SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 5

Welcome to a day off from the poetry tour, so we move digs, rent a boat, eat an incredible meal, and see a badger on the road (alas, no photos), for it seems that all the fairy tale animals of your dreams live in Ireland.

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Day off.

Bed

Early in the trip planning we saw this would be a free day and were considering a drive up north to see things like the Giant's Causeway and the Old Bushmills Distillery, etc. But then David suggested, "It's an area known for its lakes--let's rent a boat!" So all six of us decided to do that, and we needed a third night that our Air BnB could not offer us.

So instead we landed on a place in Blacklion, only about a 20 minute drive from Enniskillen, back into the Republic of Ireland. It's pretty amazing given the history of The Troubles that the border is so porous--you drive across, there's sort of some signs, but the biggest difference is the speed limit, which is in kmh in the Republic, mph in the UK. Note, this change isn't very clearly marked, so when dumb people in rental cars start driving too slowly in Northern Ireland, don't blame us, I mean, them.

Our new place is a whole duplex house in a subdivision that maybe got the green light in the Celtic Tiger era but didn't get finished by 2008--one place nearby had clearly been for sale for some time, its backyard choked with weeds tall as I am. All the commercial storefronts leading into the subdivision are empty, or worse, abandoned with remnant of what they were. Our place was very nice, though, clearly a place no one had ever lived in and only rented out, and way too big for us with four bedrooms. But laundry! Such a luxury.

From the second floor the view caught a bit of a lake, lots of green--you're actually staring back into the UK from the Republic--and cows that in the early morning gamboled about. Seriously. One of the calves pranced about and head-butted his mom. We didn't pay extra for Bopping Bovine Theatre.

Fed

We brought groceries and lunched on the boat. We thought we'd be picnicking on Devenish (it's coming, promise, in Toured), but the bit of the rise of an island in the lot of a lough meant much more bitter wind than we expected. Not conducive to al fresco dining in the least.

But really most of this day's recap is going to be about dinner, because 28 Darling St. I'd put up against most places in LA, even. The chef Glen Wheeler, while still in his early 30s (I'm guessing), has a resume anyone might envy--he was head chef at MacNean House and Restaurant (which just happens to be in Blacklion where we are Air BnBing), long acclaimed as one of Ireland's best spots, working under Neven Maguire. But if fancy Irish cred isn't enough for you, Wheeler has also done apprentice stints at Alinea and Noma, and that he has the drive, and ability, to do so should make it clear he's a star on the rise. The front of house is held down by his wife, Zara McHugh, and service also was that perfect combo of friendly with just enough formal to make you feel special. It's a gorgeous room, almost too much of a room, with a chandelier blingy enough to belong at Liberace's house. But the black and gold flocked wallpaper and that light and the mirrors made it one of those bathed in golden glow spots--it's nice when a place lifts you into its glamor.

But the real star is the food, things like this exquisitely plated beetroot salad with ethereally whipped goat cheese.

Or this simple, simply terrific pea and mint soup with lovage, every one of those flavors bright as a spring day of your dreams.

Then how about this palate cleanser course, playing to one of my sweet spots--a granita of gin (my guess is Hendrick's given flavor #2), cucumber, and elderflower. I don't think a palate cleanser left me a bit buzzed before, but in the best of icy ways.

Chryss ordered off the vegetarian menu to get this, gnocchi that walked that tricky line of being hearty enough to actually have flavor but light enough they weren't pasty in the least.

I opted for lamb, simply hoping to limit the possible number of roadside sheep we could crash the Volvo into. I'm always thinking, I am. OK, I do like lamb, although I order it (medium) rarely as it can often be tough or even a bit dull, like it's meant to be the meat dish for those who don't have the strength of their beefy convictions. Not an issue here, either way--tender, full of that almost gamey quality good lamb has (they get scenic turf to trod and chomp, after all), and then the wild garlic set it off with a friendly funk plain old garlic doesn't have. Plus cos, which is a much cooler name than romaine (cos, rocket--they've got all the greatest greens nomenclature), grilled just enough to find a different cooked key that is brightness and not mush.

