PICTURE PERFECT: ANTICIPATION

The act of anticipating, taking up, placing,
or considering something beforehand,
or before the proper time in natural order.

”But if we learn to think of it as anticipation, as learning, as growing,
if we think of the time we spend waiting for
the big things of life as an opportunity
instead of a passing of time,
what wonderful horizons open out! ”

Anna Neagle

Do you notice the ANTICIPATION with the knife and the fork all poised to tackle this delicous meal because paparazzi Da Blonde yelled:

“Wait, wait I want to take a photo!”

 

 

 

The restaurant we had this fabulous meal* is this:”Located off the courtyard of Yemin Moshe’s Confederation House, Te`enim**
is a charming, quiet corner in one of Jerusalem’s classic neighborhoods.
Oversized windows provide exquisite views of the Old City,
and the inner courtyard is decorated with Armenian-tiled tables and stone benches
— perfect for parties and family celebrations. The restaurant offers a unique vegetarian menu,
including seaweed soup, tofu skewers and more.

Local tip:
Save time to wander through the alleyways of Yemin Moshe.
It’s one of the capital’s most picturesque, and historic, neighborhoods.”
Go Jerusalem online

“Yemin Moshe
is a picturesque, beautifully restored neighbourhood
– an architectural treasure
and one of the most elegant addresses in Jerusalem.
There are no shops, but the views are spectacular.
It’s a fascinating place for an early evening or winter afternoon stroll.”

Source: Frommers.com

This is my entry on the theme

“ANTICIPATION”

on

PICTURE PERFECT.^^

Tis for now, Rii xx

© Photos: By Riihele. All rights reserved.

*The black shrivelled tingies are Char-grilled Aubergines!!
Delicious it was apparently. Mine was a different very delish vegetarian dish as well.
** Te’enim means’Figs’ in Hebrew.

^^ Picture Perfect works so that we are given the ‘title’ in a word and we have to match that with a photo.

Travelogue from Dublin: Coffee Shops

It’s your very own tour guide Barbie here again doing her tour in the Emerald Isle – and yes, me cheeks are killing me with all that smiling…!! This time in the ‘logue it’s going to be about the cafes in the locale where I am staying at the moment and also of the cafes that I like elsewhere in this country. Here is a very handy link to touristing in  Ireland and in Dublin, in particular.

My very favourite cafe, Coolbeans, is in Bray where I just step in and really don’t have to have say a word and the things are served to me with speed and the accuracy of the pro. Just marvellous. I hadn’t been in there for two whole years and the staff remembered me name and all as I walked in there the other day as if I had never ever been away at all. Excellent.

There are some other favourite haunts of mine as well such as the Cafe an Seine – yes, it’s very O’ La La, French – which is situated right in the centre of Dublin on the Dawson Street. The pastries are outstanding and the coffee ab fab and the ambience – well, let’s say, very turn of the century as in the 19th century Paris. Another great French place is the cafe called, Cafe des Amis at the Alliance Francaise on the Kildare Street where the food, the pastries, the coffee and the prices are first class. I highly recommend both of these places.

In Dun Laoghaire one of my favourite places for cafes is Costas – a new place in the Pavillion in the centre of the town which is located upstairs of the most marvellous bookstore called Hughes & Hughes. Go n stuff your gullet in there at your leisure and enjoy the fab view! Then there is Walters, where the cappuccino is just right and the food in general extremely good and delicious. The GTI cafe cum restaurant on the George’s Street, that is the main street in Dun Laoghaire, is always great and the service is both humorous and precise. Here is a link to Dun Laoghaire tourism online site.

The Cafe Javas are these days in nearly ‘every’ place around Dublin, but in my mind the best of the lot is the one in the corner at the lower end of the Leeson Street in Dublin. They are consistently fab and better somehow than the other branches for whatever reason. The Bewleys’ Cafes were an institution but as the institutions go, they often lose their momentum and this is what has happened to them as well in my mind. Shame.

Tis for now from your guide in the Emerald Isle. The tour continues… Riihele xx.

PS
The photograph is the village square in Enniskerry, County Wicklow taken by me.

Travelogue from Dublin: Eating out & Restaurants

I said in my last logue that I would be writing about eating out in Ireland – and here it comes! The cuisine in Ireland has evolved to be very international indeed. When I think back to the time that I first arrived in these shores and how impossible or nigh impossible it was to get the ingredients to the dishes that I cook; every time it was a treasure hunt of a kind to get them all together! There is a delicatessen cum specialty shop, Cavistons, in Sandycove – just a few kilometres south of Dublin on the coast – that has the most comprehensive selection of all kinds of everything that one possibly could need in the art of cooking.

Yes, cooking is art most definitely. I remember our Home Economics teacher in Finland saying that: ”Girls, do always remember that cooking is art.” And we were like – ‘oh sure’ – but none us gave a smart-alec remark on the same; not even me, because she was a great teacher and she gave us the freedom to experiment and learn a great deal about everything concerning the cooking and the home economics in general. Later in life I did come to see that the teacher was absolutely right in her thinking.

