*now closed* Chipmongers - opens on Lisburn’s Antrim Street with flavoursome menu

Update - February 2019 - the Lisburn Chipmongers has closed.

Chipmongers have opened their first branch in Northern Ireland in Lisburn. Since my youth, the Antrim Street shop unit has been battering fish and frying chips, but having now sampled a generous sample of the menu, it’s clear that the quality of cuisine (not normally a word associated with a chip ship) and attention to detail have definitely been given a lift in this new venture by Michael Ferris.

The titular Chipmonger Burger had a satisfying crunch as I bit into it. The crispy onion bits contrasted well with the melted Applewood smoked cheese, mixed leaves and sauce on top of the beef patty.

Chicken Goujon Boat is flavoursome, with two fillet strips resting on mixed leaves in a tortilla ‘boat’, drizzled with ranch sauce. In terms of taste, it’s much closer to restaurant fare than normal takeaway.

There’s sometimes a danger that crispy, bubbly batter can be more of a meal than the fish hidden inside. Not so with Chipmonger’s Fillet of Cod which is fried in a light batter that adds taste but leaves the fish intact to do the talking.

The new kids on the block are open from noon until 10pm seven days a week and offer delivery within a 2 mile radius for £2 Thursday to Sunday. Add if you order from the Chipmongers app (iOS/Android) before the end of January 2018, you can use the offer code ‘cm20’ to get 20% off your first order.

Thanks to Chipmongers for the lunchtime treat.

Bubbacue expands its menu and opening hours

Do you like your BBQ meat slow smoked?

A few months back when Bubbacue closed their Callender Street doors, gutted their unit and then reopened, some of the original raw charm of the meatery seemed to have slipped out into the builders skip. It was quite a culture shock for regular customers.

While the taste was kept, the brick walls are no longer exposed, the rather necessary rolls of kitchen roll were absent from the tables and - at the start - the four (shades) of (brown) sauce in bottles waiting to be squirted over the fries were no longer to hand.

The queue no longer stranded hungry souls out on the street and takeaway customers didn’t have to loiter over the shoulders of those sitting in.

But the new shinier Bubbacue has bedded in and, to the credit of those running it, they have tweaked and adapted to meet customer demand and showed off their new offering to a gaggle of folk on Tuesday evening.

The bottles of sauce were back on the tables in nicely carved holders and there were even options for any vegetarians who can be dragged into the meaty environment.

While your meat can still come in a bap, you can now choose to ditch the bready carbohydrate and have it in a bowl or on top of salad. The pulled pork, brisket beef, BBQ chicken and spicy sausage have been joined by Halloumi cheese (coated in panko breadcrumbs and fried).

 
Mashed potato and Cajun rice have been added to the selection of hot sides, along with my new favourite macaroni and cheese. And there are now options for beans, potato salad, couscous and rocket on the side.

The Bubbacue ‘ethos’ statements around the restaurant and on their website may be a little cheesy, but they do sum up well the philosophy:

• Made by hands, eaten with fingers.
• From scratch everyday
• Freshly smoked overnight
• No half measures

Bubbacue is licensed and selling their Bubbabrew alongside their own brew Iced Tea and a range of soft drinks. Opening hours have extended too. The shutters are no longer down on Monday lunchtimes. Instead, the slow smoked meat (and fried cheese) is available from 11.30am until 8pm Monday-Saturday and 1-6pm on Sunday.

And while the menu and the opening hours have expanded, and outside catering is an option, there are no plans to expand the business and open a second restaurant. Callender Street is home of the slow smoked BBQ meat for now.

A story of solo dining, loss and lemon chicken ... Tenx9's food night.

Tenx9 has a simple format. Nine people with ten minutes each to tell a true story. Once a month, Tenx9’s co-creators Paul Doran and Pádraig Ó Tuama select a topic and two hundred people fill the Black Box to hear the tales, three at a time before a short break to recharge glasses at the bar.

Last night was like a free nine course pot luck supper. Succulent stories, savouring the flavours of other places and other times, insight into the ingredients of the characters behind the microphone. Above all, everyone enjoying the freedom to earwig on other people’s experiences (and often their unintentionally comical misfortune).

