Taking one for the team

Posted by David

Jan 13

Zaika is on Lower Stephen Street, opposite what used to be Mercer’s Hospital.

Zaika

A big poster in the window advertises a ‘Super Fiver Offer’ effective from midday until 7pm and, for students, from 7pm until midnight also. Too good to resist?

10 dishes are included in the offer …

The offering

I wandered in this afternoon at about 1.45. The place could do with a bit of a make-over or, at the very least, a lick of paint. It’s very dull with NO atmosphere. Four tables are firmly bolted to the floor each with six chairs.

At the counter, I ordered the chicken curry with naan bread. I was asked did I want anything to drink. I suggested a glass of ‘ordinary’ water, whereupon the staff member rang up an extra €1.20 on the till. I changed my mind, paid my fiver and sat down.

The food arrived about 7-8 minutes later, on a tray.

Chicken curry and naan

Let’s start with the good points. The naan was freshly cooked and warm, with some nice crispy charred bits. The bowl of curry had a sprinkling of fresh coriander on it. Erm … that’s about it.

So. The not so good points. The curry was VERY oily. It contained a lot of sauce (I’m pretty sure from the taste that it was Patak’s Balti sauce – blandness in a jar). Buried in the sauce were four smallish cubes of chicken – the sort of chicken cubes you’d get in your run of the mill take-away: processed, tasteless and with a texture that isn’t quite what you’d expect from chicken.

eatforafiver’s standards are not high by any means. But this didn’t meet them. It didn’t even come close. I ate it, for the cause, but as I type this, I’m regretting it. Much.

I can’t think of anything else I want to say about Zaika. I’d suggest you give it a miss.

A little way along Lower Stephen Street, going towards Aungier Street there’s the Wok In, offering various noodle dishes in a box, for a fiver or under. There’s one table but no chairs but I might bend my rules a bit and try it out. Next to it is another place offering pizza slices, chips and a drink for a fiver. I think it’s called Sufi’s. Over the crossroads, on Upper Steven Street is a guest house (yeah, I was wondering that too) with a restaurant/bar on the ground floor. A board outside advertises various specials, including steak pie and chips, for a fiver. I’ll explore these in more detail in the future.

The Zaika curry seems to be getting the better of me now, unfortunately, so that’s it for now …

 

 

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Filed under: Middle-Eastern, Mixed

Our Parnell Street Adventure

Posted by David

Jan 6

I wouldn’t have gone to this place if Margaret E Ward (MD of ClearInk and inspiration for and founder of womenonair) hadn’t suggested it in a comment on a previous post.

China Cottage/Han Yang, 103 Parnell Street

There’s nothing on the windows of the China Cottage/Han Yang to suggest that it offers anything for a fiver or less. But Margaret said that it did Dim Sum-type dishes for as little as €1 so we had a closer look.

Pasted to the wall beside each table was a menu, mostly in oriental script, but with some English, and helpful pictures of some of the food on offer. And yes, some of the items cost as little as 50c.

We, in this case, were the young lad (not back to school yet) and me. I must say that I prefer to do these eatforafiver things with some company and the young lad will try most things (once, at least), gets into the spirit of the adventure that is cheap food and is a good dining companion.

We were approached by a sceptical staff member. I say sceptical because she kind of looked us up and down as if we might have strayed into the wrong restaurant by accident. We were the only European-looking people there, sure, and maybe she felt that we weren’t really looking for the food she had to offer. She even checked to see whether we really wanted oriental food.

Anyway, we consulted the pasted up menu and made our selections. She wrote them down and pointed to a few pots of broth and other items that were laid out on a table to the side of the restaurant. She said something that I didn’t quite hear and went to fill our order. I confess to having been a little apprehensive about approaching her again to explain what everything on the table was and what we were supposed to do with it, so we just filled a bowl each with what turned out to be a very tasty soup containing rice, some molluscs and bits of ham.

The rice soup

Some of our order arrived soon after and we tucked in. The first batch of food comprised a fried dumpling with chives and egg (€1), a pork meat pie (€1), a deep fried sesame ball with red bean paste (50c) and an oyster pancake with pork and veg (€1.50).

