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Being back in Dublin has me curious to try out more cafe’s and restaurants that have cropped up in the last year or so. My time is a bit restricted at the moment but when I’m free to be out and about there is nothing better than a coffee, a cake and a chat in a lovely cafe.
I’ve made it to two in the last month; The Giddy Goose in Dun Laoghaire (138/139 George’s Street) and nelly’s in Portobello (12 South Circular Rd), both of which were a lovely surprise, but nelly’s stole the show.
Interior of The Giddy Goose
The Giddy Goose is at the quieter, Monkstown end of Dun Laoghaire – near Argos and the Library and at the opposite end from itsabagel; Dun Laoghaire’s stalwart cafe. I went there with a friend one sunny mid week afternoon and it’s a lovely sunny room with a nice fresh colour scheme and hints of ikea charm dotted about. Judging by the customers the day we were there it does a fine line in yummy mummies and treats for kids. There’s a nicely stocked kids area with drawing pencils and crayons and newspapers and mags for mums. Brilliantly there’s also free wifi – very important – and a great selection of buns and cakes.
Raspberry scone at The Giddy Goose
My friend had a killer toasted sandwich of chicken and stuffing with a side salad, I had a huge raspberry scone which looked and sounded divine, but fell a little short as the few raspberries in evidence were at the bottom and not scattered throughout. Tempted by the sweet things we shared a GIANT slice of chocolate cake which was gorgeous; lots of frosting and not too chocolatey, but the size of it defeating two of us sharing, no idea how you’d eat it on your own! I’ll definitely be back to the goose as a nice alternative to the pier/itsabagel route, and it would be a good place to while away some time if you were early for the Ferry.
nelly's on South Circular Rd, Dublin. Pic taken from The Urbane Nibbler Blog
A few days later, early afternoon on an even sunnier weekday , I headed with another friend to nelly’s on South Circular Rd. What a delightful spot! There were a ton of yummy sounding sandwiches on offer and I went for a falafel wrap which was excellent. My friend had the soup of the day which was also great, and we shared (do you see a pattern emerging?) what can only be described as the very best chocolate brownies I have ever tasted. Crispy on the outside, moist and chocolatey on the inside, home cooked american style goodness. The coffee was excellent and there was a host of other treats on offer, including some sumptuous looking carrot cake that comes highly recommended and will have to be tried on my next visit.
The little chairs outside are perfect in the sunshine, and the tea is served in charming china teacups – with saucers of course. The cafe doubles as a food shop with a lovely selection of hand picked cooking ingredients, pretty bun cases and specialist products. Nelly’s hosts a contemporary textile workshop which looks terrific, and on the whole is somewhere that the brilliant Lilly Higgins (check out her fantastic blog) would love, and that is the best praise I can give!
Best idea of the summer so far? Probably….
Someone’s only gone and bought a bunch of beach cruisers and is renting them out in Strandhill. Seeing them makes me feel like I’m back in San Diego (ah those halcyon J1 days), helped enormously by the great summer we’ve been having…and which I’ve probably now jinxed.
I went for a beach wander tonight and spotted people trying them out and they look just like the logo above. Totally dreamy, with Mountain Bikes available too if the cruisers are too laid back for you. Rates look great (see below) and the marvellous Shells Cafe made a great suggestion on their facebook today to pick up a picnic (which they can helpfully provide if you want a treat), bung it in the basket and take a cycle out to Coney Island. What bliss. This is now my aim for the summer- I will test and report back soon as.
Hourly Rate €5, Half Day Rate €10 (9am-3pm or 3pm-9pm), Daily Rate €14.00 - Weekly Rates Available too. Check them out here> or along the strand.
I went to my first ever irish blog awards this Saturday and it’s Monday night and I’ve just about recovered, but only just mind. I’ve removed my nail polish from the L’Onglex Ladies Tea Party (with L’Onglex nail polish remover of course- acetone free and given to us in our goodie bags- yay) and sitting down to recap on it all. I wonder is there any way to map the massive upswing of irish blog posts that much surely follow the awards every year? If the amount of traffic on twitter is anything to go by it must put a terrible strain on the internet altogether.
So- what of the awards then? they were in Galway this year, and I headed down from Sligo with fellow lady blogger (and fellow model staffer) ladydotty on a lovely sunny day. The whole sunshine/spring thing made me fall back in love with Galway, which I hadn’t felt in a long long time, so that’s good too, but more on that anon.
We checked into our B&B, fretted about what to wear (what could we wear out at 4pm that would still look good at 4am? to heel or not to heel, how dressy is it, arg), got dressed, managed not to eat the free kit kats in the room and wandered into town for a feed. Well, we were going to be drinking all day and night so eating seemed like a good plan. We did a bit of foursquaring but no tips were forthcoming so denise spotted Buskers with her real eyes and in we went. Great food, delish salads and great piri piri fries (think I posted that as a tip).
Quick taxi to the G hotel and we landed at the Ladies Tea Party and my oh my do I want to get back to the G hotel as quickly as I possibly can.The lobby is incredible (great spot to kick off a stylin’ night in I’d imagine) but we were most spoiled with the Linda Evangalista suite which is beyond fancy. Rooftop balcony with lovely views, fancy ass sandwiches (with the crusts off!) and scones (chocolate scones!) with cream and jam, oh, and delectable desserty things on silver platters. Seriously. And not to mention the extremely good wine from Curious Wines that we were poured giant glasses of- mostly of the gorgeous rose. And then, to top it all off, there was a DIY nail bar in the bathroom (one of the bathrooms) sponsored by the aforementioned L’Onglex. Which for some reason we all decided to hit after we had a million glasses of wine, rather than at the start while our hands were vaguely steady.
And even better than all of that was meeting a roomful of lovely, friendly, bright, engaged and passionate women who have something to say for themselves. Sabrina Dent is nothing short of a super hero for organising it all every year.
And so then to the Blog Awards at the Radisson Blu….I had no idea what to expect. Well except that i was thinking probably there would be lots of men and not so many ladies but i was totally wrong on that account, delightfully so. I’d say a 50/50 split actually- which you can tell from eolai‘s (winner of best specialist blog btw) pic of the bar from the balcony.
Pic courtesy of eolai
And so it was great fun. The award bit was funny, quick and lovely- beautifully hosted by Rick O’Shea with highly entertaining styrofoam invasions courtesy of Made in Hollywood and a few video’s to keep us going. The gongs went to deserved winners (The Model blog had been up in a long list but never made the shortlist – something to aim for next year!) from what I could tell and everyone was lovely. Then the bar re- opened and everything is a blur from there on in. I hauled myself to bed at 4am (I think- dratted hour change) and most kept going until the even smaller hours. I met some great people in “real life” and had a whole bunch of great chats all night. Brilliant stuff, and of course with twitter I can now stay in touch with them all!
Huge thanks to Damien Mulley and the team behind the awards. I’m sure they don’t get paid and I know just how herculean a job it is to organise those things, specially ones that look effortless, that takes a hell of a lot of paddling below the surface to pull off. Official pics of the event here if you want to see it all go down>
I’m so glad I went to the blog awards and finally met “the people from the internet” and I’ll be back. And I’ll get better about blogging- I promise.
oh- and p.s I had a truly awesome breakfast at Bar 8 the next morning- best brunch in Ireland I’d say. I thoroughly reccomend healthy looking fry, outstanding home baked granola and fan bloody tastic pancakes with smoked apple and maple syrup. wowzers. Pics below:
Awesome brunch- best in ireland perhaps?
awesome pancakes
awesome space