Taking the subject of ‘Food’ to coincide with the Out to Lunch Arts Festival, each of the storytellers took a different approach. Here’s my story which long time blog readers may recall from my posts in 2007. You can taste a few more crumbs from the evening over in my post on Sugarpiece.  Tenx9 is back on Sunday 21 February in the Black Box with a “Back to the Future” theme for NI Science Festival. Paul and Pádraig would love to hear your story.

- - -

“You’re back. You’ll have your usual then? Lemon chicken, fried rice, a can of Diet Coke wasn’t it, and I’ll bring you some mixed hors d'oeuvres to start.”

No menu was offered. There was never any need. No questions about whether I was waiting for someone to join me, or whether I wanted to see the wine list. No fuss. Just a table for two, and a set of cutlery removed.

I travelled a lot to London over the years with work, staying two or three days at a time. I had some really good colleagues and bosses over the years, but I’m an introvert. Myers Briggs would give be a big capital I. So I need ‘me time’, time to myself away from constant conversation about work, fantastical dissection of the office politics and senior manager shenanigans, and all that frivolous stuff.

So I had a routine. Every town or city that I visited in over twenty years with BT, I’d no more than a handful of restaurants that I’d select from. Places of comfort. Places where a solo diner could slip in and out without being hassled.

The first time was always awkward, but if the waiting staff’s shifts matched up with my typical pattern of visits, they get to know you.

Fish and Chips in the Loch Fyne in St Albans, with Adi the waiter who could find me a seat if I caught his eye even when the manager had already said they were fully booked.

Ipswich was a tough city. A van reversed into the best restaurant and it had to close due to the structural damage. Nowhere else was ever as homely.

The third visit is the key one. If they don’t raise their eyebrows that you’ve just ordered the same thing for a third week in a row, I know I’m onto a winner. A new haunt has passed the test and been added to the list of safe places to eat.

So I walked the length of the main Chinatown thoroughfare in London. It had to be somewhere within a few minutes of the Curzon Soho – London’s version of the QFT, or should that be the other way round? – with proper films, independent and world cinema, only a few hundred yards from the big chains in Leicester Square and their weekly red carpet premieres.

The other requirement was the starter. I love sesame toast. It’s probably not very healthy. Definitely not healthy. But as your front incisors take a bite, your tongue feels the sesame seeds on top, and then you catch a taste of the prawns sandwiched between the slices of bread. Divine. They’ll serve sesame toast in heaven and it won’t put an inch on anyone’s waistline.

The sesame toast might even come with the bonus of a bit of crunchy green seaweed that you chase around the plate, unable to pick it all up, and a spring roll. Maybe even a bit of chicken on a skewer, or one of those yucky ribs that messes up your fingers. Urghh.

But on the menus in the windows or displayed on stands outside most of the restaurants, the words “mixed hors d'oeuvres” were immediately followed by “minimum 2 persons”, in brackets. One by one the potential eating places dismissed themselves from my evening dinner.

I was disheartened, and increasingly hungry. I reached the end of the main street and spotted a few more outlets facing me, running along Wardour Street. And there it was. Yungs. It was anything but glitzy with none of the gold mirrored fixtures and fittings that tarted up the other identikit restaurants. But it had ten or so tables downstairs and another 15 upstairs. And crucially it said “mixed hors d'oeuvres” with no brackets and no exclusions.

“You do the plate of starters for one?” I checked before sitting down. “Yes!” the waiter answered as if it was a stupid question.

And that’s how it started. Probably once a fortnight over four or five years I’d wander down the London street. More often than not, the tall young waiter would be standing in the doorway, trying to attract trade into the dowdy restaurant. He’d simply step back, push open the inner door and usher me to a table.

Sometimes I’d sit with a book or a magazine, or a thick bundle of treasury tagged papers for Audience Council that I needed to read for later in the week. Plates would be set down on the table wherever there was room. There was no rearranging: I owned the layout of the table, not them! There was no small talk. A few times I spotted a bit of chittering between staff: I was definitely on the eccentric watch list, but no matter. Asking for a VAT receipt to put into the expenses envelope was a complicated request: like many taxi receipts, sometimes I was left to fill in the slip of paper myself.

