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Spend New Year’s Eve in Dublin This Year

Ghost Bus — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 20:43:43 +0000

Fireworks, drinks, costumes and concerts — they’re all trademarks of the elaborate New Year’s Eve celebrations happening in cities around the world on December 31. But if you’re looking for the ultimate New Year’s Eve celebration – whether you’re interested in good eats, good beer, good sightseeing or a good party – you don’t need to look beyond the city of Dublin.

So what’s on the agenda for New Year’s Eve 2013 in Dublin this year? Just about everything, so get online and get your travel plans set in stone today.

The People’s Procession of Light

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dublin or you’re visiting the city for the first time, you’re sure to be impressed with this magical parade of talent, lights and Irish history. This family-friendly procession features theatrical and musical performers that you’ll feel like you paid a pretty penny to see, but it’s actually an entirely free event.

Interested in getting involved? Bring a lantern from home or make one at a festival workshop and carry your light in the parade. Spectators line the streets long before the start of the event at 6 p.m. on December 31, so get there early for a better view.

The Countdown Concert

Wondering where the real party is at midnight? Don’t miss the much-anticipated Countdown Concert starting at 8 p.m. on December 31. This event is strictly 18 and up and it extends beyond midnight, so you and the 10,000 other music fans can celebrate the first minutes of 2014 together.

Every type of music from blues to 80s pop and local Irish tunes will be played, and the streets of Dublin will undoubtedly be jumping. For music lovers and party animals alike, the Countdown Concert is one of the world’s best places to be at midnight.

Get There Early and Stay Late

Although your purpose for visiting Dublin may be the partying and festivities, you won’t want to miss out on the celebrations before and after New Year’s Eve. Fall in love with the city on the aptly named Love Dublin Day held on December 30. A number of venues through town hold free cultural events, concerts, art fairs and festivals to throw you head first into the vibrancy of the city.

And although you may be feeling a little under the weather after a long night on New Year’s Eve, you’d better prepare for the kids to drag you to the Big Brunch on the first. Filled with kids activities, creativity stations, face painting, magic and more, your kids are certain to feel the same way you will about Dublin – it could very well be the best city in the world.

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Little Caesar’s after your walking tour

Dublin Tours — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:15:41 +0000

Introduction

Dublin has some truly excellent Italian restaurants on offer, unfortunately this restaurant is not one of them. Little Caesar’s, whilst claiming some really top notch locations around Dublin city centre offers average food at average prices.

Verdict: give it a miss, 4 stars out of 10 for average food, average service, below average atmosphere, despite good location.

Why we went there

We had actually planned to spend our Saturday evening at the Gotham Café on Anne street just off Grafton street but when we arrived there was no room at the inn so we were shuffled off to go searching for somewhere that could contain seven of us.

I had heard good things about Little Caesar’s and was actually brought to the restaurant by a born and bred Dubliner who was keen to show our visiting Parisian friends that Dublin cuisine was up to scratch. However, but believe me, if you are out to impress by demonstrating Dublin’s culinary prowess, or just want a really beautiful Italian meal this is NOT, I repeat, NOT the place to go.

The Food:

As far as Italian restaurants go it wasn’t amazing for vegetarians. On the early bird special there was just one vegetarian main on offer, penne al arrabiata and at 12.95 for starter, main and tea it would have pretty much been just as cheap to get the two separately, so on top of the average food, prices and specials were not amazing either.

Other than that, there was fairly average Italian fare on offer, there was nothing particularly inspiring on the menu, in fact it was so uninspiring that our group ended up ordering 5 margarita pizzas, a penne al arrabiatta and a ham and mushroom tagliatelle. The pizza was fine, it was more American style than Italian style, as you will be able to see the pizza base is thicker than an authentic Italian base. Unfortunately when you order a margarita pizza, as so many of our group did, it is the pizza base that makes all the difference, so it was not the best choice we could have made. Besides, I prefer Italian food to Italian-American food. If I’m going to make the effort to go out to an Italian restaurant I expect to be served top quality fare, otherwise I would rather just stay on the couch and order a higher quality pizza from Domino’s or Four Star.

Penne al arrabiatta: This dish was OK, nothing special. The problem is that ANYBODY can make decent pasta at home. There was nothing in the flavour of the sauce to distinguish it from a Tesco’s own arrabiatta and it wouldn’t actually have surprised me if the restaurant had just opened a bottle and poured it over the pasta. Even more disappointing was that the pasta was overcooked. It was flabby and fell apart into strips when I tried to pick it up with my fork. It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to create perfect al dente pasta, in fact if you have the slightest knowledge of how to boil water and keep a timer on then you can make perfect pasta! You would think that someone who was cooking it all day every day would get it right. Apparently not.

