The Dublin Community Blog

I suppose it was seeing posts about coffee that inspired me again (don’t worry – my own blog is getting just as neglected with this “work” thing too…)

I’ve had a very hot and cold relationship with Starbucks since they came here. Had a couple of very decent experiences, then started blowing very cold after a couple of times in a row where I came away very disappointed. Then I discovered the Frappucino. Sweet Jesus how many calories are in that thing?!?!?!?! And just how addictive could it be?!?!?!?!? 

I remember many moons ago Gloria Jeans outside the Powerscourt Centre used to do a thing called the mocha chiller that I fell in love with and this was it’s grandaddy obviously. Weirdly even after we got our own in work I started to resist even more but I gave up the day after David came back over with a venti americano that lasted me the first hour of the show and kept me flying for the rest of the evening… Not a great atmosphere in most of them but still we’re going to be assimilated whether we like it or not.

I still prefer places like Cafe Java in Blackrock (where I’m blogging from as I type!), the Queen Of Tarts on Dame Street, the Dome at the top of the Stephen’s Green Centre, Idlewild in Dalkey or even that place that does the wicked crepes at the top end of Nassau Street (sorry, short term memory rapidly failing the more I do this feckin’ new job…. Must be something to do with new information coming in one end and old being forced out the other!)

Was in the incredibly artificial Bewley’s Cafe at Newland’s Cross the other day. Reminded me of all the happy, warm, cheap times I spent as a student and penniless early 20-something in the one on Westmoreland Street. The coffee was very much crap but the ambience more than made up for it

Maybe, as Daragh has suggested, we should come up with a “definitive decent non-Starbucks coffee in Dublin list?

R

Ok, I don’t know if he was going to cross post from his own blog to here, but, just in case he wasn’t, I’m doing Rick’s dirty work for him!!

Rick O’ Shea is arranging Brainstock – a night in aid of Brainwave, The Irish Epilepsy Association. Brainwave is an excellent cause, and Rick is their patron, and has some put some fantastic effort into arranging what is sure to be a brilliant night out.

For more detail on the event that he has put together, I suggest you check out this post. Tickets for the gig, which will be taking place in Vicar Street, will be going on-sale on Ticketmaster this coming Friday @ 9:30, make sure this is a sell-out!!

Also, keep your eye out here over the next short while for some other exciting news in aid of a very good cause…..

I know it’s been a while…. Sorry. Work has become actual, real work since the new show started intead of the half-arsed hobby it was before. Not that I’m complaining This one’s been brewing for a while and I think it’s reached it’s boiling point for me.

What in the name of flip is happening to the city petrol stations?

Maybe it’s just in the parts of the world I drive through regularly but everywhere I look they’re closing down. Now I accept that the land they’re on is, in some cases, worth 50 years of the profits of an average service station and I’ll be the first to say we drive far, far too much and should use (our highly flawed) public transport wherever possible but it’s becoming an epidemic.

In recent weeks I’ve passed by the closed ones at the Blackrock Clinic, Parnell Road on the canal, opposite the mosque in Clonskeagh, opposite the Bank Of Ireland just before the Long Mile Road, Newtownpark Avenue, Churchtown, the one on the Stillorgan dual carriageway before Mount Merrion Avenue… They’re everywhere. Not that there aren’t enough left to service the rest of the population I’m sure but, given enough time, will running one simply become unprofitable in comparison to land values? Will we have to commute to greenfield sites to fill up?

Bit of an exaggeration, maybe…

R

Righty so. After my first recommendation a while back my next suggested stop is a small spot called Idelwilde in Dalkey Village (just down the side street from Xtravision). I started going there a few years ago when my little boy was in Montessori in Dalkey for a short time and only started going back there in the last year.

It’s a busy spot with great black coffee, killer poached eggs on granary toast, a fry if you fancy it and a cosmo mix of Dalkeyites with time on their hands, builders (why are there always builders everywhere you find breakfast?!?) and Sinead O’Connor and David McWilliams on occasion!

