Friday, the 19th, was something of a rest day after the long day on the 18th. The website of Limerick’s Milk Market says that the place opens at 11 A.M. on Fridays and that there are food vendors, restaurants, and people selling this or that. But when we walked there, arriving about 11:30, the place was as dead as a doornail. There were people milling about — the area around the Milk Market seems to be a young folks’ hangout — but only a few tacky tourist-oriented shops and a bakery where we got a cup of cappuccino and a cinnamon roll.
As we sat at a table in the nearly empty Milk Market sharing the coffee and cinnamon roll, someone began plunking at piano — we could not see the piano or the player — and soon rollicking ragtime music began to pour out of the piano. We then walked past the piano a few minutes later and saw that it was a young woman hanging out at the market with some friends. The song she played — and she played very well — is one I’ve heard many times, and I should know the name of it, but I don’t. The music made for a nice little magical interlude on a gray, rainy day when we’d hoped to do some shopping and have lunch at the Milk Market and our hopes were dashed.
On our way back to the hotel from the Milk Market, we stopped in a large St. Vincent de Paul store we’d spotted as we walked from the hotel to the market. It was nice to paw through junk, old china, books, a few tattered and tawdry old clothes, but we saw absolutely nothing we would have wanted to buy. We then stopped in a small grocery store to buy some juice to bring to the room, and quickly realized it was owned by Islamic people from somewhere in the Middle East or India, and that we’d passed a building with no marking indicating its use that was surely a mosque. At this point, we began to see, as we walked back to the hotel, that we’d walked through a neighborhood in Limerick that had many immigrants from Islamic countries.
Because we’d eaten a large breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Harry’s — full Irish again for Steve, beans on toast for me with a bowl of fruit compote, yoghurt, and granola — we skipped lunch and returned to the hotel from the Milk Market to rest in the afternoon. Or, rather, we let the coffee and cinnamon roll at the Milk Market tide us over the lunch hour. So as evening neared, we walked to what we thought was a fairly early supper at Curragower, a restaurant pub beside the Shannon across from King John’s castle.
I’d read on Reddit a number of people recommending Curragower as the best restaurant in Limerick and had placed it on my possible things to do list for Limerick. Then as he drove us from Shannon into Limerick, Pat O’Connor also recommended it. The walk there last evening was pleasant, since it wasn’t too long and the rain had stopped, and it was also nice to cross the bridge next to King John’s castle and see the Limerick “skyline” from that vantage point. I took a number of photographs from there that I liked.
When we arrived at Curragower before 5:30 P.M., it was already hopping and the wait staff squeezed us in in a fairly bustling room filled with tables and diners. I treated myself to another bowl of fish chowder (a starter as my main course) and found it not nearly so good as Harry’s — gloppy and floury and without much seasoning. Steve had a seafood pie and complained that it was all potato and not much seafood. I ordered a small Caesar salad with my chowder and found the dressing far too viscous and in no way resembling the traditional dressing for Caesar salad — and this is, of course, common for Caesar salads anywhere. Almost no one even knows how to dress them as they were dressed when they first came on the scene in California years ago.
All in all, we were disappointed in the Curragower. The view was nice and the furnishings and décor were pleasant, but the food was nothing to write home about. And the woman who waited on us seemed intent for some reason on slighting us. Our food arrived at the same time food arrived at the three tables closest to us, and she came to each of those tables after the food was served to ask how it was — but ignored us.
After the meal, back to the Absolute for an early night and to pack, since we knew we’d have to be up in advance of 7 A.M. to be ready for a taxi we’ve ordered to take us to the train station in Limerick for our 7:55 train to Dublin.
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