Batch #1

We divided each item in half, grabbed our chopsticks and ate with relish.

They might not look that appetising in the photo but they tasted good, with flavoursome fillings. The only item the young lad wasn’t keen on was the sesame ball, and mainly because the red bean paste was quite sweet and he felt it didn’t go well with the sesame seeds.

Chives and egg dumpling

Just as we had finished the first batch, the rest of our order arrived. Unlike batch #1, which appeared to have been pre-prepared and ready for serving, the other items had been freshly prepared. They were a scallion pancake (€1) and six steamed dumplings (€5).

These were gorgeous. The scallion pancake was a bit like a paratha, with a flaky buttery texture and a lovely mild spring onion taste. The dumplings were moist and soft, with a very tasty pork-based (I think) filling.

Our steamed dumplings ...

... being enjoyed

Our surroundings were plain and quite utilitarian and there were just three other solo diners (who evidently did know what to do with the broth and food on the table I referred to earlier). There’s a big TV on the wall in one corner, tuned to an oriental channel. For food this cheap, surroundings don’t bother me, as long as the place is clean. And it is, although the toilets could do with a bit of a mop and someone to empty the overflowing bin.

We didn’t hang around once we’d finished. When I went to pay, the sceptical staff member asked how we’d liked the food. We told her we enjoyed it and her scepticism vanished immediately, replaced by a warm and broad smile. We did enjoy the food. In fact the young lad was most impressed, suggesting that it was ‘up there’ and saying that he’d like to come back.

So, finally … a confession. The food for the two of us came to €12. Ooops! I didn’t factor in the soup when calculating the cost initially. Without the soup, it would still have been a good value lunch. Alternatively, we could have had the soup and a few other small dishes rather than those lovely dumplings and got away for a tenner for the two of us.

I’d say: go for it. (Thanks for the tip-off Margaret.)

 

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Filed under: Chinese, Korean, Oriental

BK

Posted by David

Dec 22

You can’t ignore them: Burger King and McDonalds. They will, no doubt, always be with us. I well remember entering the spanking new McDonalds in Grafton Street in 1977, shortly after it opened. It was bright, clean and shiny and it sold root beer, which I tried – once – ugh.

Now they are everywhere, and they are quick and convenient. And sometimes a burger is what you need. Particularly when you get to the hunger stage just past the ‘I wouldn’t mind something to eat now’ stage.

I’m not sure why, but I prefer Burger King to McDonalds. The beef in the burgers seems to taste better, although that’s probably down to salt and fat content. And, of course, they do the Bacon Double Cheeseburger which I like.

While I love chipper chips, with their salty vinegary-ness and their end-of-the-bag soggyness, I also like burger joint fries for their thin crispy quality, and do I love it when you pull an unfeasibly long one out of the bag.

I work beside Nutgrove Shopping Centre in, well, Nutgrove, between Rathfarnham and Churchtown. It’s where I do the weekly shop on Saturday mornings – early, before it fills up with ditherers. Nutgrove has a Burger King, a ‘drive-thru’ McDonalds, a Subway, a food court of sorts with outlets selling pizza slices, pretzels, rolls, paninis and the like, and an Indian restaurant which I’ve never been in.

The Burger King is quite small with both tables and raised seating at counter tops. It’s usually busy and today it was particularly so with many people, like me, trying to get the Christmas food shopping out of the way before the madness of the weekend.

Burger King has an ‘Extra Value Double Meal’ deal running at the moment …

As you see, it’s a double burger (with a choice between a BLT, a Rodeo (no, me neither …) and a Big King), small fries and a small soft drink. I went for the Big King with Diet Coke.

Unlike in McDonalds where they take your order and you wait at the till until the order is filled, in (this) Burger King, once your order has been taken you step aside (while they take other orders) and wait until someone waves your tray about and shouts out what’s on it. The result seems a little chaotic but it appears to work.

I took my tray, found a table and tucked in.

What can I say? The thing about these places is that the food is pretty consistent. I always eat the fries first. Not sure why – it’s just what I do. They were crunchy, thin and hot – not tasting of much but that’s what you expect.

The burger was quite small in diameter and comprised two beef patties, some plastic cheese, lettuce, onion and a yellow/orange sauce that was vinegary (but not too much so) and seemed to contain chopped gherkins.