And then, we're not always dessert folks, but this was even more delicious than it was art, and it was that plenty. Those are shards of harder meringue, with little toasted puffs of softer meringue, vivid as Technicolor lemon curd, same with the strawberry essence, and then actual berries, no doubt macerated as they were double-plus good. One of those plates you want to lick to finish.

And as good as the food was, even better was the company. For we were treated to this feast by Teresa Godfrey, the poet we first met up in Letterkenny who actually lives in Enniskillen and came to the PLs reading there, too, and Monica Monaghan, cardiologist, and friend to poets. They were clearly regulars (lucky them!) at 28 Darling St., even getting the chef to come out at service's end to chat a bit with us. But as with most memorable meals, the food gets even more elevated when the company is witty, wise, discerning, and charming new fabulous friends.

Poured

There was a gin menu at 28 Darling St., as you might surmise from that palate cleanser course. As is the international rage, everyone does gin and tonics, but I still prefer my gin a-swim with the briefest bikini of vermouth, and given they had Monkey 47, the less it shared a glass with the better. Lovely, bracing, herbal martini to kick the dinner off with. Then I had a glass of wine, I don't remember what. Go back and look at the food pictures. Guess why I forgot the wine.

As for boat-cruising beer, we were in Northern Ireland, so what better than some of the UK's best, Brewdog Punk IPA? Plus, we like punks. (You know, Johnny Rotten is Irish.)

Toured

The boat trip around Lough Erne was lots of slow-knot fun. We joked they made sure the top speed of the boat was barely forward as that's the only way they could send them off with people they didn't test for their ship-shapeness, but it probably was the sad truth too. That did give us plenty of time to take in all the sites, though.

Tops on that list was Devenish Island, where St. Molaise III (or if you prefer Saint Laisrén mac Nad Froích--say that one time sloooowww), founded a monastery in the 6th century. Sad to say, what's standing on the island now at its earliest is from the 12th century--how au courant. But if you want to sense even how long human time is, there are worse places than Devenish.

Good walls make good history. Now, don't be cross with me about that one.

I mean, I can sense your stony face.

OK, enough of that. You do get to go into the 82 foot, 900 year old tower, but only one floor of it. If danger came, you knew it from here, and then you'd pull up all the valuables inside and station John Cleese on a parapet to toss insults. (I get my history knowledge from strange places, sorry.) Here's the view back out the tower door toward the dock and the boats, which look very small. Ours did fit 6 of us, though.

And just to prove why we didn't picnic on the island, here's us being freezing in July in Ireland. But then again, ten centuries blew their cold histories upon us.

After sailing the Lower Lough Erne, which is actually to the north of Upper Lough Erne, as its about how the water flows, not compass direction, we took the River Erne past the town itself, where you get the best view of Enniskillen Castle. (Guess what? We never went inside it.)

We also sailed far enough south to see the Air BnB we stayed at the first two nights in the area. So here's that ruined railway bridge, up close and stony.

And there was a badger in the road that night, I promise. He looked as startled to see us as we were to see him, as he briefly paused as if deciding whether our bumper was tasty. Instead he just made his unhurried way to the other side of the A4, a two-lane highway only a Meles meles could love.

Go ahead to the post on Day 6 (Bellaghy, Cookstown).

Go back to the post on Day 4 (Enniskillen).

SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 4

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That's David, Paul, and Chryss and the Santa Barbara city flag, at Blakes of the Hollow Pub in Enniskillen.Yep, it's really named after William Blake, but nope, not that one--
Catherine Blake, grandmother of the current owner, named it for her son William when she bought the spot, already open for 50 years, in 1929.History, I tells you.

Here they met with and read with the Fermanagh Writers Group, doing their round robin thing for a bit, then letting the group do a round robin or two, too. So we got to hear quite a range, from finely crafted light verse to much heavier political prose poems and all sort of things in-between. One of their readers managed to work in a different instrument (flute, fiddle) each time he took his turn. Not surprisingly, a pub helps blur that line between music and poetry a bit. Our agenda put it plainly, but this phrase actually means quite much: "compensation: fellowship with Irish poets." Indeed.