Inside is lovely (as are the very efficient staff) but it was only when the weather took up a few weeks ago that I thought to brave their open air garden out the back and it’s a little oasis in a mad world. It’s worth heading out into even when the weather doesn’t demand it…

Top spot.

R

PS Did quite an extensive post recently on my first trip back to the refurbished Hugh Lane – it’s HERE if you fancy a gander.

As an almost companion thought to the Take Back The Shite post I did recently here’s another, happier side of the story…

Was in the rooftop caf̩ in House Of Frasier in the Dundrum Centre last week for breakfast (will talk about that in The Breks Factor soon Рpiccies of it HERE) and, as I looked out on the gorgeous view from the open air terrace, half paying attention to Robbie Williams and the Black Eyed Peas on the stereo I made myself ready to head off.

The CD ended, another one started with the Theme From Shaft. I hung on for a while. It was followed by one of my favourite songs ever, The Temptations doing Papa Was A Rolling Stone, all 7 minutes of it

Thus followed Otis Redding, the Jackson 5… The result? I bought another coffee just to listen to the music. An example of how an interesting playlist can increase your turnover…

R

Firstly a huge slap on the back to all my fellow Dublin bloggers, even if I am the least active of you all Finally we’re looking like what something like this should be – a varied, fascinating look at every aspect of life in the city, what’s on, who’s here and who’s digging up St Stephen’s Green

Had a thought this morning and this may be more the first in a series for here. I eat breakfast out by myself a few times a week. It’s a good time to write, a good time to read and I have a few favourite haunts so maybe here I can make the first of a few recommendations.

Cafe Java – Blackrock Main Street

My regular haunt. Have been going there for the last 7 or 8 years for their mean Eggs Benedict and porridge (not at the same time I hasten to add…) Have also partaken of the Power Breakfast (salmon and scrambled eggs with toast) but the usual is their pooached eggs and McCambridge’s toast. Sweet

Staff are unusually lovely and helpful and the passing clientelle vary from ladies who breakfast to local builders to Dave Fanning, Ruairi Quinn and even once Conrad Gallagher! 

Their large black coffee is the real deal but they have every other type under the sun too…

R

Here’s a thought for pub owners across not only Dublin but the world based on my brief stint in one today. Lads, have a thought about the music you pump into your hostelries for the teeming masses.

The reason I say this is that today I was in a pub I’ve been in during the day before. I needed some quiet space to write for a while and this spot had proved to be just the ticket before. Today? Girls Aloud and the feckin’ Lighthouse Family-a-go-go. The level below? Sky News on full blast with a riveting piece on cohabiting couples in the UK.

The only reason I got ever so slightly agitated was that the last time I was there during the day there was no music, no tv and instead the quite restful sounds of the traffic and the canal and it made for a great spot to have a pint and think (one of the traditional pastimes indulged in when visiting Irish pubs in the olden times!)

It just seems to me that owners all too often these days confuse “ambience” and “atmosphere” with any old music (quite often a sticky copy of “Now 28″ under the bar) or the prattle prattle prattle of news or sports tv… Maybe we could have non-music areas in pubs just like the old non-smoking sections of restaurants?

Can we start a campaign?

R

Jaysus! 

Pele’s coming to town!

R

It’s so vast I won’t repint all of it here but I was in Brussels on Tuesday speaking to a group of MEPs as part of my role as patron of Brainwave – The Irish Epilepsy Association. I’ve had epilepsy since I was 16 but I’ve only recently spoken publicly about it; it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Have a look at the most extraordinary day I’ve ever spent HERE and if you’d like a little more information about epilepsy check HERE

R

It was, unkindly perhaps, suggested in the Indo this morning that the reason there were so many red jerseys in Lansdowne Road yesterday was that many Leinster fans had sold their tickets to their Munster counterparts because there was a sale on at Brown Thomas.

Nonetheless it did tie in with something I observed yesterday morning. I was over in Blackrock having breakfast in the village, in the hour or so I was there I must have seen 25 Munster jerseys and not a single blue Leinster representative.

In Blackrock…

Curious, non?

R