Here’s the innards …

Un-savoury?

I think that sauce is the one they put in the Whopper and I’m not really a huge fan. It tastes a tiny bit like sick.

(Seems like you’ll have to watch this on the YouTube site, but it’s worth it: see 0:16 …)

I can’t think of anything more to say about this. If you’re hungry, it’s food and it’s filling and it’s cheap. It’s not fine dining. It’s not exciting. It’s not at all memorable.

Cheap but forgettable

 

So, it’s almost Christmas. I like Christmas Day – the preparing, the cooking, the eating, the giving and receiving of presents, the cracker hats and so on. The rest (both before and after) I find stressful. And judging by the drawn and harried faces of many in Nutgrove today, I’m not alone.

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Luke Warm on Dame Street

Posted by David

Dec 16

I try to eatforafiver each week but sometimes real life takes over – you know, family, paid work and so on. So last week didn’t happen.

Today, my target was Speak Easy on both South Great George’s Street and Dame Court. Catherine Cleary had a note about it in last Saturday’s Irish Times where she mentioned that you can get a pizza there for a fiver. Speak Easy is where Shebeen Chic used to be. I never ate there but I always liked the look of it and I enjoyed wandering around the Saturday market there. Anyway, it closed and Speak Easy is in its place. When I got there I found that it doesn’t open until 5pm. So …

I looked around and remembered that the Centra on Dame Street, opposite South Great George’s Street had both cheap food and a seating area. So that’s where I headed.

The place is rather grandly called the Dame Street Cafe. Inside it has no pretensions. Indeed, it’s a rather functional place. At the back of the convenience store part of the Centra is a longish and very busy food counter. They do the usual range of filled rolls, sandwiches, paninis, plain-looking soup and so on. But they also do quite a range of hot food, much of it for a fiver or less.

Included are ten inch pizzas with a variety of toppings, quiche, lasagne, meat or veg pies, ‘gourmet’ pies and chicken or beef noodles. In fact, today, they had a special offer on noodles: chicken or beef noodles with stirfry vegetables and a choice of about six sauces, for €2.99. A pretty decent helping too, freshly prepared in front of you. They also have an all-day breakfast offer for a fiver.

I opted for the quiche. For my fiver I received a decent slice of vegetarian quiche (the other option was bacon and spinach), three ‘dry’ salads (i.e. ones without mayonnaise) and a portion of chips, wedges or potato cubes (I chose the cubes).

You take your tray, pay at the shop till and find a seat. The seating area comprises about twelve small round tables, some with chairs and others arranged in front of a banquette. When I got there, at about 1.30pm, quite a few were occupied but by the time I sat down, most were free, but not cleared (or cleaned).

It’s a busy place. Most customers opt for filled rolls and there are four or five staff members behind the counter filling orders. Service is quick.

My quiche slice was generous. The vegetarian bit was fulfilled by some onion and very thin slices of pepper but it was mostly a creamy eggy mix and pastry. I’m not going to write about the quality of it. It was a mass produced quiche. And it filled a gap. My salad consisted of some tomatoes, slices of cucumber and some mixed peppers in oil. All inoffensive. The potato cubes were cuboid.

This isn’t fine dining, nor did I expect it to be. I did expect the quiche, having been heated, to be hot. It wasn’t. The surface was warm but the inside was cool, and not in a good way. The potato cubes weren’t hot either. I’m not hugely fussy about temperature and I ate the food but I’m sure others wouldn’t. But, hey, it only cost a fiver and it was filling. And, on a bitterly cold day, I ate sitting down in a warm building.

My favourite thing to do on Dame Street is to walk near the College Green end and look up. The tops of the buildings are astonishing: ornate and beautiful. Further on, I have to admit a liking for the Central Bank building. It then becomes a bit of a mess until you get to the City Hall. City Hall is a treasure both inside and out (especially when viewed from Parliament Street).

There used to be a tiny park just beside it with some interesting old sculptures. It was replaced some years ago by what may be the ugliest building in Dublin. A grey anonymous piece of crap that could only have been conceived by an artistically and aesthetically bankrupt architect and given planning permission by a bunch of ethically challenged idiots.