Bed

Here's a different view of the place we got to stay for two nights (such a luxury on this whirlwind adventure), as you would see it from the dock on the River Erne. Those little gable windows were ours.

Fed

Having an actual place to stay with a kitchen meant we packed in some groceries and simply had great bread and even better butter for breakfast, as we knew this day, like most, would more than likely become a rolling feast.

So for lunch we ate at the Stables Tearoom at Florence Court (see Toured). I also offer up Stables Tearoom as a particularly UK kind of oxymoron. For what's basically a cafeteria in a historic site, the food was pretty tasty, as perhaps the photos suggest here, balsamic drizzle abounds across our two very different salads, but there's good ingredients at the dishes' roots, which there better be as you can buy produce from the estate's garden at the gift shop. As the spot was home to generations of Earls of Enniskillen, we had to eat cake, too.

Dinner was at Cafe Merlot, the restaurant tucked under Blakes of the Hollow, as we figured we couldn't get lost on the way to the reading then. (Plus, it seems easy for Irish dinners to stretch, so the less time it took to get from dinner to reading the better, we learned.) It's a quite opulent space, arched brick ceilings, marble floors--not exactly what you'd expect to come across at pub-bottom.

And then the food started with plating like this, that evening's antipasti platter, as they billed it. What you see top to bottom is a perfect little prawn, a mushroom tarragon bisque you instantly wanted as your whole meal, and a delightful smoked salmon.

I ordered what was not just a special but truly special, a duck confit salad with rocket (such a better name than arugula, no?) and pistachio that looks lean on the duck but its flavor was so deep and rich the mix was an exquisite balance.

Then for my main I thoroughly enjoyed  roast fillet of hake with pepperade, Parisian potatoes and asparagus. We'll get to how ugly hake are whole in a photo in a couple of days, but they make a delightful, full flavored flaky whitefish when cooked, especially when cooked so well, the skin crispy, the flesh tender but far from hammered. That pepperade added color and crunch, especially as it included very fresh tomatoes for acid grip. Who doesn't want some asparagus and pea shoots on a plate when possible? And then Parisian potatoes--hey, don't blame your potato obsession on the French. (They were yummy, sure.)

Vegetarian-leaning Chryss was more than happy to try the Thai green vegetable curry featuring haricot beans, basmati rice and fried red skin peanuts, the last two so special they get their own bowls (hey! we're important!). A rewarding, warming direct dish.

Cafe Merlot also offered one of those early bird deals, this time billed a Pre-Theatre Dinner, which is close enough to pre-poetry to work. App and main for just £18.95--beat that, USA.

Poured

Once again we had a very pleasant, chatty, aiming-to-please manager/owner(?) giving us advice on drink. Oddly, given they're under the pub, they only have Guinness and Heineken on tap, and of course given the name we probably should have had wine, but there is no Irish wine, is there. So because his wife is German, and he said for a long time you could only get this beer in Germany so he was proud to have it, he suggested this.

And that's how we had German lager in Northern Ireland. Fine for what it is, and at a meal there's a purpose to a beer that roots quietly from the culinary sidelines and doesn't hop bomb your taste buds to death.

We also went local, with this Inish Mac Saint Fermanagh Beer, a bit more heartier ale than the lager, made at a brewery right on the Lower Lough Erne. A bit of a 'tweener beer, a pale with some Belgian notes, like, perhaps, a saison without the strength of its convictions. Solid enough.

Toured

Chryss and I drove the 8 miles out of Enniskillen to explore the grounds of Florence Court, a countryside estate that's part of the National Trust. Just like the Hearsts figured out owning Hearst Castle would hurts-so-bad their finances, so left the mansion to California ("but we'll keep the land for grazing and vines, thank you very much"), the landed wealthy in Ireland and England know when to give up their ancestral homes. That does mean the current creatures who live there seem quite at peace. Just ask the birds and the beefs.

The place itself defiantly thumbs its nose at historical accuracy if you care to decide how and when it all got built, who the architects were, and that's sort of lovely for something so grand, to the point its history does feature someone billed the Dowager Countess. Even better, one of the highlights touring the grounds (once again, we only did that, especially since here all the furnishings have been brought it from elsewhere) was finding the grave of Nelly Woolly, the children's beloved dog.

