Wednesday 7th September
Thornton's on the Green, Fitzwilliam Hotel, Dublin
I'm been a very bold food blogger as I haven't updated the blog in a couple of months, and it hasn't been that I haven't been eating out. In fact I've eaten out a lot, a quick summary would be FOAM just behind the Millennium Bridge by the bean bag shop (lovely quirky decor and although I will go back many times, t'is for the atmosphere rather then the food), Seagrass on Portobello bridge for a friend's birthday (set menu, great value at 19€ for 3 courses, massive portions, but pretty slow service.) Rotana Cafe, the lebanese right next door to Seagrass (nice mezzes, small enough portions however but the batata hara are very good.) Again cheap and both places are BYOB or in Seagrass's case you can buy wine by the glass. And then I've been to Da Mimmo for both sit in and take out, this little Italian on the North Strand has been my very favourite place to eat in Dublin at the moment. But it deserves its own entry which I must do soon. So today I'm going to discuss the tasting menu I had for my birthday in Thornton's on the Green.
Myself, my sister and my sister's partner had been on a wine tasting course last year, run by the Corkscrew on Chatham Street and very good it was too. Since then the brother in law has been on another course and as his birthday is also in September (just a few days between the two), when my sister saw the Corkscrew advertisting this tasting menu in Thornton's with matching wines, she thought it a perfect gift for both of us. I was more than happy about this, but was concerned that veggie's may not be catered for, so after a quick call to Chris (of the Corkscrew) we were assured it would be no problemo, so all was arranged. So on the night of September 7th ( a school night unfortunately) we put on our glad rags and got a taxi to Stephen's Green. We should have checked the exact location of the restaurant as it took us almost a full circle (not good in heels) of the green to figure out that it was in the Fitzwilliam hotel.
So once inside I recieved the real birthday surprise in that the boy was standing there waiting for me in a suit!!! It was such a shock, but extremely romantic, and I was very touched indeed. He had been in secret liasons with my sister and the Corkscrew and had spent all day walking round Dublin in his borrowed suit as he couldn't go back to my house. In fact I'd been pretty grumpy to him on the phone earlier in the day, thinking him in London and not in Dublin, so I was delighted to see him there, such a lovely birthday present!
So on to the food, I had intended to write this up the day after or even two days after, but what with the boy over and my mother's 70th birthday celebration at the weekend, I neglected to do so, and then it got put of longer for one reason or another. Due to this I regret that I have lost all information on the menu and the wines we had and my memory is patchy on some of the dishes. So apologies for the very vague description with is about to follow, but I fully intend form here on in to write all future blogs as soon as possible after the event in order to be specific. The wines were all from a Italian vineyard and the woman who owned the place spoke about each wine as they were introduced to us (again, apologies as I can't remember the names of the vineyard or the wines). None of these I found spectacular although the Chardonanny was very nice and unfortunately there was no dessert wine.
We all had the same starter, which was the above. It was a mushroom terrine and it was wrapped in what seemed to be a seaweed gel. It was ok, the mushrooms overy woody I found, the jus was nice, a little bit marmite-y almost.
For some reason I have no image of what I eat instead of the hake that everyone else had for the fish course
This was my very interesting main course, it liiked like a little garden. It was a potato and onion lasange, with an interesting broccoli jelly and lovely dried vegetable crisps with looked like little tress or seaweed. Very delicious.
Dessert and petite fours next, a lovely chocolate truffle for dessert suspended in a foam and the petite fours were lovely too.
Thornton's on the Green, Fitzwilliam Hotel, Dublin
I'm been a very bold food blogger as I haven't updated the blog in a couple of months, and it hasn't been that I haven't been eating out. In fact I've eaten out a lot, a quick summary would be FOAM just behind the Millennium Bridge by the bean bag shop (lovely quirky decor and although I will go back many times, t'is for the atmosphere rather then the food), Seagrass on Portobello bridge for a friend's birthday (set menu, great value at 19€ for 3 courses, massive portions, but pretty slow service.) Rotana Cafe, the lebanese right next door to Seagrass (nice mezzes, small enough portions however but the batata hara are very good.) Again cheap and both places are BYOB or in Seagrass's case you can buy wine by the glass. And then I've been to Da Mimmo for both sit in and take out, this little Italian on the North Strand has been my very favourite place to eat in Dublin at the moment. But it deserves its own entry which I must do soon. So today I'm going to discuss the tasting menu I had for my birthday in Thornton's on the Green.
Myself, my sister and my sister's partner had been on a wine tasting course last year, run by the Corkscrew on Chatham Street and very good it was too. Since then the brother in law has been on another course and as his birthday is also in September (just a few days between the two), when my sister saw the Corkscrew advertisting this tasting menu in Thornton's with matching wines, she thought it a perfect gift for both of us. I was more than happy about this, but was concerned that veggie's may not be catered for, so after a quick call to Chris (of the Corkscrew) we were assured it would be no problemo, so all was arranged. So on the night of September 7th ( a school night unfortunately) we put on our glad rags and got a taxi to Stephen's Green. We should have checked the exact location of the restaurant as it took us almost a full circle (not good in heels) of the green to figure out that it was in the Fitzwilliam hotel.
So once inside I recieved the real birthday surprise in that the boy was standing there waiting for me in a suit!!! It was such a shock, but extremely romantic, and I was very touched indeed. He had been in secret liasons with my sister and the Corkscrew and had spent all day walking round Dublin in his borrowed suit as he couldn't go back to my house. In fact I'd been pretty grumpy to him on the phone earlier in the day, thinking him in London and not in Dublin, so I was delighted to see him there, such a lovely birthday present!
So on to the food, I had intended to write this up the day after or even two days after, but what with the boy over and my mother's 70th birthday celebration at the weekend, I neglected to do so, and then it got put of longer for one reason or another. Due to this I regret that I have lost all information on the menu and the wines we had and my memory is patchy on some of the dishes. So apologies for the very vague description with is about to follow, but I fully intend form here on in to write all future blogs as soon as possible after the event in order to be specific. The wines were all from a Italian vineyard and the woman who owned the place spoke about each wine as they were introduced to us (again, apologies as I can't remember the names of the vineyard or the wines). None of these I found spectacular although the Chardonanny was very nice and unfortunately there was no dessert wine.
We all had the same starter, which was the above. It was a mushroom terrine and it was wrapped in what seemed to be a seaweed gel. It was ok, the mushrooms overy woody I found, the jus was nice, a little bit marmite-y almost.
 |
| The nice Chardonnay |
 |
| The hake |
Finally must mention about the lovely warm bread rolls served at the start. Would I go again? yes I would, Chef Thornton himself came over to the table at the end of the meal to see how it was. I said how nice my veggie was and he explained how his wife and one of his children are veggie also so it's important to him that veggies are well catered for. In fact the boy thought my meal was probably superior to what the meat eaters received, so that's always a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment