Dingle, Ireland

We chose Dingle as our base to explore southwestern Ireland – it’s a friendly little town that still feels a bit “off the beaten path”.

Our wonderful B&B, Pax Guesthouse, is up on a hill just at the edge of town, which means we had this view of the mouth of Dingle Harbor from our room:

Wow!

It’s about a 15 minute walk down the hill into town, and maybe a little longer to come back up the hill after dinner.  The thoughtful owner provides reflective vests and flashlights, but we walked home in the dusk hours and, with little traffic, felt safe with just an iPhone light.

We had our first dinner at the Global Village restaurant, where – as the name might have suggested – we shared the dining room with a large group of exuberant French students and chatted with an Irish couple who had lived near Dingle for decades.  I enjoyed crab toes (turns out it’s just a more charming name for claws) and a really interesting dessert called “milk, honey, whiskey, gorse”.  Gorse is a wild flowering plant that’s controlled by burning, and I think the subtly smoky flavor of the dessert was an homage to this treatment.

Our second dinner featured simply prepared but impeccably fresh seafood at Out of the Blue.

We started with local oysters – I’ll admit I was skeptical, but yes, Irish oysters are just as sweet and briny as any from PEI or Washington state!

D had a heap of langoustines for his dinner, beady-eyed little creatures with impressive claws, not quite shrimp and not quite lobster.  They were served with garlic dill butter, which is a fabulous combination that I’ve already reproduced at home!

For my dinner, I had beautifully plump mussels in a classic garlic and wine broth.  We finished things off with some Irish coffees… and may or may not have had some more Murphy’s ice cream.

More to come on our Dingle peninsula adventures!