The Oarsman - Family Dinner in Feb...

For the mid-term break this year, we decided to book ourselves into the house, as we always love visiting Lough Rynn!  

On a cold, wet Wednesday, we shivered into The Oarsman in Carrick On Shannon.  It has been a while since we've eaten there, so we were looking forward to it.

We got a lovely table to the rear and our waiter could not have been more professional and friendly.  I was really impressed with the menu - The Oarsman have definitely stepped up a gear or two since we last visited regularly! That was several years ago though...

Anyway, despite a very well thought out children's menu which featured several dishes from the main A La Carte menu, the children ordered two lovely portions of chicken goujons and fries.  These goujons were large, fresh and crunchy - clearly breast meat and coated nicely in crumbs, not batter.  The fries were also great - the kids had to fight us adults off!

But the main event was the arrival of our food.  Everything was absolutely delicious, extremely well thought out and a very clever menu.  My starter was to die for, a generous helping of organic black pudding, with organic kale, an organic quail's egg on top and a yummy garlic aioli - really tasty.  My main course was mackerel with a tomato and green olive risotto - which you might think shouldn't work, but it was fabulous.  My husband's main was also to die for, a sort of pork three ways which included a mini puff pastry pie - again it was divine.

We had two 7-ups, 2 pints of Guinness, one glass of Guinness and one glass of cider - The Oarsman also has a super selection of craft beers and cider, all Irish and well worth a try.  Together with 2 starters, 2 adult and 2 kids mains and 2 kids desserts, the bill was very reasonable at under €90 including our tip.