Search Results for 'Indonesian cuisine'

Halloween is only a week away and every year this festival seems to be getting bigger and bigger. When I was growing up apples and nuts were the only foods associated with Halloween, but nowadays it is a big deal with pumpkins, squashes, and the like featuring on menus all over the county.

The Asian Tea House on Mary Street is a popular spot and for good reason. Connacht’s Best Restaurant at the RAI Irish Restaurant Awards 2011 still maintains the same high standard, certainly a cut above your average Chinese restaurant.

Half-hidden off the slopes that run up High Street towards Bastion Street on Athlone’s left bank at Abbey Lane, Kin Khao is one of Westmeath’s, if not Ireland’s, most striking restaurants. From the outside the eatery is predominantly bright yellow with red window and door trimming and signage to match with a high black porch over the entrance. It’s a vision that’s as much a phantasm of colour as it is a curiosity waiting to be explored.

I had passed the sign for this restaurant a couple of times and wondered what exactly is a Mauritian Creole restaurant and also wondered about the significance of the bird on the signage that looked a bit like a fat turkey. First of all the Mauritian part of the title indicates that the owners and chef are from Mauritius and the Creole part of the name comes from the fact that the French created a huge plantation business in Mauritius during the 1700s and the language that developed among the slaves was a version of the French that was called creole. The slaves were from Africa, Madagascar and India, so as you can imagine the food has many influences. Finally the picture of the fat bird is a dodo, which became extinct in Mauritius around the end of the 1600s.

Lime and horseradish prawns with egg noodles, chilli and rocket

As requested by Ms Megan Sloane

Serves 4

Chicken satay

I visited two city centre restaurants last week to see what changes they were making for their menu in 2011.