Day Two - Celbridge, Maynooth and Straffan

This is Castletown House. It was built in the 1720s by
William Conolly, the wealthiest commoner in Ireland. Castletown is still the largest Georgian Style House in Ireland. We visited this stately home which is located in Celbridge, a quaint town in Kildare County, on our way to our major stop, A Gastro Pub recommended by our doorman at the K Club! Yes the mission is food, always food, but we try to get a little culture along the way.





Only a few minutes down the road in Celbridge was the Village in GastroPub. I was told it had good food and drink and this is where our insider ate every Monday. This was going to be our main meal of the day. We had a stout full Irish breakfast in the morning: Sauteed Mushrooms, Roast Tomatoes, Black and White Pudding (not the sweet kind, think blood and oats), Scrambled Eggs and Irish Rashers. (Think Canadian Bacon) The K Club also had a smorgasbord of pastries, breads, fruits and homemade Irish Smoked Salmon. But before gush about our Sunday Roast, the scrambled eggs were the best I had ever had. They were done low and slow with tons of Irish gold (butter). I could write a novel about them!

You don't generally look at pub food and have drool pool at the side of your lips, but I admit it happened looking down on these beauties.  

I don't know why but the meat in Ireland just tastes better.  It tastes the way God meant it to taste.  The same can be said for the ham and the pork roast.

Juicy lushes slab of meat caressed with golden Irish potatoes was better than finding gold at the end of the rainbow.  They love their potatoes.  I mean 

it is a love affair.  They had two types of potato side dishes with each entree, both mashed, one with a croquette and the other oven roasted.  I wasn't complaining they were amazing.  I loved how they served the oven roasted vegetables in a side dish.  Just so simple, delicious.  It was a great Sunday supper.