Getting Baked with Eastern Seaboard

Eastern Seaboard may be my favourite restaurant.

It’s not the most expensive restaurant I’ve been to, I’ve had more amazing meals in other restaurants, it’s a 45 minute drive north to a housing estate in the outskirts of Drogheda to get there….

…but it feels right, the food doesn’t feel messed around, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like the food they serve and the staff are bright and cheerful, as restaurant staff should be.

Next door to Eastern Seaboard is the Brown Hound Bakery, developing a great reputation for cakes and pastries amongst those that care.

When Jeni from Eastern Seaboard tweeted that they were running a series of baking demo’s during November, I jumped. In fact so did a lot of people, the course of demo’s filled up within hours.

We were greeted on arrival and handed a name badge and a coffee before being ushered upstairs to the Brown Hound Nerve Centre, where master baker, Robert Thompson was waiting for us.

Robert started by making a single batch of bread dough, the proceeded to use it in different recipes, often simultaneously working on two or more different things at once… the man can multi-task.

He demonstrated a simple mini loaf. Why don’t more restaurants provide fresh mini loaves like this rather than the usual morning selection of sliced breads? Food is a communal thing, there’s nothing better than diving into a shared loaf together.

He then rolled out a piece of the dough and made savoury twirls using pesto and a sticky fruit spiral using sugar, butter and raisins.

Finally a savoury flatbread, like a pizza but more rustic, topped with oven dried tomatoes, mozzarella and onion.

In the weeks that followed, Robert demonstrated Trifles, Panna Cotta and finally an extremely simple pastry for sweet or savory.