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.

The Mad Monk. A Superb New Restaurant. By Quinlan’s Seafood In Killarney’s Plunkett Street.

The Mad Monk. A Superb New Restaurant 

By Quinlan’s Seafood In Killarney’s Plunkett Street.

The other week, just off Killarney’s main drag, I made one of the finest seafood catches around. Hadn’t seen this in the Cork outlet that I visited a few weeks earlier but made my business to get my hooks into their Portmagee Crab Bake when I spotted it at the bottom of their starter list.

The superb Portmagee Crab Bake comes in a Tomato and Avocado Salsa salad and with sourdough bread for mopping up! You won’t come across a crab bake in many restaurants in Ireland and the one here is well worth checking out. And you’ll be lucky to happen on one as good as this.

Hake

The new premises is very attractive. It is spread over two floors giving a total of about 80 covers. The family seafood business is based in Caherciveen, Co Kerry. Kerryfish was started in 1963 by the father Michael Quinlan and has now been passed down to the second generation of Quinlan’s, Liam, Ronan and Fintan. And expansion is always on the agenda here. They have shops and restaurants all over Kerry and beyond and you probably know that the Cork premises has also been enlarged and improved! 

The menu starts with a page of specials and you’ll see the same info on a board on the street. Terrific range of fish on offer, usually with both starter and main versions. Portmagee Oysters, Dingle Bay Wild Squid, Sizzling Deep Water Atlantic Prawns, Portmagee Crab Claws are regular features. Excellent dishes of Hake, Salmon, even Sea Bass are also on the mains menu.

Our other starter was Dingle Bay Wild Squid (deep fried locally caught squid served with “our famous homemade sweet chilli jam”). You also get a well presented salad. It was probably the best squid I’ve ever tasted, soft and easy to eat and no hardening towards “rubber” at all from start to finish. And yes that Sweet Chilli Jam is every bit as good as they claim.

I was keen to try a white fish main dish and got my chance with the delicious Pan Roasted Fillet of Hake on a tomato chorizo, spinach and bean cassoulet with herb potatoes. A perfect backing accompaniment that lets the fish shine.

Our other mains was the Pan Fried Fillet of Salmon and that came with Lyonnaise Potatoes, Asparagus, Carrot Purée and Basil Pesto. The fish, a very generous serving, was spot on, well cooked and the dish neatly presented.

Salmon

We didn’t have the Fish and Chips on this occasion. In Quinlan’s, as indeed in some other places, you get a choice of fish. In Killarney,  we could pick from Whiting, Plaice, Haddock, Cod, Hake or Goujons.

There’s a full bar here, plenty of wines, more white than red understandably, and most of them available by the glass. Delighted also to see they had an ale and stout from Killarney Brewery on tap, along with a few bottles. A glass of that refreshing ale, very flavoursome too, went down well with the hake.

They do offer meat dishes here (and I’d bet they are of a good standard) but if you like your fish then Quinlans is a very good choice indeed. Very Highly Recommended.

Also on this visit:

Killarney National Park

Bray Head Walk on Valentia Island

Kells Bay Gardens and lunch at Sala Thai

Lunch on the way down at The Mills Inn, Ballyvourney.

The Lake Hotel

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Delighted With Catch At Quinlan’s Seafood Bar in Cork

Delighted With Catch

At Quinlan’s Seafood Bar

Enjoyed a terrific fish lunch, squid and prawns the highlights, at Quinlan’s Seafood Bar in Princes Street (Cork) last Tuesday (15th Feb 2022). Not the best of days weather-wise but certainly a cracking meal in a beautifully renovated and expanded premises which now has another entrance on Oliver Plunkett Street to add to the existing one. And, of course, a restaurant with quite a few outdoor tables, well covered, for when the weather improves.

The family seafood business is based in Caherciveen, Co Kerry. Kerryfish was started in 1963 by the father Michael Quinlan and has now been passed down to the second generation of Quinlans, Liam, Ronan and Fintan. And expansion is always on the agenda here and they have shops and restaurants all over Kerry and beyond!

I was surprised on arrival at about 1.00pm to find the “old” part of the restaurant pretty full for Tuesday lunch. But soon they found a table for us - lovely staff here - and there was no delay in bringing the lunch menu. You’ll find much the same dishes as part of the evening offering but it is an expanded one and do watch out for their seasonal offers. Lobster and Black Sole specials were available in recent weeks.

Their own fresh fish is the basis of what they offer and they handle it very well indeed. I found it hard to get past the list of tempting starters. In fact, I didn’t, as quite a few of them are also offered as main courses. Fish and chips are also on the menu but in Quinlan’s you get a choice of fish. The plaice was off on our visit but we could still pick from Whiting, Haddock, Cod, Hake or Goujons to go with the chips.

I started with Dingle Bay Wild Squid (deep fried locally caught squid "served with our famous homemade sweet chilli jam"). You also get a well presented salad, all for 10 euro. It was probably the best squid I’ve ever tasted, soft and easy to eat and no hardening at all from start to finish. And yes that Sweet Chilli Jam is every bit as good as they say.

CL was meanwhile enjoying her Thai Fish Cakes (cod, salmon, spring onion, coriander, chill in a Panko Bread Crumb, served with salad and Asian aioli) . A pair of really high class fish cakes (€9), beautifully and moderately spiced while the Panko and aioli were also perfect.

That starter list is full of good things, including chowder, sandwiches and hot dishes. None much hotter than the Sizzling Deep Water Atlantic Prawns (fresh Atlantic prawns in olive oil, chill and garlic, served with sourdough) and again there is a salad on the plate as well. The starter version is €12.00 and the mains (my choice) is €18.00.

It is a cracking dish enhanced by that flavourful and moderately spicy liquid. Having enthusiastically extracted every single one of the prawns, plump, slightly crunchy and sweetly juicy, I continued the enjoyment by dunking the sourdough and mopping up the juices. Just one tip. Don’t dive in the minute it arrives, count to ten, at least. It really is sizzling!

Our other mains was the Pan Fried Fillet of Salmon and that came with Lyonnaise Potatoes, Asparagus and Basil Pesto (18 euro). The fish, a very generous serving, was spot on, well cooked and the dish neatly presented.

Of course, they do desserts as well but having fed so well on the earlier dishes, we declined on this occasion. They have a selection of wines and beers and lots more in the bar (in the new section). If you want to go fishing in Cork, you know where to go now and you won’t be alone in this popular venue.