“Don’t you regret moving away?”
As I stood in the new Brown Hound Bakery, co-owner Reuven Diaz’s words hung in the air along with the luscious buttery scent of just-baked biscuits, cakes and scones. My senses were overloading at the scene: stacks of perfectly-crisp cookies under sparkling glass domes; steam whistling from the shiny espresso maker working overtime to fill coffee orders; and piles of crusty breads peeking out of woven baskets.
I didn’t say it out loud, but in that moment I did feel a pang of regret that I had upped sticks and moved to Dublin a few months ago, away from this haven of homemade goodness so sleek and gorgeous it would fit right into Greenwich Village. But Brown Hound Bakery is in unsuspecting Drogheda, next door to Reuven and wife Jeni’s *other* foodie show-stopper, the Eastern Seaboard Bar & Grill. Damn you, lucky residents of the Drog!
Though it opened only four weeks ago, Brown Hound Bakery is already causing a stir in this relatively quiet northeastern town. Rumour has it people line up in the mornings for BH’s fresh-fried pumpkin doughnuts and perfect coffee, a special blend made just for the bakery. So it was only natural to gather a group of Irish Foodies – cameras in tow – to take a look and investigate further, and last Saturday we met up with Reuven and Jeni for a first-hand tour of their new baby.