I walked past one night and the restaurant was dark. My heart sank. There was a note in the door. Family bereavement? Illness? Power cut? But the darkness was more sinister. The darkness that smoke and fire leaves on the inside of a window. The night before there had been a blaze in the kitchen and they couldn’t open. “Hopefully open in two weeks” said the notice.

Each time I’d walk past, but it was never open. I stopped passing as regularly, never replacing it with another Chinese – that would be disloyal, and besides no sesame toast and seaweed for one anywhere else. The Angus Steakhouse on the next street was soulless. The gourmet burger bar was noisy. I switched to eating in Covent Garden and then hightailing it back to Leicester Square (it’s faster above ground than taking the tube) and into the cinema.

While I’m that introvert who is happy to eat alone, I do enjoy the feeling of being on the outskirts of community in these remote locations. A home away from home to be accepted as you are into someone’s kitchen – okay, restaurant – to dine. There’s a sense of belonging when you get to feed football results to Adi in the Lock Fyne who had a book running with some of the other waiters and the chef.

But the loss of Yungs was a bereavement. Gone too soon. A relationship with a nameless waiter cut off. No more sickly lemon chicken.

Seven months later I walked past – out of habit rather than hope – and there was still no one standing in the doorway. But there was light inside. I went up the step, pushed open the door and the red padded chairs and furnishings were back. Musak was playing. Coming down round the narrow bend of the stairs was the young tall waiter. He smiled!

“You’re back. You’ll have your usual then? Lemon chicken, fried rice, a can of Diet Coke wasn’t it, and I’ll bring you some mixed hors d'oeuvres to start.”

Preview – The Kitchen – Cooking up a sweet sensation at the Grand Opera House (Wed 21/Thu 22) #BelFest

The Kitchen promises mass catering on an industrial scale in what the show’s director described to me yesterday as “a multi-sensory production”.

Roysten Abel explained that five years ago he paid a visit to Jalaludin Rumi’s tomb in Konya.

After paying respects at his tomb I was taken to his kitchen. First there were two pots, huge pots, where the food would be cooked and just above that was a raised platform and Rumi sat there with his dervishes and meditators while the food was being cooked. On the left hand side there were shoes. This was where the novices would be asked to sit and wait – without any food or water – until Rumi said they could join him.

The novices could be left baking for days in the middle of the cooking and dancing.

While Wednesday and Thursday night’s audiences in the Grand Opera House may feel like novices, they’ll not be left for days, and they will be fed the payasam that is being cooked up in front of them.

It was years later when Roysten started working with drummers – their particular drums are “copper pots with hide on them – that it reminded him of Rumi’s kitchen and the recipe for the culinary show started to form.

The Kitchen is an experience where you go through not just the emotions but the sound and smell and finally the taste altogether as a narrative.

Come along to this week’s performances at the Belfast International Arts Festival and you’ll experience the varying smells of the cooking as the different ingredients are added to the two huge pots in the centre of the stage, along with “a sonic narrative” from the drums that are beaten in the towering set. And tied in with expect to witness the emotional family narrative between the husband and wife who are all the time cooking the payasam.

Food and family ... what’s not to like?! The Kitchen has toured through Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia, and this is its UK and Irish première. Tickets from £12-£24. Approaching the festival’s midpoint, there are still lots of goodies in the programme waiting to be sampled ...

IKEA Belfast Crayfish Party (Fri 5 Sep): crayfish, meatballs, kitsch music from Bjorn Identity (& no flatpack)

It’s nearly that time of year again when IKEA turns orange as they host their annual crayfish party complete with ABBA tribute band The Bjorn Identity.

Crayfish and schnapps along with mountains of meatballs, cocktail sausages and lingonberry jam, salads and yummy desserts … and huge orange paper bibs … and Swedish drinking songs helped along by a large Scandinavian contingent – and wannabes – in the IKEA cafe.

From previous experience, it’s a great evening’s craic … and The Bjorn Identity are in their element.

Friday 5 September from 6pm – 9pm.

Tickets on sale in IKEA’s restaurant.

Reduced price entry for IKEA Family members (their free red loyalty card); complimentary drinks vouchers; kids under five get in free.

Why did the crayfish go red? Because he saw the salad dressing ... fun at IKEA Belfast this evening!

