Still Looking For Our Dessert

After a full day of riding the hop on, hop off bus around Dublin, seeing some amazing sites and driving past both the Guinness Storehouse and the Jameson Distillery, we needed some dinner. We knew we wanted something traditionally Irish but had no idea where to go. We asked the concierge at the hotel if they had any suggestions and said that we were specifically looking for Sticky Toffee Pudding. They had some menus there and we couldn’t find it anywhere. One restaurant called the Pig’s Ear had something called Bread and Butter Pudding and the concierge said that their food was very good so he made us a reservation there. We were disappointed that we couldn’t find the dessert we were looking for so much but we were looking forward to the traditional Irish food.

After freshening up for a bit we took the short walk down Grafton Street (past the McDonald’s) and around the corner right across from Trinity College. We found this little door off the street:

This was just the entrance with the rest of the restaurant on the floors above. We ate in the “Main Restaurant” which was on the first floor. We found a lot of places in Europe that the “first floor” is what we would call the second floor. What we would call the first floor they call the ground floor. Here is a map of the restaurant that was hanging just inside the door:

We got a nice little table right on the window so we could look down on the street below. Like many of the places that we visited in Europe, this was a small dining room of maybe seven or eight tables. Once we ordered, they brought us some Irish soda bread in this neat little burlap bag:

As for our main courses, I had not had a Shepherd’s Pie since we had been in Ireland so I ordered one made with lamb and Joan got a salmon dish. Here’s what we ended up with:

We also got a side dish of potatoes cooked in duck fat. Here they are:

The food and the service were very good. As you can see, the Shepherd’s Pie came in its own little cast iron dish and it held the heat in perfectly. As we were waiting for our food, though, we were a little disappointed that we couldn’t find our Sticky Toffee Pudding. I had one more idea. While we were waiting I pulled up an app on my iPhone called “Foodspotting” and typed in “Sticky Toffee Pudding.” It pulled up a number of places that were hundreds of miles away…. And one that was just around the block!

I pulled up their website and found that they stopped serving food at this pub at 9:00. It was already 8:00. It was going to be close, but we thought we could make it. We finished our dinner and quickly got the check. We walked back toward the hotel and down Grafton Street to Harry Street and came across Bruxelle’s

We sat down in the bar area around 8:45 so we had just made it. Our server came over and said that the kitchen was about to close so if we wanted food we would have to order quickly. We said that was just fine with us because we only wanted dessert and we knew what we wanted. We wanted the Sticky Toffee Pudding. She said it was available with cream, ice cream or custard. Well we knew about ice cream so we decided that we would each get one, mine with custard and Joan’s with cream. We probably should have shared but what the heck we’d each get our own.

Now I have been discussing Sticky Toffee Pudding but have not really described it. Like most “puddings” on this trip, Sticky Toffee Pudding is not what you would think of as pudding. Sticky Toffee Pudding is a sponge cake made with dates and covered with a toffee sauce. The ones at Bruxelle’s are then served with cream and a custard and let me tell you it was one of the best things we ate all trip.

Here’s what they looked like. First, mine with the custard:

and Joan’s with the cream:

The custard was smooth and creamy and the cake was so moist. It took us a long while to find but it was well worth the wait. We will definitely be looking for this on menus here is the US and sampling it whenever we can.

By this time we were thoroughly stuffed. We made our way back to the hotel and packed up what little we had unpacked and got ready for our trip to London.

Next time we make a stop at the Hard Rock in London and dinner in Dover before we get on the ship.

Until next time,

Mike