Not so long ago the choices of eating out here were the pub grub of dried sandwiches and soup that had seen better days or the very expensive but not particularly fancy hotel food. Then bit by bit came the other eateries of the more reasonable bistro/ taverna-style places: Vino Pasta is one of the restaurants that I have liked from the moment they opened in Greystones, County Wicklow. Their food is always first class in taste, in presentation, and in the way it is served. Chicken Gorgonzola is my all time favourite in there. Yummy.

The title of the one of the oldest restaurant in Ireland goes to the place where our wedding reception was in Dublin many moons ago: The Beaufield Mews in Stillorgan, County Dublin. – Ireland has no postal codes so the places are in counties.- This place is in the very tasteful old mews buildings with the most gorgeous gardens and with an antique store as well. The evening out always started there with a glass of sherry either Winter’s Tale or Harvey’s Bristol Cream which were our choices. Many happy and delicious hours were spent in the locale by us and our guests. The menu there is outstanding and I have tried the lot more or less so everything there should be first class with the most excellent corteous service. The prices are on the high side on the scale but worth it.

This time most of my eating has been in Enniskerry, County Wicklow village just a few kilometres south from Dublin where I am staying and where there is a great pub of the new style that is more of a restaurant than the old style pub called, The Enniskerry Inn. The food is good and well presented and the service is friendly as well there. The menu is comprehensive and everything is tasty that we have tried in there. The prices are around the 10 to 20+ euros per dish. The desserts are about five plus euros each and the coffee about 2.50 €.

Also in Enniskerry is the Main House in Powerscourt that has two excellent restaurants run by the Avoca Handweavers where one can eat royally and fairly reasonably in the surroundings fit for a king. Most of my photographs of this travelogue have been and are from there. The food is poetically gorgeous; yes, am vaxing lyrical here… The prices are not expensive about the same as the ones that I quoted above which seems to be the price range at present. Here is a handy link to the facilities in the Powerscourt Estate.

Bon Appetit y’all!

Tis for now yet again. I will write about coffee shops later on. Riihele xx.

PS.
The photograph is a bridge in the Japanese Gardens in the Powerscourt Demesne in Enniskerry, County Wicklow taken by yours truly on a toasty hot day.

Jerusalem: Eating Out

One of the favourite things of mine to do really, really late in the evening, when the Shabbat had started and the delicious Shabbat dinner eaten -ooh, get me that Challah, the special bread for the shabbat – was to go down through the Armenian and the Jewish Quarters to The Kotel – The Western Wall. It was lovely and full of shalom moment to just sit, pray and meditate in peace and quiet there. I preferred the silence and hardly a soul there to the earlier evening when the crowds came before their meal. That said even though I am a very sociable soul in the extreme yet I always do need this time of silence and recuperation out of the maddening crowds. I suppose tis the artistic side of me personality who is hankering for this shalom away from everything…

The photograph, which is taken by me, is one of my very favourite restaurants anywhere in the world; it’s called, Nafoura -The Fountain – and is located off the Jaffa Gate in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Here is a handy map of the whole city of this City of Gold. And here is the link to the GoJerusalem portal with all sorts of great and useful iNFO about the city and its sights, sounds and places.

This is what the World Travel Guide says about the Nafoura and here are all the cities covered by this guide:

“Nafoura Jerusalem Wall Restaurant

Set in an open air courtyard in what was once a parking area for caravans and chariots within the city walls but is now filled with fountains and Roman pillars with traditional Arabic music. There is also a smaller inside seating area. Nafoura offers a calm that is in contrast to the bustling maze of streets outside. The food is Middle Eastern but with Armenian and Greek influences and Lebanese salads and dips.”

Absolutely true and always most welcoming and food is delicious. Other ones of my very favourite places to nibble are the Menora – located in the Jewish Quarter and the Cacao which is the at the Cinematheque Complex on the Hebron Road. The best tables are on the terrace where there is an outstanding view over to the Old City and the Valley of Hinnom. Village Green, in the new city, was the one of the vegetarian restaurants that we favoured with our presence many times as well. We liked their soups and salads in particular and their service is great and efficient yet very friendly.

Then as the cherry on the icing is the King’s Garden Restaurant at the King David Hotel; yep fit for a king, so tis. Here is what the Wikipedia has of the history of the hotel. This is what the hotel’s online site tells about the hotel in question:

“King’s Garden Restaurant

Marvel at the fabled skyline of the Old City. Watch how sunset works its magic, creating the legendary golden city. All this in one remarkable venue – the King David, a Jerusalem landmark and Israel’s most famous and luxurious hotel. The perennial host to world leaders and celebrities and flagship of the Dan Hotels.”

By no means did we spend a fortune in this hotel restaurant even though it is fit for a king as one can with a bit a forward planning eat royally and lavishly without busting the bank. We’d take the salads that were outstanding, washed down by an ice-cold beer like Maccabi or any of the wines that this land of the milk & honey produces such as the Galil Mountain Wines or Yarden wines.

FYI:
The expression ‘a plate of salad’ is unknown as is the ‘a bowl of salad’ in Israel because what we are talking about of that which is dished out to one in an average restaurant – not talking about the King David which of course the most elegant of the hotels – is a bucket of salad that will feed a troupe of giants!!

Tis for now. Riihele xx.