Enough. Oh. The bill …

Just by the way, opposite the Dame Street Cafe is a Spar which also has a good range of food for a fiver. Not much seating but noted for a further visit.

As a final note, I met an old college pal during the week and we ate in Kanum on Mespil Road. It’s primarily a take-away but they do have a reasonable seating area and a special lunch menu. There’s a few soups for a fiver. But they also do a daily special lunch deal comprising a main dish, boiled or fried rice and a bottle of sparkling or still water. It’s for €9.99. The thing is – the portions are incredibly generous. Enough, if you’re not ravenous, to share between two on the plastic plates they supply. Jack, my godso,n tells me that Kanum also do fiver deals for those lucky enough to be students.

 

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Soup Dragon … but is soup a meal?

Posted by David

Dec 4

I’ve been in two minds about this. When I started the blog, I kind of had a mental rule that I wouldn’t include soup. After all, it’s not much of a challenge to find soup and bread at lunchtime in Dublin for a fiver or less.

What swayed me to write about Soup Dragon was the nature of the soup I had on Friday and the neat little package they’ve put together …

Fiver Friday has a nice ring to it. Each Friday, Soup Dragon has a special offer. As you see, it’s a soup (although the previous week it was a stew), bread and a piece of fruit for a fiver. Their Facebook page provides the details each Thursday and, of course, you can see previous offerings there too. Quite a variety.

Soup Dragon is on Capel Street, at the end nearest the river. Not so long ago Capel Street was a scruffy thoroughfare, a street one had to drive along to get from Parnell Street to the south side. It’s changing now. Lenehan’s is still there, as is Brereton’s jewellery and pawn broker shop, McQuillan Tools, the martial arts equipment shop at the corner of Mary Street and a few of the more famous pubs. The discount furniture shops that used to plague the street are fewer now and there are many more restaurants on the street, mostly offering food from the far east. There also seem to be quite a few eastern European foodstores. It’s still scruffy but it’s a lot more interesting now, and (almost) a pleasure to walk along.

Soup Dragon is open from 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday and from 11am on Saturday. It’s small. Very small. Most of it is taken up by the kitchen and service counter, with the seating area comprising a counter-top and about 10 seats. When I passed it the previous week, it was packed but on Friday, admittedly at 1.45pm, there were plenty of seats available. It was a bitterly cold day with stop-start rain.

Not a great photo of the inside

I ordered at the counter and sat. My soup was delivered promptly. It was a big bowl of soup with fresh chives scattered on the top. On the plate were three sizeable chunks (not slices) of very fresh bread and a foil wrapped portion of butter. Jugs of water and plastic beakers are available on the counter top.

My BIG bowl of soup

The soup was bacon, leek and potato. It was thick, based on stock that had no discernible artificial aftertaste, and contained huge chunks of bacon, melt in the mouth lumps of potato and identifiable bits of leek. It was pleasantly seasoned and, most importantly for me, not too salty. The thickness of the soup seemed to be based on potato, rather than flour or corn flour. It was tasty. And substantial – a lot more substantial than some of the other eatforafiver meals I’ve had. (The fruit, by the way, one takes from a basket on the way out.)

Chunky: the reason this soup is in my blog

Soup Dragon is pretty busy as a take-away. In the short time I was in the place, there was a steady stream of customers, most of them ordering the other available special offer: take-away vegetable soup with a piece of fruit for €3. They are strict about not allowing take-away customers eat their food on the premises, which is fair enough.

The other food on offer in Soup Dragon includes various breakfast options, sandwiches, smoothies and a huge variety of different soups. They are also taking orders for Christmas puddings. Interesting.

The bit I love (it obviously wasn't a take out though)

By the way, thanks to all who sent me suggestions for places to eatforafiver. I’m looking forward to trying them out.

 

 

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Moore Street Chinese Buffet

Posted by David

Nov 25

Traffic in Dublin was appalling today. Please don’t tell me this is the start of the annual Christmas snarl-up. Not sure that I could take another month of this.

Anyway, I had an urge to go back to Moore Street. When we were there for the first outing (Delhi O’Deli) I remember spotting a Chinese buffet a few doors up, with €4.99 signs stuck on the window.

