All this good weather seems to have given the city an extra spring in its step – the streets seem even busier in the evenings with people taking advantage of the last of the sun. With the skies staying bright until 8:30 at least, it’s the perfect time of year for enjoying a few drinks outdoors. These are some of my favourite beer gardens in town:

Porterhouse North, Phibsboro
Located beside the Cross Guns bridge on the north side of Phibsboro, the Porterhouse North stocks the same vast range of beers as its sister pub in the city centre (and serves an even bigger range of food). It has a large beer garden at the back of the pub, which is sheltered but still gets the sun.

Dicey Reillys, Harcourt Street
A Dublin staple! Right in the city centre too – which means it’s usually buzzing with people.

Fitzsimons, Temple Bar
Yes, it may be in the centre of thronged Temple Bar, but Fitzsimons’ beer garden has the unique advantage of being on its roof, which means lovely city views. Worth it for a short stop.

The Hole In The Wall, Blackhorse Avenue
Arguably the biggest beer garden in Europe! The Hole In The Wall still carries on a century-old tradition of serving great pints and passing them through – yep, a hole in the wall – to the Phoenix Park. Genius.

What have I missed? Suggestions welcome in the comments…

This year, I will actually be away for Paddy’s Day but wanted to share things that I have learned from previous Paddy’s Days experiences:

• If going to the parade, I would suggest getting there about two hours before it starts if you don’t want to be trying to see around lots of people.  Take some warm beverage with you as well since it gets cold standing around for two hours.   If you are standing near the barricades for the parade, children and  adults will try to push their way in so they can see better.
• Dress in layers.  The weather is every changing here in Dublin.  You need the warmth when outside, but not inside. 
• Bring rain and sun gear.  You’ll probably need both.
• Face painting, dressing in all green, or other forms of costumes makes it more likely that your picture will be taken many times, maybe even published on a blog. 
• After watching the parade, duck into an out of the way little cafe for lunch.  Most places along the parade line will be packed but if you go off the parade line, you can frequently find a little place to eat. Or just go to the pub (also probably very busy) and get lunch there.
• Go to the pub!!!!  Our first Paddy’s Day, we ended up at Cafe En Sein because it is a nicer place and wasn’t packed full of people.  We were rewarded with a Ceili band.
• A lot of places will have traditional music during Paddy’s Day weekend.  Check them out.  Just duck into a pub or two to feel the atmosphere and then move onto another if you don’t like the one you’re in (Dublin has enough pubs that you are sure to find one you like)
• Just wander around and see what you see.  Many of the windows in Temple Bar are decorated for the Six Nations and Paddy’s Day.  Have a wander around and you just may learn something while being entertained. 

Other people have posted about the official events.  I would highly recommend the Ceili Mor in Earlsfort Terrace.  It was fun last year to see people jumping around and dancing to the songs, even if you don’t know how to dance, it is still good fun!

The ever-popular Porterhouse microbrewery and bar is currently holding its annual Stout Festival, nicely timed to coincide with the St. Patrick’s festivities. Their city centre bars on Nassau Street and Parliament Street, as well as Porterhouse North in Phibsboro, are all taking part, and full details can be found here.

The various Porterhouses will also be showing the final round of Six Nations matches, which includes England vs Ireland in Twickenham at 3pm. Not a bad way to get the party started!

 

If you are wondering what is on the picture the answer is very Dublinish: Guinness!!

Michael Davidson of Florida University makes beer photos using microscope. What to say more? Check his beer website. 

For a few brief hours last Friday (and probably Saturday and Sunday too), every wine bar in the city lay dormant as the entire middle class population of Dublin descended upon the beautiful Iveagh Gardens for this years Taste Of Dublin. Fortunately I managed to get my hands on a couple of cheap tickets too and so with 50 “florins” (Taste of Dublin currency) in one hand and my beautiful date in the other, I set off for some top notch grub.

The weather was a little on the soft side but this had no effect on the number of people who turned up and fifteen to twenty minute queues were the norm in order to get served by most of the exhibitors. I quickly discovered that the Taste of Dublin “currency” (florin) was a scam by greedy promoters to ensure that the squeezed the maximum amount of money from the crowd, as every tent I visited also accepted euro and indeed some wouldn’t even accept the florins.

The samples given by the main exhibitors cost an average of seven euro and were a little on the small side for that price, however we were treated to plenty of free samples by friendly staff at many stalls and I enjoyed some really tasty offerings especially from the nice folk at Donnybrook Fair.

In the end I had a good night with plenty of wine, beer and food (not so much song, though the Caribbean band in the pub tent were very good) and I’d recommend the event to anyone thinking of going next year – just don’t bother with the florins.

More pictures available at the Dublin Blog group pool on Flickr

Over St. Patrick’s Day weekend, I had the chance to visit a new restaurant and pub here in South Dublin (new to me anyway), both of which I can highly recommend.

