DINING OUT

  Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ cookery school in Firies has a recipe for fantastic fish cakes… Thai food is one of my favourite foods to cook.  It is so unique in taste as you often have salty, sweet, spicy and citrusy in one dish. Thai fish cakes are simple […]

Darcy’s Restaurant Barrack Lane TRALEE gets a bad rap when it comes to high-end restaurants. Everybody talks about the culinary delights of Dingle, Kenmare and Killarney and while it could be argued that there could be more high-end restaurants in a town of its size, we are still serviced by […]

Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ in Firies has some great pancake recipes for this Shrove Tuesday… Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent – the 40 days leading up to Easter – was traditionally a time of fasting […]

Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ cookery school in Firies has something special for pasta lovers… CONTINUING the theme of healthier eating, this week I have shared a lovely pasta dish that is a hit in our house, as is most Italian food. Olive oil-based pasta sauces are much healthier than […]

  Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ Cookery School in Firies has this great healthy salad recipe… IT seems that everybody has made healthier eating their new year’s resolution this year. I needed baby spinach for a dish this week and found it impossible to get any, everyone must be starting […]

Allegro Restaurant Castle Street Now here’s a real trip down memory lane! The Allegro, in its previous home on the corner of The Mall and Denny Street, was an essential meeting spot for many who went to secondary school in the 80s and 90s (and possibly before that, I can’t remember). My […]

Baily’s Corner Castle Street I’M pretty much down to the last few places in town for the ‘Out To Lunch’ column, but I left one of the town’s institutions towards the end. Garry O’Donnell has been serving up lunches to the people of Tralee since the ‘Croppy Boy’ was, well, a boy. […]

Kate Browne’s Ardfert A NEW year and another meal out. Over the course of the past eight months, I’ve  just about covered every place there is to eat lunch in town, so I decided to venture further afield on the first day of January. This isn’t really a lunch review as […]

Charlie’s Bar Kerins O’Rahilly’s Clubhouse RIGHT. This week’s review is a tough one because it’s a little too close to home…literally! I live in ‘Narieland’ so the Kerins O’Rahilly’s  clubhouse is a place I go to quite a bit for a pint, to watch a football match and have a […]

B Bar The Brandon Hotel IF these walls could talk. I’m in the B Bar in The Brandon Hotel on a cold and wet Thursday and I’m remembering the nights of old when Spirals was but a short walk out the double doors from The Fiddler into debauchery (not that […]

‘Dish’ Russell Street THERE’S a real feel around town now that Christmas is around the corner. The crowds are in the town centre, East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’ is slithering out of the speakers and it’s getting colder. ‘What better to warm up the body than a Mexican dish’ I […]

  Our food writer, Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ cookery school in Firies, on a great veg for this time of the year… Parsnips are in season from the end of October until February and are great for Autumn and winter comfort food dishes. They are the perfect compliment  for […]

THERE will be a chance to get into the Christmas culinary spirit tonight (Thursday) in the Fels Point Hotel and all for a great cause. Weeshie Fogarty will act as MC at the annual Garvey’s Food Fair, which will see a range of food-related activities put on in aid of the […]

The Pikeman Bar Grand Hotel, Denny Street THE grand old dame of Denny Street, eh? If you were to ask anyone in Tralee where they were to go to for an absolute ‘safe’ option for lunch, chances are they’d send you to The Grand. Of course, this is a compliment […]

Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ cooking school in Firies, on the ugly duckling of vegetables… The poor old Celeriac certainly wasn’t at the front of the queue when good looks were being given out. But don’t let that but you off trying this ugly, but truly delicious and versatile vegetable. […]

The Leebrook Bar, Ballygarry House Hotel WE’VE had some rain this week! And, unfortunately, it finally started to get cold as well. The first two weeks of November is one of the most miserable times of the year (along with all of January and the first two weeks of February) as the […]

Our food writer, Mark Doe, on a vegetable which can go with most dishes – the Butternut Squash… Butternut squash is a very versatile Autumn vegetable and if cooked properly (as in not boiled) is full of a lovely sweet flavour. It can be used as a side vegetable to game […]

La Scala Abbey Court NOT for the first time, our wonderful climate influenced my dining option this week. I was on my way back to my car to head off to a hotel outside town for a bite to eat, when the heavens opened and I was caught in a […]

TRALEE  businesswomen, Doireann Barrett, owner of the  ‘Gluten Free Kitchen’ has been invited by the EU Commission to be a guest speaker at  a conference in Potsdam, Germany this week. She will be one of the  guest speakers at the Tradeit Bakery and Brokerage Convention in Potsdam, Berlin, to discuss their […]

Oysters are in season and our food writer, Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ in Firies, describes how to buy, open and cook them to perfection…  Oysters, you either love them or hate them. I haven’t always liked oysters, but discovered how good they are whilst working in Australia. Australia now […]

The Mercantile Bar Manor West Hotel I FOUND myself in Manor last Thursday. Me and the rest of Kerry it seems. At about 1.20pm a parking space was harder to find than a Narie on a bus to Killarney this Sunday. From now until the first week in January, Manor will […]

Chopin’s Cafe And Restaurant Ashe Street I’VE already extolled the attractions of an Ashe Street establishment some months ago with a review of Mozarts. Of course it’s not the only cafe which takes its name from a classical composer. O the same side of the street but just on the […]

IT’S been a good week for two local hospitality businesses who received glowing compliments in national and international media. The Sunday World gave The Roast House a 5/5 review while Ballygarry House Hotel received high praise in The Irish Post, a UK weekly newspaper aimed at expats. The Sunday World’s ‘Grub Spy’ critic […]

Our food expert, Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ in Firies, on the artistry involved in cooking with chocolate  Working with chocolate is something that takes years of practice. It takes a special kind of chef to work with chocolate. Like perfect chocolate masterpieces, they need to be cool and well […]

Kirby’s Brogue Inn Rock Street I HAD intended on writing an ‘Out To Lunch’ on tour this week, seeing as I was ‘out foreign’ this week but then I had a change of mind. It’s not much good to readers of this column to be extolling the culinary delights of […]

  A TRALEE man, who has been a head chef in restaurants all over the world, has been awarded the top honour of ‘Masterchef’. Ballinorig native, Noel Keane, is head chef in Darcy’s Restaurant in Barrack Lane, Tralee, which has been nominated for numerous awards over the last year. Now […]

  A MIGRATION of Tralee foodies will happen next month when the 2oth anniversary of the Listowel Food Fair takes place next month The mouth watering programme of events, for the week-long event from Monday November 17 to Sunday November 23,  includes a Gala Dinner and Awards, Craft Beer Symposium, Farming Seminar, Best Emerging […]

Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ In Firies, has a great recipe for braised red cabbage… With the Autumn here and Winter just around the corner, I thought now is the perfect time to share my braised red cabbage recipe with you all. I love to serve this cabbage with game, […]

Denny Lane Bistro Denny Street I SEEM to be running out of places to eat in Tralee. I found this out while walking around town one afternoon, searching for an eaterie about which to write a review and finding I’d already covered about 22 places so far. Then I remembered Denny Lane. […]

Our food writer, Mark Doe of ‘Just Cooking’ in Firies asks is cooking without salt really a nightmare for chefs? OK, as I chef there is one thing I love in food, and it is the correct amount of salt. Under-seasoned food can be bland and I often see people […]