The Dublin Community Blog

I’m not sure we could add this to our ‘recession busters’ or ‘how to get by on €15’ categories, but it’s a good deal nonetheless. The ‘Dine in Dublin-Restaurant Week’ campaign will feature a number of restaurants offering three course dinner menus for promotional rates of €25 or €30 (a 20% discount.) The initiative will run from the 12th through the 18th of October and there are over 50 restaurants participating. It may indeed include some of your favourites, so be sure to have a look at the full list HERE.

And if you can’t wait until next weekend for a culinary adventure, be sure to check out Marlay Park this weekend, where the Festival of World Food will be taking place again. (CLICK HERE to see DublinBlog’s write-up on it last year.)

[I'm having a hard time confirming the Festival of World Food event this weekend, so if anybody can provide further information or a website that confirms it, that would be appreciated. It's supposed to be a Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council sponsored event, but their website is showing nothin'.]

Further ‘recession buster’ deals to be taken advantage of in Dundrum these days. The Counter are offering a free Signature Burger to the first 100 people to visit from 12noon tomorrow. That gives you seven options in the ‘Signature Burger’ category. The Counter is located below Hamley’s toy store in Dundrum Town Centre.

Also, Milano are offering two pizzas for just €12 (except on Saturdays) through 4 October. CLICK HERE to fill in a form and receive a voucher to print out and take with you to any one of seven restaurants in Dublin.

The other day, my family and I took the opportunity to have lunch in Alfie’s on William St. South after noticing their “€10 Lunch Box” promotion on a sign just outside the door. We were greeted by friendly staff who accommodated us and made us feel a little more at ease with a toddler and a buggy. (Any parents living in Dublin will tell you that some city centre restaurants are more accommodating to families than others.)
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Dublin does not have many Lebanese restaurants and I happen to be a big fan of Lebanese cuisine. To satisfy my cravings for Lebanese food, I recently decided to look for Lebanese restaurants in the city and ended up going to Byblos on St Andrew street. Byblos is situated next to Cedar Tree, which is the oldest Lebanese restaurant in Dublin. The two restaurants seem to be associated with each other. Both restaurants offer fairly extensive dinner menus while Byblos also opens for lunch and specializes in Mezze, which is a collection of appetizers that is great for sharing.

We decided to visit Byblos on a quiet East Monday afternoon to try the lunch menu as it offered a variety of items at fairly reasonable prices. The restaurant was largely empty with only two other tables that were occupied. We immediately noticed that the place was exceptionally clean with a comfortable decor. The two of us were quickly assigned a table and given our menus.

We were quite hungry so we ordered a Shawarma Platter, a Chicken Shawarma, and a Mezze Kibbe. The service was really good but the restaurant wasn’t busy at the time. We didn’t have to wait long before the food arrived. The portions were large and the food was excellent and fresh. We found that the platters were large enough for us and ordering the Mezze wasn’t really necessary. We had a hard time finishing all the food but our gluttony was well satisfied.

If you are in town and want to eat something a bit different give Byblos a try. In case that you are unsure of Lebanese food or the restaurant, I recommend trying the lunch menu at Byblos. It will give you an opportunity to sample the food at reasonable prices.

Blackboard Bistro

Originally uploaded by Visual Machine
Blackboard Bistro is just opposite to National Gallery on Clare Street. It is run by Irish-French couple. Each day chef has 3 amazing lunch dishes ready for you. You can find French cuisine, some Italian or Thai, but this is his magic talent what makes them so delicious, you discover the food you know for ages again.
Highly recommended for nice lunch or evening date, because Blackboard is open until 10 PM from Monday to Saturday.
Prices do not exceed 15 euros for dish.

Website

On Saturday, my family and I ventured in to the city centre to see a friend from Prague. While we were there, we caught some of the traditional story-telling that was happening in conjunction with the Irish Trad Festival. It was interesting, but not really much more than your typical street performer. In fact, there was a busker in Temple Bar Square doing improvisational humour in between the story-tellers and he was actually far more entertaining. With that said, it worked well for the trad festival and seemed to be a hit with the kiddies.

For dinner, we headed West to the edge of Temple Bar for Dublin’s finest kebab at Zaytoon’s (arguably also Dublin’s dearest kebab – a tenner and some change for a meal combo.) After dinner, in my pre-fatherhood days, it would’ve been straight across to The Porterhouse for a pint and some Irish trad. But alas, a 4-month-old can only take so much action in the city.

(Note to parents: Bit of a rough ride taking a pram through Temple Bar, unless it’s got big wheels and state-of-the-art suspension.)

The Food Safety Authority yesterday published a list of enforcement orders served on food premises for October. I was quite surprised and shocked to see two places on the list that I have frequented: O’Briens Sandwich Bar in St. Stephens Green Shopping Centre and Ba Mizu under Powerscourt Townhouse.

Closure Orders are served when it is deemed, upon inspection, that there is, or there is likely to be, a grave and immediate danger to public health at or in the premises.

I like Ba Mizu and have enjoyed many a good feed there. I’m not sure I’ll be running back!

I enjoy food and am lucky enough to often eat out, but I’m wondering can we really trust what we are served in restaurants?

Hey foodies out there, there is a world food festival in Marlay Park this weekend (6, 7 October). Admission to the Festival of World Food 2007 is free. There will be cooking demonstrations along with stands to try various foods from a variety of cultures (including Ireland).  Admission is free and it sounds like it could be fun.  I know of one stand that will be there and they make excellent Mexican food.

On our way to Lemon Crepe & Coffee Co. (Dawson Street) for lunch the other day, we noticed a new restaurant across the street called The Farm. After taking a quick look at the lunch menu, we decided that the pricing seemed reasonable and it would be good to try something new. Turns out, it was a great decision!

The Farm boasts all natural, organic food on the menu, including a coffee bar with organic Bewleys brand espresso drinks. I decided to go with the hamburger off the lunch menu (admittedly, not a very adventurous choice) and I must say, it was probably one of the tastiest burgers I’ve had. I don’t know if it was the seasoning they used or the organic nature of the beef or a combination of both, but the flavour of that simple hamburger will have me going back for more! My wife had a pasta dish (penne) with meatballs and really liked it as well.

Between the two of us, our lunch bill came to about €28, which included a half pint of Heineken for myself and a bottle of fruit juice for my wife. Considering that most organic food vendors slap a premium price on the “organicâ€? label, I’d say it’s a great value. The staff were also very friendly and helpful, which is always a big plus.

As impressed as I was with The Farm, however, it’s not to say that the Calzone crepe at Lemon will lose it’s place in the top rankings of my favourite lunch meals in the city!

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