Great Fast Food

There is a little corner behind Patrick Street in Cork, running from Paul Street to Paradise Place, where you can now find pure, wholesome, delicious ... fast food. Fast Al's delicious pizzas are already legendary in the precinct, where you can walk in and buy a slice of the most echt New York-style pizza. Al has now expanded to a new outlet two doors down where you can buy real falafels, homemade pittas stuffed with chick pea fritters and salads. The last few times we've been to Cork we've stopped at both of Al's addresses and figured he had the market sussed for real fast food.

This week, just around the corner from Fast Al's we found another little haven of wholesome speedy take-aways. The Natural Foods Bakery has expanded, now with a shop in Pier Head in Blackrock, and in Paul Street where you can find the most tasty, wholesome takeaway sandwiches including Gubbeen salami with mayo, relish, salad and dressing on granary, a Natural Foods Cheese Sandwich: cheddar, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, mayo and sunflower spread on a floury bap, and our new favourite the herb and seed pitta with hummus, cucumber, red pepper, lettuce and sprouts, loads of dressing and mayo. There are pizzas here too, made on a wholesome organic base and topped with oregano, olives and mozzarella. The sweet things menu includes a gluten free chocolate cake and the famous no-added sugar cherry buns.

You can buy superb bread and cakes to take away, there is a tiny loo (useful info, that), great staff and three stools for three customers who want to eat in.

The Natural Foods Bakery deliver if you live or work in central Cork - find out more by ringing 021-461 4555.

Capital stuff

It's become fashionable to bemoan the lack of new restaurant openings in Cork city, and to suggest that this proves that standards are improving elsewhere, but not on Leeside.
This is bunk. Cork city restaurants are as fine as ever, and are all characterised by intense self-criticism and a strong sense of competition.
Just look at Claire Nash's Nash 19. We dipped into the restaurant just before Xmas to see the latest refurbishments and to try the Monday-Friday offer that Claire has concocted to meet with the adapting demands of her customers.
After a perfect bowl of chowder, we ate the best piece of cod we had enjoyed in months, served with flat mushrooms, and a perfect warm Mexican chicken salad, and then had a slice of plum pudding that was one of the finest examples we have ever eaten anywhere. The place was buzzing, and the staff – the staff! - are second-to-none. A blissful lunch, a blissful experience.
Nash 19 is one of those restaurants that makes a city special: Dublin has nowhere like this, and neither has Belfast.
Cork, boy. Nowhere like it.
19 Prince’s Street, Cork (021) 4270880
www.nash19.com