I was all over the map in 2023. Literally so. In January and early February, the whole family was in India, spending time in Delhi, Agra and Goa. In March, I went off to Seoul for a week. In late-April I was in New York and New Jersey for a few days. In the summer we all went off to Europe for an extended stint, spending three weeks on vacation in Italy and another six on work in Ireland. And then, finally, in October, the missus and I took a weekend trip to New York. That’s a lot of traveling and a lot of restaurant meals. And, of course, we ate out at our usual once-a-week clip while in the Twin Cities metro. So my selections for my best restaurant meals of 2023 draw from a wider geography than usual (the really unusual thing is that we did not get to Los Angeles at all this year). I’ve divided the list up first to separate more expensive/formal places from less expensive/more casual places but the top five list draws from both categories. A few more Twin Cities-centered lists follow after that. Continue reading
Category Archives: Ireland
Bastible (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Here, finally, almost exactly four months after our return, is my last restaurant report from Dublin. We spent six very nice weeks in the city across July and August, and had some very nice meals (at Fish Shop, Mister S, Sichuan Chilli King and other places). This dinner at Bastible was, however, easily the best of our meals in Dublin, and indeed it was one of our best restaurant meals of the year (I’ll have the full list this weekend in my year-end post). The main thing that drew us to Bastible over various other contenders in its price range—not cheap but not crazy expensive either—was the fact that it was just about a 10 minute walk from where we were living. But I can tell you that if we ever go back to Dublin, we’ll be happy to take the bus across the city to eat there again. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Sichuan Chilli King (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Only two more restaurant reports to go from our stay in Dublin this summer, and they’re both from places we really enjoyed. The first is a place we ate at twice as a family, and I went back a third time as well with a group of students in tow: Sichuan Chilli King. I had little idea before arriving in Dublin as to what the non-Irish and European food scene would be like. If I’d been asked, I probably would have said that I had low expectations of Chinese food in the city. And our first Chinese outings—dim sum at Ka Shing and Good World—would have mostly borne those expectations out: they were decent meals but nothing more. I certainly was not expecting to find good Sichuan food and so we did not have our hopes up on our first visit to Sichuan Chilli King: we went mostly because it was the start of our third week in Dublin and we needed some heat! As you can guess from the fact that there was both a second and third visit, we in fact liked the food there very much. Herewith a brief report on all three meals. Continue reading
Delahunt (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Back to Ireland, back to Dublin. The missus and I ate two high-end dinners in the city. By “high-end” I mean contemporary Michelin-bait restaurants. While Delahunt—unlike the second place—does not currently have a Michelin star, you will find it to be very much in a familiar one star genre now found pretty much all over the globe, particularly in the West. The setting is casual, evoking an unspecified vernacular aesthetic, while the cooking is fussy and mostly presented in the form of a tasting menu. This tasting menu seems spare—the one at Delahunt lists six courses—but unfurls to reveal a number of secondary flourishes and curlicues. The unkind might describe the effect of much of this as revealing a sort of culinary attention deficit disorder in the kitchen and encouraging it at the table. There is so much going on that it’s hard to be taken by very much of it. But this, as I say, is a problem with the genre writ large, not just at Delahunt. Nonetheless, it’s the general feeling we left the meal with, even as we enjoyed many elements of it. Herewith, the details. Continue reading
Duck (Dublin, Summer 2023)
It’s been a while since my last restaurant report from our trip to Ireland in the summer. That most recent report was of a lunch centered on seafood, at King Sitric, in the coastal town of Howth, just about 30 minutes by train from Dublin. Here now is a meal eaten in Dublin proper, centered on Hong Kong-style barbecue or roast meats. Duck is located on Fade St. right by the George’s Street Arcade, and just around the corner from the excellent Asia Market—and not very far, for that matter, from either Good World or Ka Shing. It is a tiny operation. The room has seating for maybe 20 people, either around a larger communal table in the middle or at the narrow counter that rings the three walls around it. The fourth wall is taken up by the counter where you place your order and pick it up when it’s ready. It’s not a place to eat in at if you’re a large group—and even if you’re a group of four, your chances of getting seats together are higher if you show up right when they open at noon. After that they fill up quickly with solo diners on their lunch breaks. Not surprisingly, most of their business seems to be carry-away. The four of us did sit down. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
King Sitric (Howth, Summer 2023)
Back to Ireland, but not quite to Dublin. I’d said I might have a report from the fine dining end of things in Dublin this week but I seem to have misplaced the notes I took on the dishes at that meal. So while I scramble to find them, here is a quick look instead at a seafood lunch in Howth, a lovely seaside town, just about a 30 minute train ride from the center of Dublin.
