FENN'S QUAY

FENN’S QUAY

Fenn's Quay, for quite a while now, have been offering early birds and supper menus. What could they offer now for Dine-in-Cork Week? Got the superb answer last evening, supplied in some style by Head Chef Kate Lawlor and her crew who gave classy value for each of our twenty five hundred cents.

Six starters plus two specials posed the first choice. Had a warm chicken salad with crispy potato skins and a sweet chilli dressing. A day previously I had enjoyed a warm chicken salad at an out of town venue and it was fine. But this was a whole class ahead. Superb also was our other starter, a Smoked Mackerel (by Frank Hederman) Pate, with toasted breads and pickled vegetables.

The advisor ordered the grilled plaice with colcannon, butternut squash and celeriac  and it was another winner. I too hit the jackpot with my Escalope of Marinated Irish Chicken breast with herbed basmati rice, shredded vegetables and a cool raita dipping sauce, an international combination that felt just right in this old corner of Cork.

Kate’s cousin Kevin Crowley had been tweeting all and sundry all week that their Rhubarb and mascarpone tart with a chocolate biscuit base was a winner. We are using our own rhubarb at the moment. But we trusted him, we still do. It was absolutely superb, beautifully cooked and well presented.

Enjoyed the meal and the coffee that followed. Oh, by the way, Kevin is the wine expert of the trio that run Fenn’s Quay, cousin Kate and partner Pennapa are the other two, and we wanted sometime tangly and tingly and so choose the Cantosan Verjedo 2008 from Spain. Blurb says “delicious fresh flavours of zingy pineapples with touch of peach.” I got the latter while Kevin himself said pineapples. As I say, he is the expert. In any case, it was tangly and tingly.

So no argument there and no argument whatsoever that this was delightful meal, one of the best we’ve had during a busy Dine-in-Cork Week. It was very busy on this Friday at Fenn’s Quay but there was no sign of stress at all as the crew, including our smiling April, kept the show going with their usual efficiency and friendliness, not to mention the classy food.

No wonder Fenn’s Quay will be well up on our list when the Dine-in-Cork experience is repeated in the autumn.