So I battled my way down Henry Street, cut through the ILAC centre and emerged exactly opposite the place I was looking for. On the way, on Capel Street, just near the bridge I passed Soup Dragon, which does a Friday Fiver lunch and then I found Bonza Pies in the ILAC centre which sells various pies for under a fiver, both noted for future outings.

So …

Chinese Fast Food Buffet, Moore Street, Dublin

… in I went, alone this time.

It doesn’t seem like a place that would be noted for its atmosphere, or maybe I just caught it on the wrong day. It was 1.45pm and maybe it was a hive of babbling activity a little earlier, but now, it felt a bit like a library. There were about 8 patrons there, most dining alone and just finishing up their meals, and by the time I sat down with mine, only one was left, and he went shortly afterwards. Pretty quiet for a place that provides huge amounts of food for a fiver. Why?

Chinese Fast Food is a buffet, so I took my plate and checked out what was on offer. There were three big buffet catering units, each with eight trays of food.

The one on the right has two types of fried rice, noodles, chips, cocktail sausages and a few other bits and pieces. The other ones contained a reasonably broad range of standard Chinese restaurant/ take-away food: pork, chicken, tofu and vegetables, cooked in a variety of ways some in standard looking/smelling sauces and others deep fried in batter.

I wasn’t massively hungry but I wanted to try a few dishes, so I spooned out some rice and tried some cauliflower, some broccoli and a few different pork dishes (one rib and two other fried pork portions, one in sweet and sour sauce).

My lunch

It wasn’t hot. That’s the first thing that crossed my mind. Not helped by being spooned on to a cold plate. The rice was nicely cooked, with egg, and it wasn’t greasy. The vegetables were quite crisp, especially the broccoli and served in generic, hard to define but tasty sauces. I could taste salt or MSG but it wasn’t the dominant flavour.

The rib was gorgeous, with a strong five spice flavour. Very tender and not fatty. The two other pork dishes were fine. The sweet and sour sauce was as I expected and the pork was a bit chewy, but not tough.

To be honest, I enjoyed this meal and it was only €4.99. The only other Chinese buffet I had experienced was the rather more famous one on the quays, where every dish seemed very oily and overcooked and from which one emerged smelling like a chipper. In contrast, there was no residue of grease on my plate after this meal. I had plenty of food and there was no limit on the amount of food one could pile on the reasonable sized plates.

The place itself is plain and pretty devoid of atmosphere…

… which is a pity and I still find it odd that it was so empty. On my way back to the quays after lunch, near enough to 2.30pm I passed several other restaurants, none of them as empty as the one I had just left.

I’m not going to not recommend this place, if you know what I mean, but I’d suggest that if you are going to give it a try, go with a few other people and liven the place up.

(PS. I confess to being a bit nervous of buffet food in general. It’s quite exposed to the atmosphere and, of course, to people, with our various unpleasantnesses. You’re never quite sure how long the food been there and at what temperature. These are general concerns, you understand, not particular concerns about this buffet.)

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An oasis in an industrial wasteland

Posted by David

Nov 16

So … Ballymount. Not my first choice of location for finding lunch but, actually, it turned out OK.

Why Ballymount? Well, son #2 somehow managed to lose the battery from his phone (I know – don’t ask) and a very helpful person in Carphone Warehouse (where they ALL seem to be helpful) suggested contacting a place called Vibe Centre, which I did. They had a replacement battery in stock (for a tenner) and so I called into them at lunchtime. The Vibe Centre is an amazing place in the Robinhood Industrial Estate that sells bits of, and accessories for, all types of mobile phones.

Battery bought, I felt, much as Pooh felt, that it was ‘time for a little something’.

The Ballymount area is spectacularly unattractive with a lot of what look like newly vacant warehouses and older dilapidated industrial units. It’s also not that flush with places to eat but eventually I spotted a Spar and thought that, if I couldn’t find anywhere else, I’d grab a roll in there. As I drove in to the Ballymount Retail Centre (for that was where the Spar was located) I spotted Josh’s Place, packed with what seemed like happy people eating.

