Taste’s Good!
While on a camping trip to Castletownbere in West Cork last weekend, we stumbled on an excellent little deli, Taste, in the middle of the town.
What a treat! From the outside, it looks like a quirky little food shop selling all manner of delicacies from around the world, including some excellent wines. However, venture into the shop and it turns out they have a tiny kitchen ready to turn out all you need for a tasty and quite fancy picnic. Here’s what we had (It’s hard not to drool as I remember this most delicious of lunches):
Hummous wrap made with hummous like none I’ve ever tasted - lovely and creamy, without any of the bitterness I always seem to end up with when I make it at home. Add a handful of (mostly herb) leaves, and for €3.95 you can’t go wrong.
Smoked Salmon wrap made with properly smoked salmon, no trace of the plasticky taste which seems to accompany “smoked salmon” pretty much anything these days. Again the delicious herby leaves and a light natural yoghurt dressing deliver one tasty wrap. I think this was about €8.
Smoked mackerel sushi: Once more, properly smoked fish (perhaps from either Frank Hederman or Ummera?) Even without most of the soy sauce which spilled all over the bottom of the bag, the little rolls were still packed full of fishy smokiness. About €8.
Then a toddler’s delight … Gubbeen lunchbox (€10.95): A little wooden box again filled with the leaves, two sweet and tangy chutneys and a selection of Gubbeen delights; Smoked and unsmoked cheeses, and a variety of gubbeen salamis.
We added some organic lemonades and a lovely bottle of Bordeaux for the campfire later that evening and off we went to scoff the lot in a field while waiting for the cable car to Dursey Island. That’s a whole other story, “bucket on a wire” comes to mind, but charming and well worth the visit, just like Taste.
