Pleasant Times Again At The Four Liars. Arabic Coffee And Superb Baklava Finalé

Pleasant Times Again At The Four Liars
Arabic Coffee And Superb Baklava Finalé

Baklava

We are sitting here in Cork’s famous Shandon at the end of an early evening meal and we agree that the Baklava we are enjoying is the best. Indeed, one of us is newly converted having found previous versions just too sweet. But this is not packed very tightly packed - it has the pastry layers for sure - and also seems fresher. I wouldn’t very much about the Mid-eastern sweet but this is delightful and very highly recommended.

A terrific desert (€6.00) then and it goes down well with my Arabic coffee. This is influenced by cardamom and comes in an open pot that you pour yourself. I also enjoyed that. Just reading the menu, you may well think that €3.50 is a bit much but the pot will give you two fine cupfuls.

Kibbeh

The restaurant is the Four Liars and it has recently been taken over by two Syrians, Abdul Khallouf and Ahmed Saqqa. They’ve been told the story of the four liars (the clocks on the four faces of Shandon tower that disagree), liked it and decided to keep the name.

Falafels

Their plan is to treat you to Syrian dishes. So the menu features food from their country which is of course, like all cuisines, influenced by the food of neighbouring countries. And many of you will be familiar with the likes of mezze, fattoush, hummus and the aforementioned Baklava.

No doubt, some visitors will not be that keen on dishes on the menu with strange sounding names (some un-translatable) but they’ll be catered for with more familiar fare such as Pizzas, Burgers, wings, wraps and so on.

But I’m anxious to try something from Syria and am puzzled when my order for Syrian Kibbeh gets a big thumbs up from Abdul. It is only later I find out that this is the Syrian national dish, a dish of many versions.

It is also a dish of many elements, an enormous plateful. The Kibbeh consists of lamb meatballs (tasty, aromatic), with tabbouleh, hummus, baba ghanouj, and spinach samosa (very tasty and crunchy). More like a starter and main course in one! 

CL likes her Falafel and so ordered Falafel Platter: five chickpea croquettes with herb and tahini sauce, salad, hummus and their own pitta bread. The “crust” of the falafels was a touch on the hard side but overall it was a very flavoursome dish indeed, the salad veg chopped a little rougher than we’d expect, hummus and bread excellent. And great value for a tenner.

Best of luck to the two entrepreneurs who have just started here - they also do takeaway by the way. It is a work in progress, some tidying up to be done around the premises and perhaps the service needs a little more alertness but overall interesting food and good value once again in the Four Liars, a place where we were regulars about 25 years ago! Still some souvenirs around the place from those days but also some new items such as the shisha pipes.

The Four Liars  

O’Connell Square (alongside the Butter Museum)

Dominick Street

Cork

Tel: 083 080 8283 

A slice of Cork Food History. A walk; then a superb lunch in Jacques.

A Slice Of Cork Food History

A walk; then a superb lunch in Jacques.

Firkin Crane, with Butter Exchange on right.

Saturday last was that little bit different for members of the Munster Wine and Dine. No bus needed this time. A walk through some of Cork City’s old food (and drink) sites was followed by a lunch in Jacques where the menu gave an occasional nod to food from the past.

The walk, more of a conversation on the move really, began near Seamus Murphy’s Onion Seller sculpture in Cornmarket Street and  threw up a few surprises. 

The first was the delight of some walkers who were seeing the Saturday Coal Quay Market for the first time. And another delight came up in Shandon where sweets from the local sweet factory were distributed. Gaps of anticipation as the bags of Bull’s Eyes, Clove Rock, Butter Nuggets, Pear Drops, Rhubarb & Custard and other old time favourites appeared!

There were some differences as to the highlights - one walker loved the Seamus Murphy Dog Drinking Bowl in Patrick Street where the stroll finished - but there was general agreement that the powers that be need to get their act together about the Butter Exchange area, an area packed with history, that badly needs renovation and that has the potential to be a major tourist attraction. One suggested that a good power-wash would be a start.

Certainly much more needs to be done and quickly before the Exchange and its Portico fall victim to the march of time or the match of the arsonist.

Kilbrack Farm in the market

While some of the history touched on stretched back over the centuries, some was quite recent and when we reached the site of the old Whitaker's Hatchery on Camden Quay, we had first hand knowledge passed to us by ex-employee Aoife McCan. She told us all about the day-old chicks that were dispatched by bus all over the county and beyond.

But it was her tale of the “turkey sexer" that really surprised everyone. Apparently it is not easy to tell the difference between the genders. But some people have the gift! And Whitaker's had to book their expert well in advance and get him in from England when the turkey chicks, destined for Christmas market, were being born. Nobody wanted the “tougher” male turkeys, so the “sexer’s” job was to weed them out.

The Kiln Rover once flowed past Whitaker's but that part of it is now enclosed underground. We went up towards the brewery to get a glimpse of its waters. And another walker was able to tell us that the brewery and a nearby distillery (St Johns, long closed) would have had an argument or two about their use of the Kiln River’s water.

If you missed the walk, I have published my notes for it here and you may check it out for yourself. And if you want to get some of those sweets, note that the factory is open Monday to Friday, not on Saturday.

Pickled mussels

Huge queue at Jacques as we arrived for lunch but it was at the other side of the street heading to see Cillian Murphy in Crane Lane. A welcome glass of Longueville House cider as we got to our seats and than an immediate bite from the past: pickled mussels, apple, nasturtium. The pickling was a method of preserving them.

We had a choice of starters and I picked one of the old ones: Lambs kidneys, smoked potato purée, raisins, pine kernels, red wine. A blas from the past. The Barry’s here buy quite a share of their vegetables from the Kilbrack Farm stall in the Coal Quay market - we had stopped there earlier - and the Kilbrack beetroot was featured here with Ardsallagh cheese.

Lambs kidneys

Dave Barry’s Queens turned up in my mains which was a delicious fresh Hake, with seaweed butter, those spuds, and sprouting broccoli. Also available were Confit Duck (with pearl barley), Leg of Ham (with colcannon) and more.

And dessert was largely foraged: Carrigeen mousse and in-season blackberries. As we walked out on to the street, the rain had started to fall. We didn't mind too much as it had stayed dry for the walk!

Hake

If you missed the walk, I have published my notes for it here; you may like to check it out for yourself.

Dessert