Quinlan’s Triple AAA Grade Specials

Quinlan’s Triple AAA Grade Specials 

Quinlan’s Fish Cork are serving up superb specials these days, enhancing an already excellent offering of fresh fish from their Kerry boats. Many of you will have enjoyed their treasures from the sea in the shape of John Dory, Cod, Hake, Halibut and more and seafood such as squid, crab, mussels, prawns, and scallops. Everything from delicious black sole to humble but satisfying fish (choices) and chips.

New chef Fred Desormeaux has upped the specials ante though with about four new ones every day. And I made it my mission to try them out when we called in last week. We got our info first hand, had our cards marked so to speak, as we sipped a Three Wooly Sheep New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with its forward tropical aromas, delightful citrus and passion fruit flavours and crisp finish, perfect for the fish!

That Triple AAA Grade Pan-fried Tuna Steak, on Spanish Style Potatoes & Homemade Salsa (the chef’s own salsa), was a huge temptation, irresistible! Triple AAA is the grade for the very best of Tuna and makes it is suitable for sushi. It is an amazing dish with an equally amazing salsa, one of the very best. Go for the medium-rare. It's perfect. CL enjoyed that, every little bit. Well, not every bit as there was no shortage of help from my side of the table.

My pick was something of a classic: Duo of Seared Scallops, Crab & Dublin Bay Prawns With Cream Cheese, Spinach & Black Sole Paupiette, Celeriac Puree, Confit Duck Croquette Potatoes, Saffron & Beurre Blanc.  Another high class offering and those Confit Duck Croquettes had me a little puzzled in advance but they fitted in perfectly. The scallops could well have been rated Triple A and you’d have to go even higher to put a grade on the Paupiettes, softly delicious with the cheese, the spinach and the crab and prawns.

Other specials on the night included Fresh Rigatoni Pasta (With Prawns, Gubbeen Chorizo, Cherry Sun Blush Tomato, Baby Spinach, Cream, Parmesan & Garlic Bread) and also Fred's Red Thai Curry (Monkfish, Peppers, Red Onion, Curry Leaves, Lemongrass, Lime Juice, Tomato, Coco Milk served with Coriander Basmati Rice). And another recent Fred’s Special was the Land & Sea dish of Pan-fried John Dory with Slow cooked beef cheeks served with Pea & Smoked Bacon Risotto Rice with red wine jus.

While the ingredients and make-up of the specials change often you can rest assured, they will be special, the perfect treat! 

On the starter list, there’s soup and chowder and shellfish figure prominently - the Portmagee Crab Bake is a favourite of mine. We wanted to concentrate on the main courses and so decided to share a starter of Sizzling Portmagee Crab Claws (tossed in Garlic Butter & served with Sourdough Bread). Excellent!

And the dessert was shared too. We took the recommendation of the Bailey’s Crême Brûlée and that too was spot-on perfect, a soft and delicious finalé to one of the best meals in recent months. Very comfortable venue indeed and excellent friendly staff too who’ll help you make your choices.

Quinlan's Seafood Bar

14 Princes Street Cork, Ireland T12 K2HWOpening Hours12:00 PM - 9:00 PM Sun-Thu;12:00 PM - 10:00 PM Fri-Sat.