IKEA turned orange in Belfast this evening as they hosted their annual crayfish party. It's a Swedish tradition. I'm not sure that such parties in Sweden all involve an ABBA tribute band but the local flat pack festival of crayfish and schnapps wouldn't be complete without music from The Bjorn Identity.

For the ichthyophobes who didn't want to mess up their huge orange paper bibs or get their fingers dirty, there were mountains of meatballs and cocktail sausages, salads and yummy desserts.



Breaking up the kitsch 70s music were some community Swedish drinking songs, helped along by a large Scandinavian contingent in the IKEA cafe.

A very fun way to spend an evening - and a set of tickets that couldn't be turned down. Keep an eye out on the IKEA Belfast website - or in store - for the adverts next summer. There's a reduced price for IKEA Family members (their free red loyalty card); three complimentary drinks vouchers; kids under five get in free; and the raffle had some great prizes. An great evening of great crack, which seemed very popular with large groups: I spotted a lot of familiar faces from last year.

Yellow Door restaurant: a great culinary attraction at the Ulster Museum

If you’re in the vicinity of the Ulster Museum this summer and feeling peckish, the Yellow Door restaurant in the ground floor of the museum is well worth a visit (open noon-3pm).

I’ve never eaten my way through an entire menu before, but – burp – it was a delight to sample the dishes on their new summer menu along with some better qualified culinary commentators one sunny lunchtime a few weeks ago.

Before July if you’d mentioned Yellow Door to me I’d have thought about the enormous cherry scones I used to share with Littl’un as an occasional Saturday morning breakfast treat in their Bow Street café in Lisburn.

So I was intrigued to hear about the County Armagh-based firm’s bakery, its lack of preservatives (no need if you bake through the night and deliver fresh each morning) and no-margarine-only-butter rule, the grow-your-own/make-your-own mentality and their outside catering.

When the Ulster Museum reopened, the canteen-style Girona aitin-hoose (as the Ulster Scots museum guide would describe it) run by John McNally/Stonebridge Group involved a lot of queuing up for food served from metal trays sitting under hot lights, followed by wandering around to find an empty table that wasn’t already being “reserved” by someone for their queuing friends.

Yellow Door have overhauled the restaurant to offer a waited dining experience that is a lot more relaxing. Talking to the owner Andy Dougan (pictured) it is quickly apparent that his passion for high quality ingredients - which goes so far as to select which beef cattle will make their way from the field to the plate - is combined with a focus on service training, staff attitude and being able to cope with the sudden surges of trade a museum eatery can experience.

The printed menu was full of hints to the local sourcing of the ingredients. Bacon from Moyallon in the tasty Caesar salad, mussels from Dundrum Bay and shorthorn beef from Glenarm sacrificed for the burger.

The “Taste of Ulster” board combines a medley of cheese, ham, pâté, chutney and fresh bread, doubling up as a great ploughman’s lunch to share as well as an advert for visiting tourists demonstrating the fine tastes of Northern Ireland produce.

Norn Iron stalwarts like lasagne (served with a salad) have their place on the menu alongside fish cakes and pasta. And children haven’t been forgotten with sausages, ciabatta pizza, pasta, cod goujons and lasagne available for hungry museum visitors. Main courses in the summer menu priced between £7.50 and £8.25; some smaller dishes around £4.

Along with Takabuti, the Girona artefacts and Peter the polar bear, the Yellow Door restaurant with its fine food and luscious views over Botanic Gardens is a genuine attraction at the Ulster Museum that deserves to pick up regular visitors independent of the displays upstairs. Yellow Door also operate the Coffee Bar (open 10am-4.30pm).

(I should add that I discovered that unlike wine-tasting, it would be rude to spit out what you've chewed ... and a waste for a half-eaten plate to be binned rather than finished!)

Forked.ie launches new blog to look at the Norn Iron food and drink industry

Great to see the launch of a new blog - Forked.ie - in Belfast tonight. A blog with branded bags and badges ... as well as an appetite for news and views about food on the island of Ireland.

The badges were the tell-tale sign that Manuel the Waiter was one of the four resident foodies behind the new venture which merges the talent of Belfast Bites (Laura Clatworthy), Food Belfast (John Ferris), Well Done Fillet (MtD), a cocktail evangelist (Conor Brady) and the Mystery Chef (the 'mystery' being another sign that MtD is involved).

