BLOG | Martin O Regan

A Taste of Belgium in the City Park

Posted on July 16, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

I dedicate this to Rebecca, Zolsi, Sziki, and last but not least, Vivien. Who are they you may be asking: my friends, my past lovers, my colleagues, my acquaintances; My children!?
None of these things but special nonetheless. Here in my heart a place is kept just for them.
Let me tell you about Rebecca: she held my destiny in the Palm of her hands. Clear and sharp she set it and I embraced it. Zolsi offered a taste of the sweet, and I left cherry picking indulged in the nectare of a fruitful intervention.
Sziki’s cold gaze dissipated in a Brusselian whiteout, I was now most truly and fully immersed in the dolce vita. Even statues offered their own sense of relief.
Oft times the self proclaimed Cap’n, I was met upon the high seas by Vivien, daring me to engage. Not to be left floundering I set sail for the oceans of the mind and I’m still not sure when I’ll, if ever, return.
A mention I feel is necessary for Gyuri but I have no clue why. Did we meet in the shadows of my memory? And then there’s a place, not a person: the Liget Kocsma. Maybe Gyuri is the mad grinning stranger purveying such on the foamy side of life.
Now before you think that was that there was a moment when Gianni stood in horror, or intrigued, I can never tell, and was set on the path to perfect pizza. Sounds like the beginning of a good joke. An Irishman goes into an Italian pizzeria…

…and add the fact that I was coming from the Belgian beer festival and all would seem sensible, at least in some vein.

©TheHairyTeacher2013

A Stout Performance

Posted on July 14, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

If in Cork and in need of a dose of craft beers then why not try the PorterHouse, Sheare’s Street. Set in the Mardyke complex a little off dead centre it’s still on the run in from UCC and other noteworthy sights to see. A selection of food bits plus more a hungry soul will not find oneself abandoned, and for all those of the thirst quenching persuasion, even if craft isn’t your style, this is still a pub with all and sundry behind the bar.

For further details: http://www.porterhousebrewco.com/bars-cork-sheares.php

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Mind the step

Posted on July 13, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Down the steps running in off Trinity Street, Cambridge, lies The Vaults Bar and Restaurant. I was a little unnerved to begin with. Whereas cellar bars are a norm in Budapest, in England, much like Ireland, I imagine such places to revolve around pain, torture, or pehaps even deviant sexual pleasure. Being with Tara meant I wasn’t up for that sort of exploration.
As it offered a chef’s special, 2 courses for a tenner, I was game, and with Tara weighing in my arms I had grown disinterested in prowling for a better place.
A bar to the left, restaurant to the right, at the bottom of the stairs, I chose the former being as there were cosy chairs for my sleepy beauty.
Though she fought heroically in resisting fatigue it is only because she is sleeping now that I’m managing this.
Right. Starters were varied and I chose a potted crayfish with toasted bread. I say toasted bread rather than toast because the bread itself is worth a mention to the good. The crayfish, however, set in a ramikan much like a goose liver paté, fat congealed on top – the disappointment came in the heavy handed approach towards the pickle mixed in. This struck me as a dish made by someone who delighted in the idea of fish while not wholly liking the taste. A whiskey-coke drinker comes to mind.
The main was a goat cheese salad with strips of red peppers, sun-dried tomato, rocket salad and that curious brown sauce which is not quite YR nor chocolate but could pass for both at a distance. It won back points for both simplicity and taste. Goat cheese and sun-dried tommy-toes…the job!
Served on tap was a cider I didn’t try and a bitter, Eagle, which I did.
The service was professional, experienced, and within the realm of friendliness which, considering my initial douts/fears about the establishment down the steps, is a positive.
In summary, in the way of bar-restaurant tradition which has come to signify the turn of the new millenium, it slots in unobtrusively, but perhaps would never stand out, not in my own imagination at any rate*.
Whether or which, Tara is still out for the count and I’m considering another pint while feeling the pressure of a full bladder. But unlike the beer, Martin isn’t bitter!

©TheHairyTeacher2013

*http://www.thevaults.biz/

Inn for one or two

Posted on July 12, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

The Star Inn, Bridge Street, Bishops Stortford, claims hostelry back almost 400 years, and like a lot of this quaint town 9 minutes out of Stansted on the track to London, it is kitted out in the flavour of authenticity. Not that there is any need to doubt its credentials and yet I’m drawn to Trigger’s brush in Only Fools and Horses*. That said I have managed as is the norm to get a rickety table, indoors this time, and while there is a spacious beer garden, a tired child and an overdose of sun down by the paddling pool, have us nestling in a shadey recess: though in truth pressed up to the street facing window, and while Tara snoozes I have time to take in the people and the accents, not all of which are local.
Lunchtime deal of 1 meal for 6.95 but 2 of the same for 8 is hooking some. I for my part have been pressed to request strawberries from the barmaid, and while only for cocktails, she bends over backwards ( I wish;)) to supply us with a bowl.
Having done Cambridge last week I must say I’m much more impressed as, with child in tow, I can traverse the town in short distances. There is a paddling pool in the park, and a kickass playground all within a lazy stone-thrower’s toss away. How I’m going to tell Tara we can’t return to the playground when she awakes I’m still pondering but for now, here, a John Smith’s to hand, chatter hidden away from me, a bit of mellow music, and sunshine abounding, I am L’Homme Heureux! Essentiellement!

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1VNNbSYdt0 (forgive the editting!)

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Friday left longing

Posted on July 11, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

On a grey May day
beyond the storm for now
in the lurking mucky derivative
we march forth.
The flashes of the night
the fork, the sheet
the rumble, clatter, bang
scaring up the ghosts of primitive man.
I would have made my god right then
exposed within the horrid beauty
but instead I swaddled in progression.
The morning brought the picture
the saturation
and the birds in fury screamed their prolonged existence.
The storm had passed, a new day come.

