of Sushi in 2011.
We’ve rarely met a Nordic Noir we didn’t adore, and we’ve been hankering for one for a while as we’ve gone through so may (The Killing (Forbrydelsen) on Amazon, The Bridge (Bron) also on Amazon, and Borgen on Netflix –– though that’s more a political drama akin to House of Cards than than a Scandi thriller) and Trom came through to scratch that itch. Set in the Faroe Islands it follows a line of corruption, murder and abduction and, whilst it’s a bit slow moving even across a short six episodes, by the end it found its feet and had us engaged ‘til the end. We watched on BBC iPlayer.
& Reading…
We’ve been a bit lax on our podcast listening this past month, but our eyes have been enriched by a couple of great reads, like why the McPlant was a gamble McDonalds in the USA took and lost on Bon Appétit, and Cúán Greene’s take on sustainability in cheffing rather than solely ingredients, on Ómós Digest.
And finally, we’ve appeared in a couple of papers over the last few weeks –– some summertime recipes from us in the Business Post and also our travel tips on Lisbon as part of Nicola Brady’s piece in the Irish Independent Weekend Magazine on Ireland’s top chefs and foodies and where they eat on European holidays.
Lovely read as usual, do you have the recipe for that tomato salad - it looks amazing!!!