April 10, 2014 Dublin – Winding Stair, and art museums

April 10, 2014 Dublin – Winding Stair, and art museums

We started in the morning going to an Insomnia coffee shop which is part of a SPAR grocery store near the hotel.  We had scones that were really more like biscuits and I had orange juice that was reconstituted and Suzette had a just okay coffee.  Really cheap food.

Then we walked to the Irish Museum of Decorative Arts and had and a lovely piece of spice cake with raisins and candied fruits and coffee for a lot more money.  Fortified with food we tackled the Museum. Our favorite part was the Eileen Gray exhibit with all of her best work and a description of how she did lacquer ware.  We loved it.  Also saw lots of Irish clothing and silver and a fantastic lacquered divan chair.  The Irish Decorative Arts Museum is installed in a Barracks complex near our hotel.

We then met Willy and went to the Irish Contemporary Museum, which is installed in what used to be a pensioner’s hospital.  We started by eating lunch in the cafeteria.  I had a bowl of vegetable soup. Willy had a grilled salmon with carrot salad and another salad.  Suzette had fish cakes made with albacore tuna.

We then went to see the Museum.  It had several contemporary art installations, like an Indian artist by the name of Sheela Gowda, an Indian artist who makes constructions from found common objects like cow dung and wood and large cans.  After the main hospital complex, we went to an out building on the grounds outside the hospital that contained a Richard Scott retrospective.  I love his work, especially the abstract paintings with tempera and gold on unprepared canvases of Irish linen.  Here are several:

Bad Breakfast

After the Contemporary, we dropped Willy off at his school and continued by taxi to the Hugh lane Museum in a large house on Parnell Square.  The Hugh Lane had lots of Irish art and lots of French art.  For example there was a room of Jean Baptiste Corots and a room of English landscapes, some by Constable.  Upon leaving the Hugh Lane we walked across the street to the Park of Remembrances ( a War memorial) with its beautiful mosaicked bottom reflecting pool in the shape of a cross surrounded with tulips in full bloom.

                                                                         Morrisot

We then returned to the hotel and took a short nap and a shower and took another taxi to meet Willy and his classmate, Peter, for dinner at the Winding Stair Restaurant.  I liked the Winding stair’s food very much.  It was a step above the Black Sheep of last night, an actual restaurant rather than a pub with a much larger and more creative menu.  It served mainly two and three course prix fixe menus at 25 and 30 Euros.  I ordered what I thought would be a soup and it ended up being a duck rillettes with a lamb’s lettuce and picadilla of vinaigretted fresh vegetables, including cauliflower flowerets, bell peppers, and haricot vert.  Suzette ordered a fresh local Mozzarella cheese salad and Willy and Peter ordered a lovely potato soup.  I ordered another cider and Willy and Suzette drank wine, Suzette ordered a tempranillo and Willy ordered a Sauvignon Blanc for his polenta with mushrooms.  Suzette ordered lamb’s liver on mashed potatoes and I ordered an pork dish with a sausage on a neck steak garnished with the best sauerkraut I have ever tasted, not too vinegary and not too sweet.

After the Contemporary, we dropped Willy off at his school and continued by taxi to the Hugh lane Museum in a large house on Parnell Square.  The Hugh Lane had lots of Irish art and lots of French art.  For example there was a room of Jean Baptiste Corots and a room of English landscapes, some by Constable.  Upon leaving the Hugh Lane we walked across the street to the Park of Remembrances ( a War memorial) with its beautiful mosaicked bottom reflecting pool in the shape of a cross surrounded with tulips in full bloom.

 

For dessert Willy and Peter shared a Bread and Butter pudding with Whiskey sauce and Suzette ordered a Rhubarb trifle.  The trifle was mostly meringue and whipped cream with a little rhubarb sauce, which she did not enjoy very much but I liked because the meringue was light and delicious.  The bread pudding was baked rather a more finished dish that what we see in the States.

 

After dinner we cabbed back to the Hotel and walked down the street to a pub that featured live Irish music.  We had beers and sat and enjoyed the music for about an hour and then went home to go to bed.  A rather full day. 

   

Bon Appétit