With a lot of effort, I found a restaurant called The Pig's Ear. Behind a narrow doorway with a black awning that you're sure to pass up if you blink, lies a modest one room, eleven table establishment that would have a line out the door had it been in San Francisco. 2-course lunches (€15,95) and early bird 2-course dinners(€19,95) that are a revelation at what's to come in Dublin.
Our meal started off with Ireland's mainstay, brown bread and butter. Our starter was a salad consisting of black pudding, transparently thin apple slices, fingerling potatoes, watercress, garlic aioli and it was all served on a wood cutting board. The mild black pudding was like chocolate cake with steel cut oats lending a toothsome quality and there was no metallic taste of blood. A contrast of modern, traditional and rustic. Brilliant.
Organic Irish Salmon, tiny shrimp, sea beans, almonds on a bed of potato puree and finished with a lemon butter jus. This is exactly what I was looking for. It was contemporary and clean, but took advantage of the abundant natural resources that Ireland used to export, seafood. The Salmon was still opaque in the center, the skin crispy. The buttery jus was light and seemed to cleanse your palette after every bite, preparing for the next.
Homemade brown bread ice cream with yellow man. What's yellow man, you ask? It's a honey comb. Crushed into small bits on top of our ice cream, loaning a sort of bitter and burnt note that would be unappetizing on its own. But, with that sweet and creamy ice cream, it turned into a nutty component.
This place is amazing and I just hope that Dubliners are realizing what a jewel they have in the city centre.
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