 

 

To be honest there’s not a lot of choice for a fiver but, if you could stretch to a tenner you could choose from pretty well anything on the menu. They have a good selection of food from breakfasts (I saw one of them being served – it was massive) to salads to three kinds of soup to pasta or meat dishes. It’s a counter-service place and the staff were helpful in explaining the options (I seem to have hit a good vein of helpfulness today, which was pleasing).

I chose a salad plate for €4.70 which, apart from soup and bread (which I don’t really count as a meal for the purposes of this blog) was the only thing available for my fiver. No meat (that would have added an additional €1.25) but the portion was very generous.

 

 

The salad plate comprised shredded carrot with celery and herbs; coleslaw; noodles tossed in a sweet oriental sauce; broccoli, cherry tomatoes and red onion; and sliced tomatoes with cucumber (and a little more red onion). All the salads tasted fresh and the dressings in which they were tossed were well-balanced. (I’m not a fan of over-vinegared dressings which do seem to be quite prevalent.) The coleslaw was a little too mayonnaise-y for me but that’s really a matter of personal taste (and concern over my stubborn waistline).

I grabbed a big glass of water and some ice and made may way to a table. It was about 1.30 and some people were making their way back to work so I was able to find a space without too much bother.

The place was buzzing with animated conversation and, for those eating alone, there were newspapers and FREE WiFi. FREE WiFi – are you listening, all other restaurants, cafés and bars in the city? Free WiFi is a BIG draw for me.

 

 

The salad was good and filling and I genuinely enjoyed the atmosphere in the place. There seemed to be plenty of staff serving and clearing away and they were pleasant and smiley, which was nice.

 

The receipt (till person made a genuine mistake, corrected without fuss)

 

In the Retail Centre there’s also a Subway, which does a 6″ sub and a medium drink for €4.95, and the aforementioned Spar, in which one can sit/perch and eat a 9″ pizza with three toppings for a fiver.

Unless you work nearby or are in the market for power tools, fitness equipment or expensive office furniture, there wouldn’t be much to bring you to the Ballymount Retail Centre, I’m afraid but, if you happen to be within shouting distance, Josh’s Place is well worth a visit.

 

 

And finally, another quote from Pooh: “Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

 

 

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Honest and Good

Posted by David

Nov 4

I’ve always liked South Great George’s Street in Dublin (well, one side of it anyway). I like its proportions, the attractive red brick facades and the way it sweeps down to Dame Street. It’s a pity it’s always been run down, that various attempts to pretty it up have not been successful and that the planning authorities sometime in the 1970s (probably) sanctioned the destruction of a big chunk of its west side in favour of an anonymous block.

Shops in particular seem to have been spectacularly unsuccessful. Pubs and restaurants are another matter. From the long established Long Hall and The George to the new Rustic Stone, South Great George’s Street has plenty of drinkeries and eateries of all styles and types, and to suit most pockets.

I’m pretty sure the Market Arcade on South Great George’s Street is unique. I can’t think of any other arcade in Dublin with such a curious mix of market stalls and permanent shops. It’s a must for anybody looking for vintage clothes. Retro, near the South Great George’s Street entrance has been in the arcade for about 20 years and I remember buying a tuxedo there about 12 years ago. The arcade is also a place where you can find vinyl records, old coins and badges, posters and old advertising signs, hats and scarves, and get your ears pierced. It has a few eateries: Simon’s Cafe is probably the best known of them but it, unfortunately, has nothing more substantial than soup or a cake for a fiver.

Honest To Goodness, on the other hand, and at the other end, is a bit of a find. I had coffee there a few weeks ago when I had time on my hands. Nice coffee it was too and the atmosphere was very pleasant and calming. I noticed than that, although most of the items on the menu are between €6.95 and €8 to eat in (but between €5.20 and €6.50 to take away), they do a special every day for a fiver. I’m not going to list the specials here – you can find them on their Facebook page.

Today's venue

Friday’s special is a Sloppy Joe. In Honest to Goodness this is spicy minced beef, a slice of cheddar cheese, a slice of tomato and some mayonnaise between two slices of bread baked in the shop. You get two of these and a couple of spoonsful of couscous. What’s more, you get a choice of breads. The young lad chose white bread and I chose tomato bread.

