Last night, while others were enjoying corned beef and cabbage with green beer, we broke with tradition in a big way.

We dined at Vermillion in midtown Manhattan. The soaring, bi-level space is the New York branch of the Chicago Vermillion established by Rohini Dey, a former international banker and McKinsey consultant.

Serving a unique Indian-Latin fusion menu, the flavors and presentation are as stylish as Ms. Dey herself. First, the cuisine:

In a complete relaunch of the menu, Ms. Dey’s concept to fuse the two colorful cuisines has been interpreted by co-executive chefs Anup Patwal and Aseema Mamaji from India, and sous chef Javier Alvarez from Latin America. The gifted young team brings verve, energy and an elegant touch to the food.

Beyond the flavorful, there’s a “wow” experience in the presentation. Thought has been given to turning each dish into culinary art; whether it’s a specially crafted chrome rack from which four different types of kabobs hang in alluring fashion, or a slice of tree trunk used as a charger.

Absolutely everything demands to be consumed. Even garnishes of pickled red onion or green chile are exciting. We didn’t leave a scrap on the plate!

The seasonings are spectacular. There’s just enough of the custom-blended spices and heat to blend perfectly, appropriately understated without providing a punch not wanted in fine dining. It’s not often that we encounter such finesse with spices. Kudos to the chefs!

In addition to fusion dishes, there’s a menu of classic Indian entrées. There is nothing we don’t want to try, and we can’t wait to go back.

While dinner can cost what you’d expect for such fine cuisine, lunch is quite affordable: two courses for $20 or three courses for $24.

Wine tip: The Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling, made with grapes from Washington’s Columbia Valley, is perfect with the cuisine. Off-dry, with notes of sweet lime, peach and subtle minerality, it is a charming complement to the spice and heat.

There’s a comfortable cocktail lounge downstairs and a private dining room upstairs, on the main dining floor. The restaurant is at 480 Lexington Avenue at 46th Street. Visit the company website or call for reservations: 212-871-6600.

Then, we received this recipe from The Baker Chick and realized how much we wanted to tear into a warm loaf of soda bread and slather it with Kerrygold butter from Ireland.

So we bumped our previously scheduled Tip Of The Day for this suggestion: Bake a loaf of Irish soda bread.

If you’re already at work, bake it when you get home. It’s delicious with dinner—or in our case, instead of dinner. (We can make a joyous meal of great bread and butter.)

Traditional Irish soda bread, the recipe below, has just four ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk.

Other recipes add butter, caraway seeds, chocolate, eggs, orange peel or zest, raisins and/or sugar.

That’s absolutely delicious; it’s just not the original.

The style of soda bread we enjoy in the U.S. is American-style, developed by Irish immigrants with butter, sugar and raisins.

We adapted the recipe to meet in the middle: no butter or egg, but a bit of raisins and caraway.
 
 
RECIPE: TRADITIONAL IRISH SODA BREAD

Ingredients For 1 Loaf

 
We couldn’t help ourselves: We added these optional, non-traditional ingredients:

 
But in the name of tradition, we held back on the butter, egg and sugar.
 
Preparation

[2] Irish soda bread baked with raisins and/or caraway is a later development (photo © Hot Bread Kitchen).

2. STIR together the flour, salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour in 1 1/2 cups of the buttermilk. Use a wooden spoon or your hand to combine the ingredients. You want the dough to be soft, so don’t over-mix it. Add more buttermilk if needed to get the dough to come together.

3. TURN the dough onto a floured surface and give it just a few kneads (more will result in a tougher crumb). Shape it into a 6-inch diameter disk, about 2 inches high. Use a sharp knife to score a shallow X on the top of the loaf. Transfer to a cookie sheet or pizza stone and bake for 15 minutes.

4. REDUCE the heat to 400°F and bake for another 20-25 minutes, or until the crust is golden, and the bread sounds hollow when you tap it.

Baking soda, called bread soda in Ireland, was invented in the early 1800s. In those days most people didn’t have an oven—they cooked in a fireplace over coals or a peat fire (called turf fire in Ireland). They placed the dough in a lidded cast-iron pot which went right on top of the fire.

In County Donegal and County Leitrim, there was a tradition of adding caraway seeds to bread. Immigrants brought that recipe to the U.S. In America, the recipe evolved to include butter, eggs, raisins and sugar—ingredients which frugal housewives in Ireland wouldn’t have thought to add to the dough.

Today, the soda bread recipe options include:

 
Check out these and other recipes here.

FOOD TRIVIA: The cross cut into the top of the loaf before baking allows the heat to penetrate into the thickest part of the bread. As a bonus, in a Catholic country it adds the symbolic note of giving thanks.

From the Owl’s Brew, specialists in tea crafted for cocktails: artisanal, fresh-brewed and ready-to-pour tea.

For St. Patrick’s Day, they sent us this appropriately green cocktail that uses one of their brews (here’s a store locator); or you can brew your own.

They call the cocktail The Green Garden, but you can call it The Emerald Isle.

RECIPE: THE GREEN GARDEN

Ingredients For 1 Drink

 
*The Classic is a blend of English Breakfast Tea and lemon peel, with a bit of tartness from lemon juice and lime juice. If you can’t find the product locally, you can brew your own.

1. COMBINE the ingredients and stir or shake.

2. POUR over ice into a mason jar or strain into a martini glass.