CURRAN'S

CURRAN’S CHEF SCORES
CUSTOMER WINS

I have never been let down in Curran’s in Adelaide Street. I have been in there with parties big and small and never a complaint.

The latest visit produced the same result. Good friendly service and top class food, well prepared and at a decent price.

Guidebooks regularly recommend that you check out the Plat du Jour when you are on holiday. I wasn't on holiday but I did take the Chef's Special on my most recent visit to Curran’s. I’m glad I did.

It was pan-fired monkfish, accompanied by vegetables (spinach, carrot, onion – cooked to a perfect point, not too hard and, the spinach excepted, not at all soft), and laid on a bed of potatoes with mozzarella and served with a rich lemon sauce. It was a tasty and substantial treat for €24.95, a bit more that I would like to pay for a main course but well worth it on this occasion.

The wine, which cost €17.95 for the bottle, was a Pinot Grigio Chardonnay from Italy (Pasqua). It was dry and crisp, a hint of green apples in the taste, and went extremely well with the monkfish and the rich sauce.

Dessert was a Pavlova with fresh fruit. They do a good Pavlova here, the real thing, but the fruit, while nice, could have been a bit more exotic. There was just too much apple in it.

All in all, another enjoyable visit to Curran’s. The restaurant has an upstairs room for large parties. I had one there last year and I was glad to see it fully engaged the other night with sounds of joy and laughter coming down the stairs.

Verdict? 9.75 out of 10. Now if there had been more variety in the fruit that accompanied the Pavlova….

GROUP NIGHT OUT

Celebrating with a group? Where to go?

Got a celebration coming up? An anniversary, a birthday, a modest Lotto win? Where do you take forty or fifty people in Cork? Here are three suggestions.

Curran’s in Adelaide Street is one. I was there late last year for a 60th with about 30 people. We were accommodated in an upstairs area, which we had to ourselves. You can have a set menu (with a certain amount of choice) or you can go a la carte. The service and the food are excellent and the restaurant also has a good choice of wine and beer (some of which is on draught).

Most recently I was in the extremely comfortable and spacious Kingsley Hotel on the Carrigrohane Road. The celebration here was in the Arc suite. The bar is just outside the room but there is ample table service for drinks. This was a full three-course meal, plus tea or coffee and it was a great night. The only disappointment was that the rack of lamb was mostly underdone and had a high amount of fat.

The barbecue at the Silversprings Hotel is also worth considering. They have a grass area with garden furniture, overlooked by a patio, all backed up by a spacious room indoors. Just as well the room was available on our visit: the weather broke at just the wrong time and we all had to move in for the food.

It was typical barbecue fare: chops, kebabs, hot dogs and salads. It was top class and, with the very reasonable €15.00 a head tariff, very good value indeed. There was no bar in the room but the main bar is very close and they will carry your drinks to your table.

Morans have re-furbished this hotel in recent years but I remember working with PJ Hegarty Ltd in the foundations in 1962 . I had special permission from the ITGWU (thanks to Gerry Cronin in Connolly Hall on the Lower Glanmire Road) and was paid four shillings and ten pence an hour, two pence more than the general worker. I operated a steel-bending machine and helped the steel fixers. This as regarded as semi-skilled work and that was why I got the extra few pence. It was good money for a teenager on his summer holidays.