Expect bar and restaurant reviews, interviews and gossip with local hospitality industry types, and the mad musings and mutterings of those who make the food and serve it.

Hosted in Ox Belfast (recently opened at 1 Oxford Street, just up from the Laganside Courts), the launch packed out the upstairs with screeching eaters, drinkers, owners as well as old and new media folk. The screeching was real: like a rock concert, my ears hurt as I headed back down the street to get my car.

Forked.ie has already got off to a great start with a scoop on the closure of the Cayenne restaurant in an interview John Ferris conducted with "the two godfathers of modern Northern-Irish cuisine" Paul Rankin and Michael Deane.

Looking forward to what they serve up in the weeks and months to come.

Salt Bistro, St Anne's Square, Belfast

There’s finally a buzz in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, and new restaurants are opening, joining the more intrepid businesses who set up in the area before it developed a reason for people to walk through.

Salt Bistro recently opened in St Anne’s Square, tucked in beside The MAC and behind St Anne’s Cathedral.

Donal and Teresa Cooper are veterans of the trade, in their new venture have shifted from “fine dining” to “offer something of equal quality but with a more casual atmosphere and mid-range pricing”.

Calling in before a show at The MAC on Thursday evening, the service was friendly and fast. The menu was issued on a clipboard showing the main evening dishes and pre-show offerings tucked in underneath.

The bread, hummus and tapenade starter was generous with its portions of bread. The burger was home made and well cooked and served with mushrooms and cheese. The single slice of tomato and lettuce wasn’t really enough to moisten up the mouthfuls of meat and bap.

Overall, two main courses, two desserts, beer and a shared starter will set a couple back about £40. It's not cheap ... but the food and the atmosphere was good.

With its proximity to The MAC, the Black Box and the University of Ulster, there should be plenty of passing trade for Salt Bistro, and lots of return visitors to its calm oasis in St Anne’s Square.

The Iron Lady

As a portrait of an old woman living with dementia, and as an insight into the driven personality of Margaret Thatcher, The Iron Lady is a good film. It’s not a political film, and the historic narrative mainly serves to highlight her character: strong and obstinate, rather than ‘iron’. There is only token analysis of the actions behind her rise and fall.

As a cinematic experience the film had a lot going for it: Meryl Streep’s portrayal of ‘MT’, the lack of distraction from the prosthetics, Jim Broadbent’s chipper interventions as Denis, and the well caricatured MPs of the time.

This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the conflict in the South Atlantic, and more nuanced explorations of the sinking of the Belgrano will hopefully appear around the anniversary on 2 May.

For me, the take home line from the film was:

“One’s life must matter.”

The difficulty looking back at Margaret Thatcher’s life – particularly through the lens of this film – is that emotionally detaching from one’s family and humiliating one’s colleagues seemed to part of achieving what mattered. Not a great role model.

Had lunch in the Blue Chicago grill before going across the road to see the film in Lisburn Omniplex. Impressed with the food – though at the price, they’d need to throw in some fries with the scampi. Canadian (chicken) burger recommended.

Recommendations

Finishing the year with some recommendations of businesses that I value. (You could also read that as finishing the year with a round up of blog posts that never got finished!)

We finally got our house in East Belfast sold in late autumn, and moved house in Lisburn (still referred to as “Belfast’s bedroom”) in early November. A to B Removals are strongly recommended. John Thompson, Kenny and the guys have moved me four times now, take extraordinary care of furniture, have their own storage, and are very agreeable to work with. Serving Lisburn, Downpatrick, Crossgar and beyond - 028 4483 2514.

Five favourite restaurants of the year. Lisburn’s Square Bistro tucked in between Next and Argos in Lisburn Square is a great spot. The food is delicious, the service is good, and the staff are child-friendly. Five miles out of town, The Pheasant on the Upper Ballynahinch Road is a little more expensive, but always a good meal. Little Wing Pizzeria are great (particularly the East Belfast/Upper Newtownards Road branch). I’ve still a soft spot for a blue cheese burger (and sometimes even just an egg-burger) in the Gourmet Burger Bank on Belmont Road, East Belfast. And if you want something fast, cheap and hot at lunchtime in Belfast, check out the Cornish Pasty Trading Company in Church Street.

