Meal Box Review: Thoughtful, hot, ready-to-eat dishes This fancy restaurant food arrives ready to eat, so be sure to have your table set
about 23 hours ago
I’m not sure I’ve ever had pickled elderberries. Which seems strange, because little has escaped the fermented, pickled and cured charge of young chefs intent on squirrelling away hedgerow morsels to stash in look-at-me Kilner jars. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve never had pickled elderberries used in a way where they literally ping.
Fermented organic celeriac, with confit duck egg, wild garlic pesto and pickled elderberries (€9) is a starter that clearly has plucked a leaf from the new Nordic playbook, and if you scrutinise that line-up, it becomes apparent why the humble elderberry has been called upon to add some lofty notes.
Drink outside the box
Boxofwine.ie is an online wine subscription service that delivers three bottles of wine, curated to the buyerâs taste preferences, for â¬49 a month. Complete a brief questionnaire on the website and then an algorithm decides on the contents of the first box, after which feedback on the wines is taken into consideration in selecting the contents of subsequent monthly deliveries. The boxes also include tasting notes, information on the vineyards, and food pairing suggestions.
The venture, set up by Conor Duggan, Neil OâReilly and Conor Mulligan last year when the pandemic interrupted their careers in hospitality, also offers an online shop. For Motherâs Day they have a box that includes Champagne, cava or wine, plus Skelligs chocolates, a Celtic Candle and pillow mist, socks from Sock Society, Dalkey hand-made soap, and Three Hills lip balm (from â¬65). Gift subscriptions are also available.
The last family holiday we took abroad was in Italy, in summer 2019, which as we all know, feels like a century ago. After landing in Naples, battling our way through the streets to find our Airbnb, we were just about in time to make lunch, so bailed across the street to the nearest trattoria, which of course, served pizza. Yes, I know, pizza in Naples, its spiritual home. It was near impossible to order anything else for the rest of the time we were there. It was that good.
Unlike the Romano, which has a thin, crusty base, the Neapolitan, which is cooked more quickly, is softer and has a thicker, raised crust. This style seems to be getting all the love these days, bolstered to a huge degree by Pi, which opened in Georges Street in Dublin, in 2018 and was described by The Irish Times at the time as the best pizza restaurant in Dublin.