A Larger Breakfast Spread

Getting back to our travelogue of Dublin, Ireland (after a couple of weeks break while I focused on other things), we now get to breakfast on our third day of the trip. As I noted before, Dublin is very different from any American city I’ve been to in one key way: the city doesn’t really get going until nine or so in the morning. Some shops begin to open around eight, but generally you don’t see the populace really start going about their days until nine, and as such most places aren’t really open until around that time as well.

You can contrast that with American stores and shops, especially those catering to morning commuters. We imagine people getting up at four or five in the morning, heading off to start their day. They go to work out, they go to grab coffee, they go to run errands. All of this will happen before they head out for their shift at work. We have a society that expects people to build their days around their jobs, so retail stores will open earlier to accommodate. Dublin (and I will assume most of Ireland, and maybe large swaths of Europe) is different, and their whole commuting culture is shifted because of it.

All of this is to say that when my wife and I were up early (not because we wanted to be but because we were jet lagged and simply couldn’t sleep), we found it difficult to find places to eat. The second morning we traveled to a 24 hour shop (which are less common than you might hope over there) to get some quick Circle K snacks, but the third morning we decided to take an easier route and eat at the hotel we were staying at, Stauntons on the Green.

As the name would imply (if you know the layout of Dublin’s downtown area), this is a hotel set around one of the main parks, the St. Stephen’s Green Park, in the city. The hotel is just across the street from the park, so you can get up, walk over, and wander for half an hour or so through trees and grass while looking at little ponds and birds. It’s a nice park, providing plenty of fresh, green space in the middle of the city, and it was certainly a highlight for our hotel (and city) experience.

The hotel itself was pretty nice. It wasn’t outrageously impressive (although that might have been because we got one of the cheaper rooms for the week), but it had nice decor, friendly staff, and decent amenities. I’d put it on par with one of the better hotels in America, not something crappy like a Days Inn or a Comfort Inn. It was good enough that if I were to visit Dublin again, and I wanted to stay in the same area of town, I’d probably get a couple of nights at Stauntons on the Green again.

But we’re not really here to talk about the hotel. I just included a bit on that as it felt like some acknowledgement was needed. Instead the focus is the breakfast, which we wandered down for at seven in the morning after we’d eaten all the snacks we still had in our room. Like ravenous hunters, we stalked down the hallway to the breakfast room (which was just off the lobby, so it wasn’t really that thrilling of a hunt), grabbed a table, and enjoyed a lovely spread of food.

The meal consisted of two courses. First came a selection of starters that were included with all meals. This included a selection of fruit with yogurt, along with pastries and breads. The fruit was nice and fresh, with melons, berries, grapes, and even some pineapples. It was all a pretty standard selection that any traveler could get anywhere (I’m not even certain what a fruit specific to Ireland would be), but it was quite good. The bread was the usual Irish brown bread that seemed to be served everywhere. It was moist and tasty, with a thick chew to it. About the only part of the starters I didn’t like was the pastry, which was dry and a bit flavorless, despite seemingly having currants in it. I’m not sure if I was supposed to have it with butter or something, but on its own it was pretty bad.

But then we got to the mains, which were pretty tasty. My wife ordered the cheese omelette, which was exactly what you’d expect from the name: an omelette with cheese in it. The eggs were cooked to perfection, and the cheese inside was a lovely, sharp Irish cheddar. I mean, of course it was. Everywhere we went the cheese on offer was always Irish cheddar. Irish cheddar is for Irish cuisine what American cheese is for American cuisine. But, quite frankly, I’d rather have cheddar over our pre-processed, sliced cheese food. Irish cheddar is fantastic. She loved her omelette, enjoying the light and fluffy eggs, the sharp cheese, and the side of tomatoes and greens to compliment. It was a big win in her book.

Meanwhile, I ordered the French toast. This was an interesting play on the form as it was made with thick cut bread that was then coated and deep fried. The texture on the toast was very interesting. It was extra crunchy and not at all what I expected from what (at least here in the States) is a very bready, custardy dish. This had a different texture, and not nearly as much of a custardy interior, to it. It also wasn’t very sweet (which is also different from what I’m used to), so I had to pour on extra syrup to get it where I expected. It was very good, but it did take me some time to actually get my brain up to speed on what I was eating. I didn’t expect French toast to be a dish where the different sides of the pond would have wildly different takes on the material.

Overall the food was good and, all things considered, fairly well priced. The breakfast came out to just under twenty euros a person, or about twenty-two bucks per meal. It used to be that I’d consider that expensive for a breakfast in the States, but at this point I can’t even get a cheap meal at IHOP for less than twenty bucks (once you add in drink, taxes, and tip). And when you remember that tipping isn’t expected in Ireland, this was actually not a bad price at all. Maybe more than some would want to spend for breakfast, but that’s more personal preference at that point. When you’re on a trip and have to eat out for every meal, that’s really not a bad price to spend at this point.

So yes, I do think the food was pretty good, and it complimented the overall hotel experience well. It was good enough that a return visit isn’t completely outside the bounds of reason… although the likelihood of me traveling across the pond for all of this any time soon is low.