Holidaying in Buncrana and Derry this summer, the Tower Museum in Derry is well worth a visit. Fascinating history of the city, and the Armada exhibition captured the attention of our six year old. The Doagh Famine Village is another treasure in the north west. While a museum devoted to the Irish famine may not sound terribly appealing, there’s a much greater breadth of history covered, with enthusiastic guides and a cup of tea at the end. Find out about impact of the famine as well as learning about the traditional Irish wake, a Presbyterian meeting house, a Republican safe house, the travelling community and an Orange Hall.

Nice Day Designs features the work of Irish designer and craftmaker Ruth Crean. Based in Limerick, she upcycles second hand clothes and sells all kinds of crafts and jewellery online and in Limerick’s weekend Milk Market (a little like Belfast’s St George’s Market). Worth a look if you’re looking for a present.

Belfast Mela - Sunday 28 August - Botanic Gardens

This afternoon, Belfast Mela once again takes over Botanic Gardens from noon until 8.30pm. The annual cross-cultural “gathering” takes in world music spanning Bhangra to Bollywood, Gospel to Irish trad, and a spot of Polish electronica along with circus acts, dance, fashion, henna and interactive arts for children. The World Food Market offers flavours from Eastern Europe all the way to the Far East.

Tip from last year - arrive before mid-afternoon to avoid the long queues at the entrance to this colourful celebration of diversity.

£2 entrance (£1 under-12s/senior citizens) to the main Mela.

Morning Star husband crèche

It's been about ten years since we last had a work lunch trip out to The Morning Star. The menu was full of exotic dishes - crocodile and kangaroo steaks. Coming out of In Shops a couple of days ago, we noticed the chalked writing on the fire escape opposite The Morning Star. Someone's been using their imagination for their latest promotion!

VAT rise effects – 5p on my cup of tea

So the price of a cup of tea went up in our canteen this morning, a hike from 55p to 60p. Coffee drinkers will have noticed a rise too.

The VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% should only have added a penny or so to the price of a cup of tea. The above-VAT increase is partially justified by not increasing the price of most of the other items on sale in the canteen. However, it’s bad news if all you ever eat is tea and a scone. And I don’t remember the VAT reduction (when it went down from 17.5% to 15%) being passed on to canteen users in the same way.

The broader question is … has the price of your regular cup of tea or coffee increased today?

Drop a comment and let me know the price, how much it’s gone up by, and where you get it and I’ll post a summary in a day or so.

(Photo used under licence from chumsdock on Flickr.)

Something for the weekend - food, Brutalism, Diwali, Turnips and a gig on a barge

We’d a lovely meal in McKees restaurant a couple of Friday night’s ago. Their annual FREE Christmas Fayre is on this weekend, Friday 6pm-9pm and Saturday 10am-4pm, with an opportunity to sample their goods and order in time for the festive season. 28 Holywood Road, Newtownards, BT23 4TQ.

At 11am on Saturday, the Ulster Museum is the venue for a Brutalist building visit and workshop aimed at primary school-aged children. The museum itself is an example of Brutalist 1960s/1970s architecture, and there’ll be an opportunity to make your own Brutalist model. There’s a £5 charge and a booking link over on the PLACE website.

The Diwali and Samhain festival celebrations organised by Artsekta continue in the Ulster Museum on Saturday. Between 1pm and 4pm there’s a free “afternoon of Irish and Indian culture and creativity” with singing, dancing, crafts … and face painting! And between 5pm and 9pm, there’s an elaborate finale to the week-long “Ireland’s first Indo-Celtic Festival” with music, dance, puppeteers, storytellers and street artists. (£1 entrance for the evening event.)

Although the monthly Farmers’ Market no longer operates, Lisburn’s Castle Gardens will be hosting an Enchanted Food and Garden Market on Saturday between 10am and 4pm. Crafts, face painting and kids entertainers will be there. And a showcase of childrens’ entries from Lisburn’s (now annual) Turnip Festival will be on display between Saturday 6 and Saturday 13 in 35-37 Market Centre facing the Linen Museum.