Margarita pizza: once again the only way of describing this pizza is average. At 8.50 it was decently priced but you can definitely get better in Dublin for much the same price.

Ham and Mushroom tagliatelle: this was probably the best of all the dishes simply because the presentation was more inspiring than the others. The green red and yellow tagliatelle looked beautiful the sauce was quite nice, and the pasta did not fall apart like my penne did. If you have to go for one of the three dishes ordered that night, go for this one.

The highlight: the one thing that I was really pleased about at Little Caesar’s was that they were very generous with the parmesan cheese/Parmigianno regiano. Quite a large stainless steel holder was brought out for the seven of us and left at the table for the duration of the meal. I like to use the parmesan throughout my whole meal so I despise it when the waiter insists on serving the tiniest amount himself at the beginning of the meal. This was a definite thumbs up for the place.

Location

Fabulous location, the Caesar’s that we went to was just off Grafton street on Balfe Street which is extremely handy as everybody knows Grafton street so it is easy to meet there and all head to the restaurant together.

Service

The service was below average in this restaurant. When our large group of seven came in we were quickly shuffled downstairs to a dungeon-like area with low ceilings. We would have preferred to sit upstairs but when we mentioned this the waitress, who seemed to speak very little English either could not understand us or pretended she could not understand us. One thing in her favour was that she was very quick, we got our food promptly, but she placed our meals down indiscriminately, I ended up having a margarita pizza lumped in front of me when I had ordered the penne al arrabiatta so there was a bit of plate swapping before the meal could start. All in all, although prompt, the service was unfriendly and lacking.

Atmosphere

The dungeon-like area downstairs is not that nice. I was seated right next to a speaker that was blaring very loud music which made it difficult to hear the conversation that was going on around me. Moreover, we were the only group downstairs until the very end of the meal so there was little to no atmosphere down there. If you do end up coming to this restaurant I would be firmer than we were about wanting to sit upstairs where there are windows and people to watch, although I can’t comment on how loud and intrusive the music may be up there.

Vegetarian friendly: with two vegetarians in the group I was hoping to find a bit of variation on the menu. it’s always a nice surprise to find that you have options when it comes to dishes without meat, and I don’t include asking for certain dishes to be made “without the meat” as they are almost invariably bland. Much less effort is required to make a meat dish taste good, it takes real skill to make a vegetarian dish delicious. Despite Italian cuisine being one of the few that offers a vast array of absolutely delicious vegetarian meals they were few and far between here. The only vegetarian main that was offered on the early bird menu was penne al arrabiatta and considering the price of this dish alone it was not worth getting the early bird menu as the starter and main combined would, at any hour of the day, be around the same price.

Verdict: give it a miss, visit Steps of Rome just a few paces away at the end of the street instead.

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Visit Jewel in the Crown after your Dublin Tour

Dublin Tours — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:15:08 +0000

Five of us ventured into Jewel in the Crown on South William street (just off Grafton Street) for their 9.95 euro lunch special. The 9.95 euro lunch special comprises a starter, curry and sundry (rice/naan bread etc). With two people from Paris, quite snotty about their food, and two more who were quite used to very good Indian food in the group, one Sri Lankan, one Mauritian I was very interested to see how this restaurant would stack up for them. It turned out that the food was absolutely one hundred per cent delicious, the atmosphere was cosy and the service was efficient and not overbearing.

The décor and the clientele

One of the first things I noticed on entering the restaurant was that there was a comments book displayed at the front for customers to write their comments in. This is usually a pretty good sign that the restaurant is proud of its food and service. Luckily for us I wasn’t wrong on this count, but I will get to the deliciousness of the food later.

Jewel in the Crown can only be described as “cosy”, it is comprised of a small front room where we were seated which has dark green wallpaper and about ten tables. The restaurant does have a larger back room but I imagine that it is only used when the restaurant is particularly crowded or for larger private groups.

When we entered at 12:30 we were amazingly, the first group to arrive for the lunch special. Obviously, with a totally empty restaurant the atmosphere was nothing special to begin with, but we definitely weren’t worried about that. With five of us there was nothing awkward about being the only diners, and very quickly after we had ordered the restaurant started filling up until the front room was totally occupied. It was interesting to see that there were several lone male diners that day. This is another good indication that a restaurant is worthwhile. All of them appeared to be middle aged businessmen, most likely on their lunch break. They obviously considered that the food was good enough to venture into a restaurant alone (a move that some would consider a social faux pas – I, however applaud them, when it comes to good food, who really cares about what others think?). Another interesting thing I noted about the clientele was that it was mainly made up of older people. Our group were all in their twenties but everyone else in the restaurant that day was at least over forty, and many were well into their sixties, so it is obviously a restaurant that appeals to a large range of people.

