Eden Bar and Grill [Updated]

Edited and updated: Eden, what was once a staple of beautiful Meeting House Square in the heart of Dublin’s Temple Bar area, has recently gone through a bit of a shake-up. After a decade of service, the owners closed briefly, while secretly enlisting the help of celebrated, chef duo Yannick Van Aeken and Louise Bannon (formerly of Copenhagen’s NOMA) to develop something unique and new for a relaunch. The restaurant then re-branded as NEDE last year and won applause for it’s facelift.

Then it all came crashing down and quickly closed, while the celebrated chef duo severed all ties with the restaurant. It now lies eerily abandoned in one of the most prosperous and beautiful areas of the city. You only have to take a quick glance at the final few tweets of the restaurant’s Twitter account to begin to understand what was going on behind the scenes.

However, all hope is not lost. Eden had a second guise, within a property located on Dublin’s trendy South William Street, in the fast-growing Cultural Quarter of the city. Though it was created much later than the original Temple Bar location, this second Eden premises (now the sole location) is the Bar & Grill to the former’s Restaurant and is seemingly and unfortunately not as well known or talked about. It’s more casual and informal, but with a precise, and elegant attention to detail, throughout the service, food and design. What’s more, it certainly deserves to be talked about and experienced as completely separate from the  ‘Nede’ entity…

The Stuff of Fantasy; a London Food-Filled Weekend

The weekend before last we spent basically the entire three days consumed with food.

For the weekend, which was surprisingly sunny after a welcome return from the yellow ball in the sky, we visited the #Feast London Foodies Festival in Battersea Park, the inaugural Streatham Food Festival and Street Feast in Dalston.

Spice Burgers: A Craving

Russell here for this post. When we lived in Dublin, we were very lucky to be so close to Leo Burdock’s, which is one of the best chipper chains in Dublin, if not in the whole of Ireland. It was the instant choice whenever there was no food in the house or we just felt like a lazy supper. Safe to say neither of us were ever disappointed by the selection or satisfaction. There were two things I knew I’d miss when I moved to the UK and they are a good pint of Guinness and an Irish chipper takeaway; this week I missed the latter quite a bit.

Source: LeoBurdock.com

Recipe: Chilled Cheesecake

Patrick here, with a recipe for the weekend.

I recently got a huge craving for Oreo cookies. Those typical American treats, of the ‘milk and..’ kind. Oreos are deliciously satisfying, with a duo of crumbly yet firm, chocolate biscuits sandwiched with a sweet frosted filling. What I love about them is that suspicious tang that they have, an almost salty after-tang. I’m sure that’s additives or preservatives or something, but the less I know to interrupt the enjoyment, the better.

What I craved was not a single Oreo, but something more – an Oreo dessert. I thought about it for a while, yet couldn’t quite find enough inspiration to really think outside the box. So I developed an idea to use Oreo as a base for something, and what could be a simpler? A cheesecake.

Wondrous Wahaca

It’s no surprise that the two of us have a love for Wahaca. We have made no secret of our enjoyment of the Mexican street food eateries, often talked about on Twitter or in previous blog incarnations. We have yet to document our Wahaca experience on the blog, so here goes.

The Joint, Brixton

Funnily we should have ended up in Brixton again, eating burgers…

Just a short post about eating (again) in Brixton Village. Last Saturday night, a balmy and buoyant evening, we visited our family across the Thames as Patrick’s sister and boyfriend arranged for us all to meet up and break bread as it had been an age since we had see each other. Little did we know we would end up in an already established favourite of ours – Brixton Village Market. You may remember our post from last month on the great chicken ‘n’ cocktail emporium across the road on Arcade Row, Wishbone.

The Joint is a hipster haven and where other establishments have been all style and no substance (a fur coat and no knickers, if you will – how often do you get to use that turn of phrase on a food blog? Probably rare for a reason, but we had to take the opportunity!), this eatery is certainly full of substance. Though, however kitsch, slapdash and ‘of the moment’ this burger joint is, you can’t slack on service, lads. Read on…