On Saturday night, the Lazy Susans are performing in The Barge, tied up next to Nula with the hula (or doll with the ball or thing with the ring or officially Ring of Thanksgiving) in Thanksgiving Square next to the Waterfront Hall. The gig is raising money for the continued renovation of the barge. For £8 (£5 concession) you can expect an evening of a cappella harmony singing from the Lazy Susans (none of whom are called Susan!) covering songs by Bob Dylan, James Dylan, the Beatles, Mika amongst others. Tickets can be booked by emailing admin AT laganlegacy DOT com and then paid and picked up on the night. Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. There’s no bar, so bring your own.

The Black Market runs on the first Sunday of each month in Belfast’s Black Box on Hill Street. Arts, crafts, clothing, food, books and … for this month, mulled wine and a piece of shortbread only £3 from the bar. Noon-5pm.

Or there was the SDLP Conference in the Belfast Ramada at Shaws Bridge ... which was open to the (paying) public on Friday night and all day Saturday!

Something for the weekend - railway Chopin, open console organ workshops, festival talks and pumpkins

Chopin is getting an outing on his 200th anniversary of his birth. Musicians will be playing Rush Hour Chopin at Central Station on Friday 15 between 7.30am-9am, and returning at 4.30pm-6pm.

Following on from the recent Street Piano installations, you can sign up on the Belfast Festival website to play for 15 minutes in Open Chopin on a piano that will be available in Belfast City Hall on Saturday 16 between 10am-5pm.

The Ulster Hall’s Mulholland Grand Organ is in the spotlight on Saturday 16 in a series of free workshops with Belfast City Organist Colm Carey and the Ulster Society of Organists and Choirmasters.

• 9am – 10.30am How an organ produces its sounds for beginners (up to 15 years old)
• 10.30am – noon Workshop for young players (up to 20 years old)
• noon – 12.30pm Demonstration and recital
• 12.30pm – 2pm Open Console – come and try out the organ.

Nothing to stop you popping into the hall to listen to the music during any of the workshops.

The National Trust site at Castleward is hosting Pumpkinfest & Craft Fair on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 between 1pm and 5pm. Along with 50 draft and food stalls, there will be pumpkin scooping and carving; a pumpkin people murder mystery; pumpkin soup; pumpkin (organic) picking in the walled garden; horse and pumpkin* carriage rides. Included within the normal NT entrance fee. (* sorry, just an ordinary carriage – couldn’t resist)

Peter Hain is talking on stage to plug. Peter Hain is on stage for a Belfast Festival Talk in Elmwood Hall at 6.30pm on Saturday 16, plugging his new book Mandela: The Story of a Universal Hero. Tickets still available.

I recently caught up with Claire Keegan’s novel Foster when an abridged version was serialised as the Afternoon Readings on Radio 4. It’s the story of a small girl sent to live with foster parents in rural Ireland without knowing when she will return home. A warm and loving relationship develops, before a secret is revealed, rocking her new-found security. Author Claire Keegan is talking to Marie-Louise Muir in the Crescent Arts Centre at 6pm on Sunday 17.

(Image of Mulholland Grand Organ by Phil O’Kane used with permission)

Something for the weekend - food, fashion, eco living, drama and drawing the future

The Big Draw. Can you imagine Northern Ireland in 50 or 100 years time? What would you like our towns and cities to be like?

PLACE encourage people of all ages to come down to PLACE HQ on Fountain Street (just beside the back of Boots) sometime between 10am and 4pm on Saturday 9 to draw their vision of the future. “It could be realistic - maybe every house will have a wind turbine or a grass roof. Or it could be a real flight of fancy - how about a floating school to save space on the ground?”

The Causeway Speciality Market will be setting out its stall at The Diamond in Coleraine on Saturday 9 October.

The organisers promise gourmet food and drink, organic meat and vegetables, seasonal fruit, hand-made jewellery and teddy bears.

Belfast’s Fashion Souk makes a return appearance between 1pm and 5pm in the Ulster Hall on Sunday 10 October. A variety of “locally made, vintage, recycled, up-cycled and nearly new clothing” will be for sale.

The “Humble Jumble” zone will all “fashion lovers to unload their wardrobes and sell their fashion favourites and fast faux-pas”. Kids fashion activities, on-site alterations, DJs and a crèche too. £2 door tax.

Food Glorious Food sees food and drink stalls alongside live music and children’s crafts at the National Trust’s Mount Stewart property near Newtownards on Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 October (10am-5pm). Normal NT entrance charge applies.

