One of the happy coincidences in planning this Baltic Sea cruise was I that I was able to cross an item off my bucket list. My favorite show of all time has to be Riverdance. The story of how I got into Riverdance is a whole story in and of itself but suffice it to say that I had seen Riverdance 13 times in the United States in locations from New York City’s Radio City Music Hall to the Pantanges Theater in Hollywood. Well, I vowed that one of my bucket list items would be to see Riverdance in Dublin where it all started. In planning this cruise we determined that Riverdance would be at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin right about the time of the cruise, so that’s how we ended up with a couple of extra days there before our 12-day Baltic cruise. As we wandered Dublin before getting into our hotel, we found the theater:
Now, since we had been planning this trip for quite some time, I was able to get my tickets very early and we ended up in the very front row. Here is a quick view of the theater and of the stage from my seats:
The show was as fantastic as the other 13 times I had seen it and I couldn’t have asked for any more. The show was at 5:30 so of course when it was finished, we needed some dinner. In my preparation for the trip, I had found on-line a little place a couple of blocks from the theater called the Whitefriar Grill. This place interested us because prior to the trip we had sampled a couple of Irish restaurants in Las Vegas and found a wonderful dessert called Sticky Toffee Pudding. We were eager to try it in Dublin and according to the menu on the Whitefriar’s website they had it on their dessert menu. So we walked the two blocks to the restaurant:
Once we got there, we browsed the menu and were disappointed to see, no Sticky Toffee Pudding. We ended up eating there anyway because the rest of the menu sounded interesting and besides, we were getting pretty hungry and we were already there. We would vow to find Sticky Toffee Pudding somewhere else before we left Dublin.
So we headed in and got a nice table for two and browsed the menu again. I had just about settled on something they called “Ribs and Rump” which was a combination of barbeque pork ribs and a rump steak. We then noticed that they had an “early bird” special that was good all night Saturday and Sunday. This being Sunday we decided to take advantage. With the early bird you were able to pick an appetizer and a main course. Well one of my appetizer choices was the barbecue pork ribs and the rump steak was a main course option. So there you are, the “Ribs and Rump” and at a discounted price. I ordered that and out came our appetizers. Here are my ribs served on a wooden plank:
And Joan ordered a prosciutto and melon appetizer:
The ribs were very good. I wouldn’t exactly call them Irish cuisine but still very well done. When my steak came it was also served on a wooden plank:
Now you can see that it was served with thick cut chips (French fries) and you can see a small little salad. What you can’t see is the actual steak because it was buried under that big heap of fried onions and let me tell you they were wonderful. They were fried just enough to be crunchy but not too much that they crumbled when you ate them. The steak was a perfect medium and being a rump steak is not a cut that you normally see in a steakhouse. I did notice that I did see it on the menu several places in Ireland though.
We had the option with our “early bird” meal of adding a third desert course, but since they didn’t have what we were looking for, we decided to add a cheese board as a dessert. It was supposed to come with three different cheeses but they were out of the third kind and brought us a little more of the other two. Here’s what it looked like:
It was served with crackers and a wonderful strawberry jam that went well with the cheeses. We asked the manager what the types of cheeses were and he wondered where our third cheese was. He went to the kitchen and was able to get us a sample of the third cheese so we actually ended up with some of all three. I’ll talk more about Irish cheeses next time.
So that was our meal. We left the restaurant and took a short walk back up to Grafton Street. Now last time I mentioned something about a blast from my childhood past. Have you been able to figure out what I found in Dublin, Ireland that reminded me of childhood in Ohio? Well, on Grafton Street there is, like many thousands of places across the world, a McDonald’s. Now I swore that on this trip I may look at some McDonalds’ but would not get anything there that you can get in any McDonald’s in the United States. I had heard a rumor about a certain item that was no longer available in the US but was still available overseas. Who out there remembers these:
That’s right, it’s the good old fashioned, super bad for you, great tasting, burn the roof of your mouth, deep fried McDonald’s apple pie. I had not had one of these in probably 20 years since the US McDonald’s switched to the baked apple pies that are possibly a tiny bit better for you but in every other way inferior to these beauties. For the super low price of only 1 Euro, I was able to take myself back to every McDonald’s I ate at from birth until they took away my “Egg Roll” style apple pie. So if you’re looking for one of these, I can tell you that you can get it here:
On Grafton Street in Dublin, Ireland (and I’m guessing about 1000 other places across Ireland, the UK and probably most of Europe). After that wonderful night cap we were back to our hotel for our first real night’s sleep in Dublin and hopefully we’ll adjust to the time change OK.
Next time I’ll tell you about our second and final day in Dublin that included some local cheeses, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and a pub lunch.
Until next time,
Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment