Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Bites Around Ireland: Researching My Trip through TV Shows

What do you do when you're researching an upcoming destination that you're not familiar with? For me, I definitely turn to the Instagram pages of my friends and other travelers, and then I watch TV. Yep, TV.

For my recent trip to Ireland, I looked up the episodes from Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, etc on Ireland. Thankfully, this "research" was painless and buffering-free thanks to the fast Verizon FiOs internet that has now landed in Dorchester.

I had to see what else I should be eating and drinking other than a ton of Guinness!
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Unfortunately I couldn't go try all the places Bourdain went to - you can only do so much in 4 days!
The place I did try was Leo Burdock, which is Dublin's oldest "chipper" - what they call a traditional, take-away fish and chips place.
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In Ireland, you can get your fish and chips with either fresh fish or smoked fish. Since I've never had one with smoked cod, that's what I ordered here. I still prefer fresh, but glad I tried the smoked one so I know what it's like! My visit here also kind of spurred a "fish and chips" hunt throughout my trip.
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The best fish and chips I had on this trip was actually at Reel Dingle Fish in Dingle, on the other coast of the country.

In his No Reservations episode, Bourdain also tried some Irish cheeses. I know Ireland has tons of cows and sheep, but I never really associated it with cheese before (just Kerrygold butter!). I got an Irish cheese sampler at The Larder in Dublin.
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Incidentally, my favorite cheese on the plate was the smoked Gubbeen, which came from Gubbeen Family Farms. The Gubbeen Family Farms was number one on Andrew Zimmern's Top 5 list for Ireland.

How do you research for a trip? If you have other food/travel TV shows I should check out, please let me know in the comments! :)

Disclosure: This post was done in collaboration with Verizon FiOs to promote their launch in the Boston market.

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