The Eco Show Live is running in the Kings Hall between Friday 8 and Sunday 10 October. Find out about building a zero-energy house, listen to an Really Rubbish Orchestra playing instruments made from recycled waste. Different zones will focus on business, energy, food, health, lifestyle, home and transport.

There’s a £5 entrance fee and under 16s go free. £1 off the entrance free if you can prove you arrive by bicycle or public transport. Free admission if you arrive by public transport from RoI. Doors open at 10am and close at 7pm on Friday, 6pm on Saturday/Sunday.

And you might still be able to get tickets for The Boat Factory performances in Annesley Hall, Newcastle on Friday night, and Derry's Playhouse Theatre on Saturday night - both at 8pm. The play is back in East Belfast at Ashfield Girls' High School on the Holywood Road on Monday evening.

Something for the weekend – food, DIY and WWII in Belfast and Lisburn

Taste Northern Ireland Garden Party is running between 11am-6pm on Saturday and Sunday in Belfast’s Botanic Gardens. As well as food galore, there will be nine hole crazy golf, live music, face painting and glitter tattooists, and storytelling on the half hour.

The Institute of Physics will be doing physics tricks – expect lots balloons and liquid nitrogen! The programme on Belfast City Council’s website also points to Lord of the Bins:

“Gandalf the Garbage and Frodo Bin-Baggins are two very special puppets perched on their very own bins, with a mission to save Middle Earth with their recycling message.”

Up the road in the Kings Hall, the Decorate & Improve Your Home exhibition is running on Saturday and Sunday between 10am-6pm.

Architects, builders, designers, suppliers all under the one roof with the promise of competitions, consultations and DIY demonstrations. Full details on the organiser’s brochure.

Lisburn Heritage Festival starts on Saturday 18. Between 10am and 4pm Market Square will be hosting a Second World War vehicle display along with a chance to get dressed up on WWII uniforms.

Up the street in Castle Gardens, a living history group will have set up their tents and field hospital and showing off personal kit from WWII. Children can join in an organised craft activity to make their own small paper planes, tying in with the Ulster Aviation Society display.

Pizzarellys - lost its touch?

Having caught the late afternoon showing of Nativity! in the Odeon (Tuesday tickets are only £3!) we fancied something to eat. Under impressed with the food outlets in Victoria Square – that is, under impressed with the food outlets without queues snaking out their doors – we headed back to Lisburn to grab something to eat.

We’d been to Uno’s quite recently, and having walked across to Lisburn Square we found that the excellent Café Square Bistro had closed early. So we headed back to that old favourite, Pizzarellys in Bachelors Walk.

Growing up in Lisburn, I spent most of by birthday teas eating in Pizzarellys. (All except a couple of meals over at Angelo's half way down Market Lane tucked in-between Reids shoe shop and the Health Centre. I’ll always remember being in there when the bomb went off at the fun run.) So while the owners may have changed over time, it’s an established fact in my mind that Pizzarellys is a reliable place for a meal.

But it has changed. And going by Tuesday night’s experience and feedback since then from other people, it’s lost much of its charm and quality.

The honey chicken strip starter was a bit too tough. The pizza was ordered with “no onion” (and it was underlined on the order), but it came festooned with more onion than any other ingredient. To be fair, when I pointed this out, the waitress did immediately volunteer to wipe it from the bill.

Their selection of pizzas on the menu is quite strange too. I wouldn’t want everywhere to be the same, but it’s odd not to find Four Seasons or BBQ Chicken on the menu. In fact the standard ones (which nearly all come with onion by default) are plain, simple and frankly uninspiring. And while you can build your own, it’s a much more expensive option than choosing the standard ones off the menu. But I digress ...

The vegetarian courgette lasagne had a millimetre or two of vegetable at the bottom of the stack, but you had to go looking to find it.

On the plus side, customer service was good, the milkshakes were large (and half the price of a lot of other establishments) and the Emu on the top of the Christmas tree was unique.

But unless I hear that Pizzarellys has improved, I’ll not be back. The less-than-perfect Uno’s down the street, and amazing Market Square Bistro in Lisburn Square will get my business instead.

You can check out other people’s reviews on Lookaly.