On Friday night, my wife and I stopped in for dinner at La Dolce Vita, in the heart of Sandyford Village directly across from the Sandyford House pub, just south of the M50.  It’s a small, quaint little Italian restaurant that seats approximately 25 people.  The owners have done a decent job with the décor, including some interesting art work, and lighting that makes for a subdued, but classy atmosphere.  We both enjoyed our food and thought it was a good value overall.  My wife had a pizza, which she found far more tasty and less greasy than “fast food� pizza.  I had the Pollo Pesto and would probably give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.  (CLICK HERE to view the menu.)  It will definitely be a place we go back to in the future.

On Monday evening, we met some friends at the Wishing Well pub in Blackrock to round off our St. Patrick’s Day weekend.  It’s located just up the street from the TGI Friday’s on Newtown Park Road.  It’s a larger pub with modern décor and several flat screen TVs for the GAA and Premiership football fans.  There’s a back room that can be reserved for private functions and has more of a traditional look and feel to it.  Every Monday evening, a group of musicians convene in this back room for a traditional music session.  I was surprised at how many musicians were actually there, including a pair of accordions, banjos, and acoustic guitars, along with a fiddle, and a bodhrán.  Given the fact that there were so many of them in a relatively small back room, they seemed skilled and experienced enough to compliment one another and provide a good mix without making the guests wish they could turn the volume down.

I said I would post more pics from O’Donoghue’s and here you go. This should be, and will from me, be an ongoing project for other great Dublin pubs. Maybe the other authors will show us their favourite pubs

If you are looking for a decent pub and pint of Guinness (I am reliably told – not being a Guinness person myself) in Dublin, look no further than O’Donoghue’s on Merrion Row.

It is a no-nonsense, full of atmosphere, good pints, great music decent pub. There’s none of the interior design nonsense of other places in O’Donoghue’s. Much as those designer outlet pubs can look great all I want to do in them is use them as a snazzy backdrop for portraits of people. I do not want to pay for this heavy design with each pint.

The bar inside is lined with aging photographs and newspaper articles, great bar staff and the decent pub stalwart, a special toastie ie ham, cheese, onion and tomato. They are cooked in that mad plastic stuff which used to amuse me no end when I first moved from Belfast I had never seen anything toasted like that before. And unlike other pubs, O’Donoghue’s remove the burnt brown plastic before serving.
The only downside is a Friday evening when all the workplaces nearby spill out and into every nook and cranny in the place leaving no space to stand let alone enjoy a drink.

I have found myself there a lot over the years and even more so since the smoking ban because they have a great covered alleyway with gas heaters and halogen lamps and you can have a ciggie with your pint. Hence why there isn’t one pic of the inside.

*I will remedy that in the next week and update the post with pics from the inside*

The pics were taken on a quiet Sunday afternoon, a lovely time to stop in for a coffee (which is actually yeuck though I still get it) and watch the world go by.

Last night we went to the Porterhouse for dinner.  We hadn’t been there in ages since we went home for Christmas.  I was missing the chips and the Koppaberg mixed berry cider so we went out for dinner.  Yummy cider but the chips tasted different.  Anyway, it was about the emptiest I think I have ever seen the place, any time of day, and we were there for dinner.  Luckily for us, we had no problem finding a table, and even really got two (small) tables to ourselves!

My hypothesis as to why the Porterhouse was so empty is that many people seem  to  “go off the drink” during January.  Between my boyfriend and myself, we know about 6 people who are not drinking right now because the drank too much in December.  Is this a common thing, the detoxing, not the drinking too much?

My boyfriend asked one of his coworkers why not just drink 3-4 pints when going out instead of 10?  His coworker seemed agast at this suggestion.  Why is that?  Now, I know Ireland has a significant pub and drinking culture, but why not just drink a few a night instead of going through periods of not drinking because you overloaded your system so much?  Help dear Dub/Irish readers.  :)

Yesterday, I went out to the Porterhouse Central with some friends.  My friends had started drinking about 2:00 PM and none of us had any lunch.  When I got there at 5:30, they were pretty happy.  None of them seemed really drunk yet, but they certainly had drunk a lot by the time I had gotten there.

Anyway, we drank some more and a couple of us ordered a bit of dinner.  About 12:30 AM, I decided that I had had enough because people were looking at us a bit and we were turning into loud, obnoxious drunks.  We were still having good fun, but the wait staff were treating us a bit differently and others around us were giving us “looks.”

So, one of the group, who happens to be a bartender, was going to buy the round.  He asked me what I wanted and I said that I was finished for the night and only wanted water.  He then asked what another friend was drinking and I said that she should also be cut off for the night.  He said that it was fair enough that I had cut myself off but that the friend should decide for herself to be cut off (even though she was quite sloppy drunk).  He then turned to a third friend and asked what she was drinking.  She said that she was cutt off for the night and that the second friend should be cut off, too.  He still bought her another round.

So, Dublin blog readers, here is my question to you: when, if ever, do you “cut off” friends?