General Chat Thread II

I was in Dublin city centre and decided to spend no more than a tenner on a nice but cheap lunch option.

Once you rule out sandwiches, pizza slices, crepes and obvious fast food options, I reckon one of the best deals for bang on a tenner is a Fallon and Byrne protein plus two sides from their counter. They'll heat it and you can still eat it at tables on site.

This lamb curry, pilau and slow cooked vegetables.

The quality, portion size and setting make this a value deal for me, lack of a real plate or not.

Indeed.

If you wanted to maximise your tenner I guess McDonalds' or cooking your own meal would obviously be the best way to go from a strict volume / value point of view.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for the McDonalds breakfast menu, in fact.

But in general ten euro doesn't go far if looking for a "nice" lunch option. You can get a fancy sandwich, toastie or crepe but gone are the days when you could get a 12" neapolitan style maragrita pizza in the likes of Sano for €8.95.

I did almost get a Pablo Picante burrito for €9 incidentally, but they don't take cash and I only had two fivers on me. That's not too bad either.

There's a cohort of people who give out about the price of hospitality who basically wouldn't be happy unless prices returned to mid 1990s levels, or perhaps if City Centre restaurants were charging as if they were peasant canteens in rural Spain, but ... Yeah, it's pretty pricy right now. I know it's rent / leases, insurance and a whole host of factors, but either way, the winter is gonna get spicy when those high electricity bills start to come in - for private citizens and businesses alike...

If you make ginger syrup I really recommend a "Shaky Pete", a beer cocktail from the Hawksmoor restaurant chain in the UK.

Beer and spirit drinks combos normally weird people out, and I'm not generally a fan, but this is one of the most drinkable and unusual out there, it's more than the sum of its parts and the ginger plays a starring role.