Otherwise, there was a lot of green--indeed, the Irish Yew that has propagated all Irish Yews in the world is here--plus some more gardeny gardens that made us, uh, green with envy.

Our, perhaps, we simply wanted to get the job of gardener, as here's the Gardener's (Rose) Cottage. Not bad digs.

Although you'd think you'd get a riding mower for a place like this.

Afterward, back at our Air BnB, we did some exploring by the River Erne, and discovered we were actually next to a theater complex, too, the Ardhowen, not that we had time to indulge. But we did get a better look up the river to where a rail bridge clearly once ran.

And while standing on the dock, got visited by a family. Dad made sure he looked fearsome, and we weren't quite sure if he was shaking us down for treats or simply saying no one messes with his cygnets.

Go ahead to the post on Day 5 (Enniskillen, Devenish Island, Blacklion).

Go back to the post on Day 3 (Letterkenny, Enniskillen).

SB Poets Take Ireland: Day 3

Welcome to a day where we saw a lot, including our rental car's "check tire pressure light," which we finally figured out you could just reset on the car computer. But given trying to figure out how many miles/kilometers you'd driven on the same dash was so hard it took two guys at the rental agency to figure it out when we showed back up in Dublin with our Volvo S60, we didn't end up feeling too badly about being slow. (Not that that later knowledge helped us when we had views like this from the car while our dashboard blink dire dread.)

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Didn't. That part's easy.

Bed

Late in the day, but amazing, the top, very garret-y floor of a house right on the River Erne between the Upper and Lower Lough Erne. But, with all that, really a mere 5 minute drive into downtown Enniskillen. Everything you want an Air BnB to be--seemed just renovated or built, too, so very clean and fresh. And then this view.

Happily, we would be here two nights, almost a luxury on this trip.

Fed

We started off with the buffet breakfast included at the Dillons Hotel, full of Irish breakfasty things like sausage and rashers and potatoes and grilled half tomatoes (they were at every breakfast, some better grill-melted than others, and we grew to love them).

Lunch was leisurely, mostly as the one server in the very uncrowded Arnolds Hotel Restaurant in Dunfanaghy (see Toured below) disappeared a bunch, perhaps in search of the missing apostrophe in the establishment's name. Still, it was a lovely respite with a view of a gorgeous garden, which happens in summer in a place that has this unusual thing called rain. (Perhaps that's an Irish word.) We didn't take photos of the food, I'm not sure why, but I had a ploughman's lunch, as I had to as I'd been in the country for three days, hadn't had one yet, so risked deportation. The key to this cheese sandwich is not really the cheese but the relish, and theirs was very good, both sweet and pickly at once. Chryss had an open-faced salmon sandwich that went down swimmingly.

Dinner came at too much car time/cranky time, so we were happy to end up in The Horseshoe and Saddlers, the upstairs more bistro-y, less pub-y part that had a very proud display of its desserts including mighty, the size-of-your-head meringues, we did not partake of. Instead we chowed down on some pretty straight-ahead and pleasing food, because that's the kind of place it seemed to be--steak and seafood, horseshoes and saddles. I went for the sizzling T-bone with tobacco onions that came to the table like fajitas. Very tasty, especially because you could order Bearnaise, and to their credit, they didn't nickel and dime you or whatever you do in Pounds and make you pay for the sauce extra (I hate that). Plus, who doesn't love an unhealthy mound of skinny fried onions?

Chryss had the Cajun spiced salmon fillet over a bed of sweet chilli noodles and stir-fry veg, a bit of a cultural mish-mash, but tasty, as many different cultures know how to cook and the English (remember, this is the UK now) know how to steal from other cultures with the best of the Imperialists.

The manager (owner? I really don't know) was quite chatty and friendly, complete with his visit to CA story to tell us. (People like telling you about coming to our state. I get it.) Certainly a bargain meal, if nothing else, as that 14 ounce steak was just $26 and the salmon, a whole dish, please note, and not a naked entree asking you to get vegetables at $10 a pop, cost $19 (I did the conversions for you).