My Sloppy Joe

The young lad tucking in

Honest to Goodness is small. And narrow. About two thirds of it is taken up with a kitchen/serving area, the remaining third containing ten small tables seating two people each. It’s popular. I had heard this and so we arrived at about 12.20. From the door it looked packed. And there seemed to be a substantial queue. It turned out, however, that the queue contained people who had ordered food to take away and it so happened that there were a few tables free.

The internals

It’s a busy place. I counted seven people behind the counter cutting, spooning, assembling, coffee making, getting ready to serve food, and clearing up. The seating area is a tiny bit cramped and the young lad observed that it’s not a place for having a private conversation. That being said, it’s not uncomfortable and it’s not unlike many lunch places you’ll find in the city. And it does have a busy but warm and friendly atmosphere, with unobtrusive decent music.

The food came quickly, with glasses of water, and we tucked in. The Sloppy Joes were delicious. The meat was nicely spiced with a pleasant and not overpowering chilli heat, the tomato fresh, the mayo tasty and the couscous moist. The cheese slices were a little superfluous, I felt. The portions were generous and it was very filling. This was an excellent value meal.

The bit I love

I read some reviews of Honest To Goodness written on other sites. A few mentioned, in negative terms, the service. We found it fine. Our order was taken efficiently, we were helpfully pointed to a free table, our food was served with a smile, plates were cleared from tables quickly and without fuss, and the cash transaction at the end was handled with a smile and pleasant conversation.

This is certainly a place to revisit. Have a look at the menu on the site. There are some gorgeous looking sandwich combinations, fresh soups and nice looking breakfasts. I recommend it very highly.

*The traditional Sloppy Joe is an American invention consisting of minced beef cooked with tomato and served in a hamburger bun. I’m sure I saw a TV programme once that suggested that it was the precursor of the hamburger but I’m not certain that that’s true.

 

 

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No blues here

Posted by David

Oct 27

Presidential election day. Cynical timing by the Government to hold it on a Thursday, effectively disenfranchising thousands of students and closing a massive number of primary schools. How is deliberately disenfranchising young voters meant to restore confidence in the efficacy of politics?

One positive consequence, however, was that the young lad was free to join me in the latest episode of the gentle eatforafiver extravaganza. As soon as I mentioned it to him, he chose the venue: Burritos and Blues on Wexford Street.

Burritos and Blues, Wexford Street

I’ve eaten here before – twice – following a suggestion by the older lad who had fed himself there several times following late nights in the nearby Palace nightclub. Having (once or twice) visited late night eating establishments myself, following evenings spent in various hostelries, I understand how late night eating can seem to be quite a different experience from normal eating. So I initially took the older lad’s initial recommendation with a pinch of salt but changed my mind after my first visit. It is indeed a good place to eat.

Burritos and Blues has three branches (I think. The website is not too clear, or up to date): one in Wexford Street, one in Stephen Street and one in the IFSC, near the National College of Ireland. The Wexford Street branch is small but brightly decorated with seats inside for about 24 or so and two tables outside. It also has a counter in the middle on which I suppose you could lean, if necessary.

There’s a big poster behind where they make up the burritos which explains the permutations and alternatives. But it’s easier just to ask. And then it’s entertaining to watch.

The menu (click to embiggen cromulently)

One of the things I’ve liked about Burritos and Blues on each visit has been the good humour and pleasantness of the staff. You’re invariably met with a smile and your questions are answered with good grace and humour.

We both chose to have burritos, the young lad getting the student option (€5) while I chose the Diet Burrito (€4.15). The burritos are made in front of you and you choose between certain options. The tortilla wrap is placed on the counter and you choose between two bean paste options. Rice goes on next and then you have a choice between minced beef and chicken. The young lad went for beef and I chose chicken. The wrap is then passed to the next server who adds a salsa. There’s a choice of 4 different strengths, from mild to ouch. The young lad went for number 2 and I, for the hell of it, opted for number 4. Grated cheese, lettuce and chopped tomato are added and the burrito is quickly and expertly rolled up and placed in foil.

We asked for glasses of water, paid and took our seats. It being the end of October, the young lad chose to sit outside.