The Food

starters

There were five or six starters on the menu to choose from, our group weren’t overly adventurous opting or two vegetable samosa, two chicken pakora and one mushroom soup. I had the vegetable samosa, it was fairly run of the mill, a safe choice obviously, but that didn’t stop it from being delicious. The pastry was light and crispy and the spiced potato and peas inside were beautifully stodgy. It was not oily like some deep fried Indian food can be and the yogurt sauce that accompanied it, although quite a shocking yellow colour, was very delicious as well.

The chicken pakora went down equally well, both boys who chose it were very pleased. Our member who chose the mushroom soup was surprised that it “wasn’t very Indian”. The soup was a home-made cream of mushroom soup, a beigey-cream colour with a medium thickness. She had been expecting something a little spicier, with more vibrant colours but despite the “europeaness” of the soup she was very happy with her order.

The mains

There are five or six different curries on offer including Karai, Korma, Tikka Masala, Madras, Sag Paneer with a selection of meats available plus a vegetarian option for each curry. The saag paneer is exclusively vegetarian. You also get a choice of sundry such as boiled rice, pilau rice, naan bread or chips. We were more adventurous this time and each ordered a different curry. Vegetable karai, chicken korma, lamb tikka masala, lamb madras and saag paneer.

When the mains arrived our Parisian friends exclaimed with glee regarding the variety of colours of the curries. The korma was a thick rich yellow colour, but not too yellow to be considered an unnatural un-edible colour. The tikka masala was similarly a rich tomato-red colour and the madras, karai and saag paneer were different shades of brown and green.

When my vegetable karai arrived at the table I was a little bit wary as there was a very visible layer of deep yellow oil surrounding the thicker darker curry and vegetables, Ilooked at the other orders and noticed the same thing of the saag paneer but the Madras, the korma and the tikka masala were all beautiful thick and colourful without any sign of visible oil. I was worried that I had made the wrong choice for a second, but despite this I dived right in and was damn glad I did because the curry was beautifully tasty with a hint of heat but nothing that the average Irish person couldn’t cope with.

The lamb Madras looked very beautiful, I think my Mauritian friend had been expecting something a bit more anglo-Indian from it though as he was surprised by how hot it was. I have had the madras before and it is spicy, but if you enjoy hot food then it is certainly nothing that you couldn’t cope with and nowhere near as hot as your average vindaloo. Otherwise the thickness of the curry was perfect and the lamb well done.

The Korma was beautifully thick and lovely and sweet. Another thing that struck me about it was the colour, I hate being served an anaemic looking Korma, close to white in colour. The turmeric in the korma had obviously done it’s job here as the colour was a rich yellow. I really enjoyed the sweetness of the korma, I have had many kormas that are not sweet and if you are going for the mild bland taste then this is not the korma for you. I have to say that bland taste is not for me and I think when it comes to sweetness, thickness and colour I think this is the best korma I have tried in Dublin city centre.

The tikka masala was similarly “perfect” as my Parisian friend put it. He can’t handle much spice so it was the ideal mildness, but also nice and thick, sweet with mild spices and a beautiful rich tomato-red colour.

The Saag paneer I found to be the most surprising dish. The sound of mildly spiced spinach with chunks of home made cottage cheese didn’t actually sound overly appetising to me, but when I tried it I was very surprised by how tasty it was and how much I enjoyed the texture. It is made up almost entirely of spinach but the mild spices used made it the best damn spinach I had ever tried. The texture of the spinach was also very pleasing. I find that when people use frozen spinach often it seems stringy and I feel as if I may choke as a too-long piece of Spinach ends up going half way down my throat and getting stuck. This was not like that at all, it was a perfect texture with a beautiful flavour. The only thing that may put people off is that “paneer” or Indian cottage cheese is possibly not for everybody. It is very mildly flavoured, I don’t think anybody could come up with a complaint that it was too overbearing or “foreign” for their tastebuds, it is the texture which may put people off. It is a little bit like firm tofu which surprised me considering that it is a cheese. It came in small feta-style cubes in the Saag paneer, but despite its physical similarity to feta it is definitely closer to tofu in texture and has a significantly milder cheese flavour than tofu.