Poured

At lunch it looked like they had Kinnegar Scraggy Bay on tap, but unfortunately their draughts were on the fritz, so I had one in the bottle. Still, quite good, low enough in alcohol for day drinking, yet in a 500 ml bottle, so you can order one and feel you've had enough. The Irish really do having drinking down.

As for dinner at the Saddlers Bistro & Wine Bar, well, you see what's there at the end of that name, yes? Somehow it had a wine menu that made no sense to me. There was clearly wine by the glass, but none of those were marked (I ended up with 1 LRG GL RED for 4.70£). Not that I'm mister somm savvy, but when I can't tell if the pricing is by the glass or the bottle (or some carafe system not introduced to me?), it perturbs me. Especially when one of the listings is simply Chateauneuf du Pape, no vintage, no producer, and it's ridiculously affordable. Oh well.

Our favorite drinking experience of the night was checking out the off-license sales from The Horseshoe downstairs after dinner. Having never done it before, I asked the friendly barkeep what to do, and he said follow me. We all went into a 8 x 8 foot room off the bar. On one wall was a cooler with a depressing selection of beer. But behind our barkeep was Irish whiskey, so that clearly was the correct call, especially when a  375ml bottle of Powers sold for a mere $15. We nightcap nipped from that for the rest of the trip.

Oh, and the best part of the off-license was discovering that our couldn't be more than 25 years old barkeep wanted to move to the U.S., but to northern Texas or Oklahoma. Our quizzical looks about that location led him to explain--he wanted to become a tornado hunter, even knew a friend who died as one, so he felt he had the other guy's unfinished business to do. We got a lot for that $15 bottle of booze.

Toured

While still in Letterkenny, we decided to explore a bit, given there was a church like this one, on a hill, as that's what the religious do to lord over you, after all.

I'm just happy to see that first, it's named for two saints, as if just one won't do, and second, it might be named for two because St. Eunan and St. Columba, well, is there such a thing as D-list saints? (And here we pause to hear my mom turning over in her very Catholic grave. Sorry, Mom.) We do love us some old graveyards, though.

And a view, who doesn't like those? (That was the typical Irish sky, by the way; perhaps a threat, but more likely just posing for dramatic effect.)

Then we decided to test our ability to drive on roads that look like bike lanes, heading as north as we could go with an ultimate goal--to loop Horn Head on the Wild Atlantic Way (rejected slogan: if the sea spray doesn't dampen you, you might just wet yourself). That's how we ended up at lunch in Dunfanaghy (see above), where a group of horses, some clearly island ponies (that's what more horse knowledgeable Chryss called them, don't ask me), strolled in across the shallow bay like some mirage.

As a place where sky, land, and sea meet at odd angles, Horn Head is high on the sublime list, indeed, making one wish one had purer poetic thoughts to even scratch the capture surface of something so stunning. Here's a photo of it, not doing it enough justice, and then some people in the way of the view, as it's the 21st century and that's what humans do now.

I've never been more north; that's something. (And yes, I'm wearing a t-shirt from Australia, when I'd been most south, for what that's worth.)

And as spectacular as that was, the view back down from the Head across the bay to Dunfanaghy, if you like how people add to the landscape, well, not bad.

So we drove, headed for Glenveagh National Park to hike about Lough Veagh.

We fell in love with it lough, stock, and castle, especially as it had a dog. (Our dogs never bring us flowers, but then again, they're not made of stone. That would make them a tad bit quieter, I'd imagine.)

OK, the real story of the castle is a downer. While it's been part of a national park and open to the public since 1986, its original builder/owner John Adair kicked with police help over 240 tenants off their land that he wanted to be his. Somehow he wasn't much liked. He died in 1885, only 12 years after the castle was finished (justice? health care Republicans hope we can have in the US soon? you decide), but his wife kept beautifying the place, especially with all the pesky peasants out of the way. So, yes, verdant gardens.

You can hike a lot around the castle, which we didn't go in. But from the right vantage point, you can seem so much greater than a mere mansion on steroids.

Go ahead to the post on Day 4 (Enniskillen).

Go back to the post on Day 2 (Letterkenny).