The restaurant was pretty full at lunchtime. Mostly students, at a guess (DIT is very close) with a fair smattering of besuited blokes also. Not many women, now that I think of it.

So, the burritos -

The young lad tucking in to his student burrito

My diet burrito

I asked the young lad was he enjoying his. ‘Hell, yeah’, was the response, which I took as a positive. He couldn’t quite finish it and I had a bite of the left-overs. It was tasty with no part of it dominating any of the other parts. It kind of feels healthy too, for some reason.

Mine was hot and I don’t think I’d go for salsa number 4 again. It was quite overpowering and somewhat eye-watering. I could still taste the other components but only just. At a previous visit i opted for salsa number three which is hot enough and complementary rather than dominant. The diet burrito was filling, though, and excellent value for €4.15.

I’m not averse to a burger when I have the hunger but this is a tasty and far more interesting alternative and it feels a lot healthier. I’ve looked at the prices in some of the other burrito joints in town and Burritos and Blues is the only one that has food for a fiver or less. Fair play to them. I’ll return, probably frequently.

The damage:

Stuffed x 2 for €9.15. Result!

 

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Falafel in the park

Posted by David

Oct 21

I was in two minds as to whether to blog about this but, what the hell, it’s my blog and I can do what I like.

The ‘Village Market’ phenomenon seems to have grown. Quite why they term it ‘village’ escapes me. Essentially, from what I can see, the company behind the initiative has managed to rent a number of sites around the city and offers pitches to what seem to be termed ‘pop-up stalls’ selling food. Visit their website if you want to know more.

At lunchtime today, I decided I’d nip into town and try one out. The easiest one to get to, where I knew there’d be parking, was Fitzwilliam Square. A long time ago, I used to work in a basement on Fitzwilliam Square. Nice place to work except, in those days, one had to spend a little time in the morning sweeping up used condoms from outside the basement door following the previous evening’s transactions.

The landlord of the building I worked in had a key for the gate to the actual square but I never managed to get hold of it, so today was the first time I ever set foot inside the railings.

The ‘market‘ is located at one end, comprising about (I didn’t count them) 10 food stalls offering a variety of foods: paella, burgers, falafel, noodles and other oriental dishes, pork on a spit, salads, Mediterranean dishes, cupcakes and coffee.

Some of the pop-up stalls

One of my eatforafiver criteria is that you have to be able to sit or perch somewhere. If you get to the park early enough, I suppose you can grab one of the park benches. Otherwise you sit on …

... the grass.

Like these people here:

Lunchers

Naively, I had thought that my fiver would give me a fair amount of choice here. Not so. Most offerings came in somewhere between €6 and €8. Disappointing. Very disappointing. For a fiver, I could have got 3 cup cakes, a ‘small’ serving of chilli something, some penne pasta with shavings of parmesan, ‘Singapore’ fried rice (fried rice with precious little Singapore as far as I could see) or a Mediterranean salad.

I had none of those. I went for a falafel wrap.

Bingo

I made my order and a man whisked it up in about 20 seconds. Whoosh. A wrap, a good covering of hummus, some chopped tomatoes, lettuce, a squirt of chilli sauce, three slightly crushed falafels, rolled efficiently, inserted in a bit of paper and presented to me with a smile. Well, sort of a smile.

The stalls were busy, with the biggest queues at the hamburger stall, the chilli stall and a stall offering tandoori chicken in a naan wrap. The customers were mixed. Some suits, business skirts and tasteful make-up but a fair scattering of students too. There was some live music – a young woman with a guitar singing tunefully.

I ate my wrap wandering around. I’d almost finished before I remembered to take a photo of it.

My wrap

I wouldn’t normally write about a wrap. This was a pretty substantial wrap though. It’s now about 7pm and I’m still not hungry. The best falafel meal I ever has was in the Marlay Park market one Saturday. A pitta bread absolutely stuffed with salad, sauces, pickled chillis and Falafel – oozing with scrumptiousness. This one was a pale-ish imitation but it was tasty, to be fair.

I left soon after. Slightly disappointed. I probably shouldn’t have been. I mean, I could probably have stuffed myself for €7 but I just expected a greater selection of offerings for my fiver.

 

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Filed under: Middle-Eastern
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