The service

The service was quite muted in Jewel in the crown, it was quick efficient and polite service and this is something I really enjoyed about our meal. I hate it when waiters are overbearing and I don’t like to be asked how my food is more than once. However, having said this the waiters were very accessible and whilst they were not serving waited at the back of the room together in plain view of everybody so that if we needed to flag them down they would be over to us very quickly. I only have one complaint to make, and that is that my Sri Lankan friend, when ordering her Saag paneer asked the waiter to make it spicy. The saag paneer came to the table as mild (as it usually is) but what was very strange was that the waiter brought out a whole green chilli on the side. Without a proper knife to cut the chilli with you can probably imagine that my Sri Lankan friend was quite stumped by this and ended up sending the untouched chilli back and enjoying her very mild Saag paneer without the spices, so make it clear if you want your curry to be hot otherwise you might end up with a whole green chilli wending its way to your table.

Overall:

Despite this one hiccup in the service, I enjoyed my meal at Jewel in the Crown so much that I am still going to give it ten stars. It has a nice atmosphere, an extensive list of vegetarian options, the service is great, we got a hell of a lot of food for under 10 euros and most importantly I thought the food was fabulous!

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Fire Restaurant Dublin Tour

Dublin Tours — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:13:30 +0000

Location

Fire is quite well located, not too far away from a main tourist thoroughfare, namely Grafton street. It is not quite in the thick of things as it seems that all the action really happens to the West of Grafton Street further towards the river, on the other hand Fire is right next to the National Museum and Leinster House so it is definitely not inconveniently located.

Why we went there

My friend had wanted to try fire for a long time. In fact, it was when we came back from Australia and just had to find a place in Dublin that served “toblerone cocktails” that we first came across Fire. We had heard vastly differing reviews on the place, some people raved about it, others treated it as poison to be avoided at all costs. We figured that we didn’t want to spend astronomical amounts of money finding out that a very expensive establishment was poison so we had a look at their website to see if they offered any deals. If you go to www.mansionhouse.ie they have a page dedicated to Fire where you can check out all their specials. We went for the two course pre-theatre package for E23.95 a head plus some cocktails. Check out the website to see when these specials are offered as the timetable changes depending on the day and the time you would like to go to Fire.

The price

$23.95 for a two course meal is not unreasonable. The prices are much higher if you go outside the hours and days that the pre-theatre menu is offered and frankly I would have to say that if you are paying full price, it really wouldn’t be justified by the fare on offer. We had two cocktails each and theses at thirteen euros per cocktail pushed our bill up an extra E52 coming to an overall total of E99. Amazingly, the two cocktails cost us more than the two course dinner.

The service

The service could not be faulted on the Monday night we went there. The restaurant was quite empty though so I don’t know what it would be like on a busy night. The waiters were very friendly and obliging, they made sure that everything was fine with us twice but in a particularly unobtrusive manner.

The room/The atmosphere

The night we went the restaurant was quite empty so it is difficult to comment on what the atmosphere would usually be like. I don’t really mind it when a restaurant is very quiet, as long as this doesn’t mean that the waiters fuss to much (which it didn’t in this particular case). We arrived at around 6PM on a Monday and there were only two other couples in the restaurant. The room consists of a larger interior section with elevated wings along the side of the room. We were placed on one of the elevated wings which in busier times at the restaurant would offer more privacy. It looked to me as if larger groups would be placed in the middle of the room in the main area as the tables were large and round.

I thought I should also mention that the bathrooms are beautiful, large, clean and luxurious.

The Food

Complementary appetiser

The waiter brought us out a basket with a small sliced loaf of warm tomato foccacia. It was a nice touch although the foccacia had a funny brioche-style texture and was a bit too sweet for my taste.

The starters

There was a good selection of starters, however clearly my company for the night and I share the same taste in food as we ended up ordering the same dish. We both got the Ardsallagh goats cheese bruschetta with pistachio nut crust and honey drizzle. I used to really have a problem with goats cheese, it being an extremely strong cheese, and it is only recently that I would even have considered ordering such a dish, but after having lived in Paris for two years I was forced to get used to it, and have now developed a taste for it, so I was looking forward to this dish.

The most surprising thing about the starters when they arrived was how absolutely tiny they were. Even having dined in Paris frequently, where they are known for small portions, I was surprised. I think they could have given you two bruschettas for the price you are paying for a starter. However, some people regard small portions as a sign of sophistication and I imagine that the restaurant is trying to pander to this type of clientele.

I was also quite surprised by the way they looked. The bread itself was a very small thin round of bread that had a strange sweet flavour to it, and once again, like the foccacia strangely brioche-like in its texture. There was an absolutely massive chunk of goats cheese that was arranged perfectly on top of it, as if someone had used round cookie-cutters to cut rounds from a slab of bread with a very thick slab of goats cheese placed on top. This is perhaps not conjuring the nicest of images in your head, but it was really not unappetising looking, just surprising.