We had been planning to go to Howth pretty much every weekend since we arrived in Dublin, but between a busy schedule and bad weather it didn’t end up happening till almost the very end of our stay. But we did make it out there on a lovely sunny Sunday in August and it was a lovely day. We spent the morning walking one of the longer trails along the cliffs of Howth, and when we descended to the town, we were ready for lunch. That lunch was at King Sitric. Continue reading
Dim Sum at Good World (Dublin, Summer 2023)
As previously reported, our second meal out in Dublin involved dim sum. We ate on that occasion at Ka Shing (on Wicklow St.) but only after being turned away at Good World (on George’s St.) because we didn’t have a reservation. Good World is Dublin’s premier dim sum restaurant and the one that shows up on all the lists of Dublin’s best Chinese restaurants. On weekends you will need a reservation. Accordingly, we made one for the following weekend and showed up again. We’d been pleasantly surprised by the dim sum at Ka Shing the previous week—our expectations had not been high—and I am pleased to say that we enjoyed Good World even more, on the whole; though there were a few things we preferred at Ka Shing. Herewith the details. Continue reading
Mister S (Dublin, July 2022, August 2023)
Back to Dublin, back to another restaurant that I ate at both in the summer of 2022 and in the summer of 2023 (Fish Shop was the other). I first ate at Mister S (located on Camden St. Lower in a hotbed of hip places) in July 2022 when visiting Ireland for program planning. I ate dinner there with a colleague. In August 2023 I was in Dublin for a longer period, this time for the program we had been planning in July 2023 and I ate at Mister S again; this time, with an old food forum buddy: we have known each other, we calculated, for almost 20 years online but only met for the first time this August. She now lives in Germany but visits Ireland often on work and happened to be in Dublin for a few days towards the end of our stay. Both meals were very good indeed. I took notes from the earlier meal last year but never got around to posting that review—and so here is a combined report. Continue reading
Fish Shop (Dublin, July 2022, 2023)
Back to Dublin for the first of my reports on non-Asian food eaten there (my previous reports have been of Persian/Kurdish food, dim sum and South Indian food). This report on the very popular Fish Shop on Benburb Street actually covers meals eaten across two summers. The family and I were in Ireland for six weeks this summer on an off-campus program I was co-leading; and the previous summer, my co-leader and I had visited for a week to survey the scene, as it were. Somehow I never got around to posting any reports on the eating done on that trip—perhaps because I got Covid when I got home and lost track of a lot of things. Anyway, my colleague and I enjoyed our dinner at Fish Shop in July 2022 very much indeed, and there was not much doubt that I’d go back to it again on the longer trip with the family in tow. And so it came to pass that we ate lunch there in July 2023. Here’s a quick look at both meals. Continue reading
Dosa Dosa (Dublin, Summer 2023)
My encounter with Indian food in Dublin on this trip did not get off to a good start. In the first week I visited an Indian grocery in the vicinity of Trinity College (where my classes were being held) that had a “street food” counter. The things I ate there ranged from marginal to execrable. I was subsequently warned online by various desis about the quality of Indian food in Dublin. Nonetheless, I decided to try Dosa Dosa, a counter at The Place, a fenced outdoor lot that is home to a number of stationary food trucks. The little I’d read about them had intrigued me and it was conveniently located (I didn’t have an office on campus or access to a microwave so needed to eat lunch out on most teaching days). If it was good, I’d be able to hit them up for lunch between classes and get a good brisk walk out of it. How did it go? Well, I am glad to say that I liked their food enough to come back two more times. Continue reading
Dim Sum at Ka Shing (Dublin, Summer 2023)
Our first meal out in Dublin featured Persian/Kurdish food (at Passion 4 Food). Our second meal out featured dim sum. I’d done some cursory googling on Dublin’s Chinese restaurant scene and the consensus seemed to be that Good World on Georges St. was the place to go. Accordingly, we went there; only to discover on arrival that we needed to have made a reservation. Casting around for a fallback option, I came upon another restaurant just a few minutes walk from Good World: Ka Shing on Wicklow St. We sauntered over and were glad to be told that they could seat us. Herewith a report on the meal that followed. Continue reading
Passion 4 Food, Twice (Dublin, Summer 2023)
I’m a couple of days behind with my restaurant reports. I was supposed to post my first Ireland restaurant report and another Italy report over the weekend and did neither. And so instead of the promised Twin Cities report, here is my first report from Ireland. It’s a good thing I don’t write this blog for a living and also that nobody really gives a shit when I post anything. Anyway, our travels this summer took us from Italy to Ireland. I’m far from done with my meal reports from Italy but figured I’d mix some Irish content in to switch things up a bit. And what could be more Irish than a Persian/Kurdish restaurant? No better way to begin the Irish reports, I say. It’s also an appropriate way to begin the Irish reports because Passion 4 Food was the location of both the first and last meal we ate out on our six-week Irish sojourn. Which is not to say we ate those meals at the same restaurant. Continue reading
My Annoying Opinions 