©TheHairyTeacher2013

I’m half hating it?

Posted on June 27, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

I’m loving it or I’m hating it? I’m not sure cos, for starters, I’m not even sure where to begin! The fact that I seem, semantically, to be answering a question suggests that I have recognised the statement form above as question: rendered, as it is, intonationally in the spoken form. I learnt or learned this, though I do not profess myself the learned man, in a random French class of my youth. As it happens, my odd-Catholic mother ( odd because she adheres to the practice while not believing in shit) furthered my education when, one day, I proclaimed I had French letters in my bag. Ah, but that is, as they say, scéal eile!
Returning to another point I’m not even sure I’ve made yet: I’m loving it. Taught as incorrect by desperate ( panicky rather than terrible) EFL, or other acronymical, teachers everywhere because of those damn stative verbs and yet more recently contradicted by Ronald and his cronies, I do now have to add my 50 Cents(!), or tuppence or 5 forint or whatever.
Those who teach languages as rule-based risk being discredited by popular culture. Those who don’t risk unnerving their students. I, however, have just this to say:

and because Otis said it, I believe it, and… A. that’s that! B. that’s fuckin’ well that!
Your choice. My opinion;)

©TheHairyTeacher2013

Better than the sliced pan-ini (Cafe Panini)

Posted on June 27, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Along the streets I struggled, a groginess lingering two days on from festivities in the Belgian beer department, though I suspect the dregs I downed later were really to blame. Me and sense*, certainly not the best of bedfellows after alcohol’s been imbibed.
I passed a cafe still in the making it’s sign chancing at irony I guessed: Sunshine Cafe read the sign on the outside above steps which led to the bowels of the earth. “Good luck there” I thought.
Finally, in a twist and turn rhythm which would have seemed patterned to anyone observing, which indeed it had been, I ended up quayside on the corner with Cafe Panini.
First impression: welcoming, and with panini specials on the weekly menu this certainly seemed up to its name. In fact everybody I spotted on entering was eating something freshly cooked to the point that when I ordered a coffee and croissant I felt a little like the one who’d just ordered the plastic flowers.
The coffee, long as is my style, lingered and certainly was good. The croissant, heavy on pastry, lacked, as many in Hungary do, the buttery edge I’d grown accostumed to in Paris, and Douglas, Co. Cork.
But for dippage it was perfect collecting coffee up between the layers, without too much crumbling to create a pastry caffeine sludge.
Yes, yes. My name is Martin and I am a dipper and have been for as long as I can remember. My clearest first memories are Maxwell House and Custard Creams, cheap granulated coffee and biscuits (cookies, keksz) just in case you were wondering!
So in a nutshell, a pleasant environment, and popular in that there seems to be a collection of colourful folk, artsy, studenty, but maybe the film buses across on the key may have something to do with this. I hope not. This place should always be like this, and when those ‘bledy’° buses move there’ll be a good view of the river across to Margit’s Island as well as her bridge.
My advice: come for a coffee and stay for a day.
*”Sense and I” is the grammatically correct usage!
° Bloody

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Dotty for Coffee (Pöttyös)

Posted on June 26, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

On the intersection of Medve and Vitéz down in the second district this a colourful little chappy. The name itself arranged haphazardly above the entrance does little to convey the professionalism but a lot to carry the mood. A small counter is neatly stuffed with pastries and sandwiches with other oddities surrounding. A stairway winds its way up into the humble darkness but though tempting a snug in the clutches of winter, summer, even if Irishy at the moment of writing, beckons to the outdoors. Like two sentries, tables await left and right on exiting while a step out, under the shade of an impressive tree (name pending) which marks this corner distinctly, finds one in a cluster of more. Optimistic on those colder days, on any other day, or even wrapped up, the outside seating is the place to be. As the Norwegians say: there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!

All things culinary (Culinaris)

Posted on June 25, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

An English breakfast sounded tempting and at half the price of the expat pubs I wasn’t expecting miracles, though hoping nonetheless.
Up till that point Culinaris was a chance to buy good or “rarely found in Hungary” food at a price that would leave you feeling like after a date in prison.
My first encounter had been through winning a 10000huf prize in a sudoku competition, back when ten was still considered money, but recently I hadn’t dared. Imagine if I saw something at a price I couldn’t afford. Well I’d probably have found a pub nearby and drank my wishes away.
This time I was determined and yet not surprised when a very big plate, or very small portion, arrived.
A ramekin full of baked beans. Perhaps better than the alternative bed of beans that one gets back home, the other home.
A rasher in the full, not streaky, sense.
A fried egg ; and the pièce de résistance, the sausage. A skinny affair if all be told but definitely a tasty morsel, unlike another expat haunt I could mention where you’d be waiting for Godot for a decent breakfast sausage.
A few cuts off a baguette dropped almost haphazardly off to one side finished off the presentation.
What had I been expecting and yet getting two for a price still less than the expat pubs meant it was a comparably good deal, if boxing to that weight division. I wasn’t so it’s doubtful that I’ll be running back, but as the only Culinaris I know that offers the cafe to the side, it’s definitely somebody’s cup of tea.

Cock of the Walk (Kakus Plusz)

Posted on June 24, 2013 by martinoregan • 0 Comments

Location location location.
This is the place to be downtown on the edge of work, sun shining and the allsorts passing. If ever a backdrop seemed forced, much like Hollywood highway chase scenes did till I lived in Greece, this place will dispel all doubt. Sitting in the sun my arm scorched off and yet a stripey cardigan donned I write with no intention to compliment this place. It’s a drinking den nothing more but at that it’s perfect. C’est tous. C’est fini!
http://www.kakaspresszo.hu/

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