The pistachio nut crust was less a crust than a few crushed pistachio nuts pushed into the top of the goats cheese. It could have benefitted from being crispier which would have given the whole dish another layer of texture to add to the creamy cheese and sweet soft bruschetta.

The honey drizzle was arranged very nicely around the bruschetta and was a nice finishing touch to the appearance of the dish, however I don’t think it added much to the flavour of the dish. The bread itself already tasted sweet and I think the honey would have better complemented a saltier crustier bread.

All in all, for me the ratio of goats cheese to bread was too much, the tiny thin slice of bread could barely cope with the extremely thick slice of cheese on top of it, the pistachio nut crust could have been better and I don’t think the honey drizzle added much to it. It was not awful, nothing to be complained about really considering the price we were paying for it, but if I had been paying full price I would have been less than happy.

The side salad on the other hand was perfect, there was not too much dressing and the greens were crisp and fresh.

The mains

The Pasta

I ordered the walnut gorgonzola ravioli. The dish looked beautiful when it came to the table, I love the appearance of fresh pasta and the sound of gorgonzola and walnut filling was truly a delight to my ears.

The pasta dish was well presented, the parmesan shavings on top looked delicious, although I do prefer to add my own parmesan which was an option not offered to us. However, on my first bite I knew that there was something slightly wrong with the dish. I chewed thoughtfully but couldn’t quite make out what it was. It was on my second bite that I realised what the overpowering, distinctly salty flavour of the pasta was. It was marmite or possibly worse, vegemite. This dish would have definitely benefited from a tomato-based sauce or a mild nutty mushroom sauce rather than a marmite based broth.

The Steak

My friend thought his main was really good quality. The medium sized steak came with beautiful fat home cut chips, a small side salad, sauce on the side and tiny little deep friend onions on top of the steak. He quickly devoured the onions and contemplated ordering a side dish made up purely of these small little strips of “deep friend goodness” (he refrained in the end). The steak was done exactly to his liking, just as he had instructed our waiter, and he even thought the salad was ideal (and this coming from someone who looks on all restaurant salads with an element of suspicion). He was extremely pleased with our night out, although he did specify that he wouldn’t want to be paying the full price for the meal. Delicious food, but not worth fifty euros apparently.

Vegetarians

Although there are a few options on the a la carte menu, the pre-theatre menu is very restricted for vegetarians. There is only one main on offer, the pasta described above, and it is fairly average as far as vegetarian cuisine goes.

The Drink

After having indulged in “toblerone” cocktails for the first time in Brisbane, Australia and having become quite addicted to them over there we were intent on finding an establishment that served them in Dublin. Firstly we went to Koh Thai restaurant which serves “toblerones”, on Mondays they are half price which means you get them for under 5 euros a cocktail. Fire was the only other place in Dublin that we could find serving this particular type of cocktail, so before we had even had time to order food or look at a menu my friend had two cocktails winging towards us from the kitchens.

The toblerones were very nice. They were made with chocolate ice cream, baileys and frangelico so they were satisfyingly thick and chocolately but unfortunately we are yet to find a toblerone that reaches the orgasmic delights that we experienced with the “Brisbane toblerone” which was a creamy delight of baileys, kahlua, frangelico, chocolate sauce, honey and cream.

This toblerone was more indulgent than the toblerone served at Koh, and I am fairly sure that it is the addition of chocolate ice cream that makes this cocktail so rich, heavy and delicious, but considering the price tag, you could buy three toblerones at Koh on Mondays for one Fire toblerone. It was quite painful watching my company for the night wolf down his cocktail, but I suppose that it is a good sign that he was enjoying his food. Before I knew it two more toblerones were winging their way to our table and I wasn’t about to say no.

If money is no object then the cocktails really are deliciously indulgent here and worth trying. I thought the desert menu was quite uninspiring at Fire and would replace one of the uninspiring sounding deserts with a “desert cocktail” I think you are unlikely to be disappointed.

However, for the more cost conscious, considering they are exactly the same size as the toblerones at Koh I would probably have to recommend going to Koh instead where they have a much larger, cheaper range of cocktails, including desert cocktails, albeit without the delicious addition of ice cream to the concoction.

Overall

Overall we had a nice night here, it is not the best food I have had in Dublin, but the pre-theatre menu is not unreasonably priced. The cocktails are pricey, but delicious. Vegetarians are not very well catered for on the pre-theatre menu, there is only one vegetarian main and it is very average. It is a place that is worth trying, but probably won’t make the list for much anticipated repeat visits. I give it 7 stars out of 10.

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