The Dublin Community Blog

From the 20th of April for 6 days, selected restaurants are participating in this offer. Check out www.dineindublin.ie for details. Some decent places in the list, but book soon!

The official announcement goes like this:

This weekend (4,5 October) the Festival of World Food is taking place in Marlay Park in Rathfarnham. There will be food stalls from Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Germany, Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico, USA, Japan, China, Thailand, Greece, Spain, Sri Lanka and India. The festival will also focus on the wonderful innovations taking place in this country at the farming and artisan levels, with priority being given to applicants from farming, growing and producing backgrounds.
From Ireland there will be bakeries, farm house cheeses, condiments, butchers, gluten free products, organic fruit and vegetables, beverages, hot-food and a selection of our best home produced products.

The admission is free.

UPDATE: Other photos, here.

I had the pleasure of visiting the new rooftop restaurant in Marks & Spencers on Grafton Street last Saturday. It was quite busy  but the queue for seating moved along quicky. A very cheery and efficient Hostess gave us the option of sitting outside or inside. Since we spotted a bright sun outside, we reckoned we’d check out the view. However, within 15 minutes a heavy rain shower shooed us all inside. They don’t have permanent covering outside, just large umbrellas that don’t cover all tables. Weather permitting, it really is a lovely space outside. The view of Grafton Street is great. The decor is quite modern, with clean lines and Eames style Eiffel Tower chairs.

Unfortunately I didn’t photograph the menu, and I can’t find any online. It is quite reasonable price from what I can remember and theres lots of choice. We went with the “special offer” which was a choice of mains, choice of dessert and a glass of wine all for eur12.99. I had sausage and mash for mains – 3 large sausages and a large portion of mash. Very yummy. My banana split for dessert was very good too. My friend had a very good lasagne (with chunky chips as extra) and the strawberry eton mess type dessert – which tasted as good as it looked!

Service is super efficient. I would recommend a visit and I’m looking forward to my return.

So, I was at Taste of Dublin in Iveagh Gardens on Sunday (btw, absolutely grand, it was my first time in Iveagh Gardens). Hm…..let’s see: 25 euro one ticket, pretty expensive perfumes in the air, “Made in Brown Thomas” people, etc, etc. I will always be on the popular festivals side, like Maritime&Food Festival which took place a few weeks ago.

Taste of Dublin, maybe I’m wrong, but for me it seems to be a place for specialists, not for the real foodies. I’m a real foodie, I just love food, but………but, I will always love the events for everybody, not only for “some people”. My view.

Some other pictures, here.

Taste of Dublin 2008 starts today, at Iveagh Gardens, near Stephen’s Green Park. So, if you’re hungry or you just want to hang around and see at work some well-known chefs, you definitely should take a walk in. Due to some work stuff, I will be able to taste the Taste only on Sunday, on the final day, but that’s fine, because on Monday you will find here some articles and pictures from the event.

Official site (25 euro fee entrance).

The weather has been perfect for the Docklands Maritime Festival this bank holiday weekend. I took my family in to the festival on Saturday and came away with a sunburn and a full stomach. In fact, we’re going back in today so I can get my hands on some of those garlic potatoes and jumbo prawns (which I had to pass up on Saturday due to already having stuffed myself with bratwurst.)

Here’s a little video clip of just a few of the things on offer at the festival. And I’m looking forward to seeing what RedMum and the Flickr group captured from the meet up yesterday!

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.