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.

Normally moored on the Grand Canal at Mespil Road, La Peniche was the venue for our little gourmet gang’s latest dinner. Normally we have an “early bird menu, house wine only” rule to keep the costs down, but this time we went all-out in search of a different dining experience.

We started off on deck, relaxing with a drink in the beautiful summer evening before being escorted below to our table. The decor has an old-world maritime charm to it, but since the boat was designed to fit inside a standard Grand Canal lock, its 18.5 metre overall length makes for a cosy dining experience. In the end this wasn’t a problem; the close quarters combined with the eclectic music playlist (I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Return to Sender” and Van Halen’s “Jump” sharing the same musical bill before!) just added to the experience.

Although a restaurant, it is also a fully-functional barge so it does move, just not very far! The standard dinner cruise (€10 pp supplement) takes you west through one lock before mooring outside the Hilton at Charlemont bridge. It’s enough to give you a taste of travel on the canal, but those expecting a Rick Stein-style epic journey will be disappointed. Still, it means you avoid the perilous badlands of D8 and D12 further west.

And so to the food. I’m happy to report it was of a very good standard, though for a restaurant touting itself as “the premium dining experience in Dublin”, one would expect no less. I had a smoked salmon starter with an avacado and capers salsa, which was both generously-sized and delicious. The garlic mussels and cured meats were also both hits, but my favourite starter was the black pudding. Served with apple and a strip of bacon, it was one of the nicest puddings I’ve tasted.

For mains I opted for the lamb shank; again a generous portion, and tender to the point of falling off the bone. Another hit was the duet of prawn and smoked mackerel, which is served fish pie-style in a creamy sauce. Possibly the weakest of the mains we tried was the confit leg of duck. Still lovely, but it suffered from comparison with the other dishes.

Things finished off strongly with desserts, with praise all round for each dish that was offered: a chocolate tart, a pear and almond tart, and the selection of cheeses. Service throughout was friendly, though slightly haphazard. It would be churlish to complain, however, as the staff were uniformly pleasant and happy to chat about the barge and its operation.

The only surprise was when the bill came. Three courses are available for €35, which is reasonable enough, but when you add the cruising supplement, wine, a tip, and of course the pre-dinner drinks, we were suddenly looking down the sharp end of €75 a head. It is tempting, though perhaps a little unfair, to compare this to places like Green 19 which offer excellent value and good food for much less, but in the end I think the unique experience and quality of the food on La Peniche just about justifies the price of admission, particularly if it’s for a special occasion.

Overall, I’d give it 7.5 marks out of 10, a happy customer, albeit much lighter of wallet!

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!

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.)

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!

Having a sneaky early Friday in town, I rang Derv to see if she was around for lunch.
In a fantastic moment of inspiration she rang the Winding Stair to see if they had a table available!
So we trundled up to the small but airy restaurant for our lunch.
The room is really nicely decorated – simple and sympathetic to the building. You see the kitchen through the hatch at the back, and all there is lots of action around the bar on the side of the room.

After long deliberations I ordered devilled kidneys and Derv had a poached duck egg with hollandaise and asparagus. And we splashed out on a bowl of homemade chips with aioli. The meal arrived in perfect time (too quick – I get suspicious, too long – I get cranky!).
My kidneys were presented on toast with a extremely simple but delicious green salad.
They were perfectly cooked and had a really great flavour. I really took my time over them to savour the taste.
Dervla’s egg was perfectly cooked, which for me makes the dish! The chips were piping hot, and tasted as if they were cooked in animal fat. YUM!

Not long after we received our food we decided to have a glass of wine each. We ordered the Riesling from the blackboard behind us. Two very generous glasses arrived and it was very (too!) drinkable.

Meal finished we ordered coffees – I have to say mine was a little cold, but after jumping on the chips when they arrived and burning my mouth… I didn’t really mind too much.

The staff were friendly and attentive. Our waiter attempted to schmooze two ladies beside us. He was under the impression that it was working, but they didn’t seem that impressed

I could have ordered ANYTHING from the menu, it all sounded really delicious. Right up my street. The focus seems to be on good ingredients cooked simply. I cannot argue with that!

I will DEFINITELY be back!

Rating: food: 5/5, ambiance 4/5, service 4/5 and value 3/5 All in all 16 out of 20.

Aaaand we’re back! For the second outing of the Gourmet Club we decided on the Eden Restaurant in Temple Bar. With a menu changing on a weekly basis, Eden is definitely one of these places you could go to every so often and still be surprised with what’s on the menu.

It is quite a stylish place with a modern, light interior, large windows looking out over the restaurant’s terrace and Meeting House Square and a semi open kitchen. We were seated at a large table next to the kitchen, so we had a great view of the bowls of fresh ingredients and the, surprisingly silent, kitchen staff working away preparing our dishes.

The pre-theatre menu is a weekly changing three course menu that, for this week, offers a choice of 5 appetisers, 4 main courses and three desserts. Available Sunday to Thursday and will cost €27. The wine was really nice and we once again managed to get through enough bottles throughout the meal.

Sticking with the vegetarian options this time, as a starter I chose a salad of Cashel Blue cheese, caramelised fennel, woodland mushrooms and tarragon. Lovely laid out on the plate and a great combination of flavours, but a small portion though. The steamed Mussels were another good option, but we all agreed that the first prize definitely went to the seared rate tuna, which was very steaky and incorporated in a beautiful creation on the plate.

The main course for me was aubergine gratin with lentils, mozzarella, oven dried tomatoes and rocket leaves. In one word delicious. Gratins can sometimes be far too cheesy and the flavour of the other ingredients is taken away by the overload of cheese. This was definitely not the case here. The lentils and aubergine were an excellent match for the cheese and the salad of rocket leaves and oven dried offered an excellent fresh alternative on the side. There might have been a bit too much rocket compared to the tomato, but all I think we all agreed that it beat the plaice fillet and the braised pork.

My dessert of choice was a moist baked chocolate torte with hazelnut praline semifreddo. The torte was not exactly a torte, but was actually more like chocolate cake. It was nice, but did not live up to the high standard of the rest of the meal. The other dessert of choice by some of the Gourmet club members was warm Danish apple cake, which was gorgeous and it made us torte-choosers very jealous I must admit.

The service was alright, although not excellent, but we definitely sat more comfortably than last time and there was no mix-up with any dishes.

There were no separate ladies and gents toilets as such, but a distinction between them could be seen on the doors of every individual stall in a quite original way, as the picture will surely show…

As for my grades on the ‘Gourmet Club Scale of 1 to 5’: food: 4/5, ambiance 3/5, service 3/5 and value 4/5 All in all 14 out of 20.

P.S. they have a cookbook too. So nothing can stop us from recreating these lovely dishes at home: ‘Eden Cookbook’ by Eleanor Walsh and Michael Durkin (Gill & MacMillan)

Seared Rate Tuna – Quail eggs, curried aioli and green salad



Aubergine Gratin – Lentil du Puy, mozzarella, oven dried tomato and rocket salad