This week’s restaurant review is short and sweet. I’ve eaten roughly 10 times in the Green Hen in the last year. I’ve brought friends there. Family. Eaten at the bar. Tweeted photos of the amazing food and I’ve even fucking sent loads of people there as a personal suggestion of the one hip place to eat in Dublin. Probably not unreasonable to say I contributed about €2000 worth of business to them over the last year. That is a shit ton of cash for a restaurant in this little fucked economy of ours.
I was out for lunch with Lauren in the local Exchequer bar (Always excellent) and it was one of those occasions where we didn’t fancy anything on the dessert menu but still wanted something sweet. That is when I came up with the ingenius plan I’d learnt in America of going to another restaurant for just a dessert. Some places have better pasty chefs than others after all so it makes complete sense.
So we headed off on the short walk and there was talk of champagne cocktails for Lauren as she was leaving and we were both going to savage the desserts and spend at least €50 there in a short period of time. The sort of easy money restaurants need in these tough times. It was Sunday lunch time and when we walked in the door there was one other table in the place. Busiest time of the day and no other customers so we had lucked out…
“Could we get a table for just a dessert, coffee and some cocktails please” I asked feeling at once content that I was somewhere I knew well and I could introduce them to another happy future customer. “No we don’t do that” replied the waiter with a sneer and continued with “we are a full restaurant only”. That was that. We were more or less ushered out of the restaurant and suddenly found ourself in the street looking for somewhere new for our desserts.
See that is the thing about restaurants…They have the ability to constantly wow you but then one tiny false move and you never go back. It could be an overcooked steak. A rude staff member. A dirty toilet. We all have so much choice that we can easily write somewhere off even if we fucking loved it up until then.
If I bought a pair of €50 shoes and they had no laces I’d be pissed off. If I bought a book missing the last 5 pages I’d go back and wreck the place. It is the exact same for a restaurant and too many of them forget that. It costs a fuck ton of money to eat out and you should be welcoming any customers in with open arms rather than sneering them away and making them feel bad. I loved the Green Hen but I simply won’t go back and the sad thing is the owners probably never had a clue what happened. It took one rude waiter 5 seconds to wipe €2000 of business of next years balance sheet. I could tell you about all the lovely meals I’ve eaten there over the last year but I always do the review based on the one time I am there even if I have been there before. I can only base this review on the 5 seconds I was actually in the place and it was pure shite and I’ll never go back. Wankers.
The View From Others
I am only one person eating there on one day and could have had a strange opinion of the place. Here is the view from some others who have reviewed it…
Lucinda O’Sullivan
Caitrionaw’s Blog
Fodors
Stitch and bear
I started this blog for the purely selfish reason of wanting to discover good food and fuck me that has worked out well and with a cherry on top. Rather than sticking with my usual haunts I’ve been pushed to try different places and to push the envelope (I don’t even know if that is a real saying but it sounds right. What does pushing an envelope even fucking mean?). My latest discovery is a gem and I’m a little heavy hearted about sharing it. Unlike other blogs I’ve started in the past I couldn’t give 2 shits about traffic here, it’s all about the food and indulging myself. I had a look though and 120 people have subscribed for email updates. That’s a lot. More than enough to fill a restaurant. Bear with me here I am not being vain… In a large city when you discover something amazing you want to keep it to yourself. You don’t want the “in” crowd to discover it and ruin the cool vibe. Luckily Dublin is tiny but the last thing I want to happen to the place I’m writing about today is have it turn in to the latest Crackbird and have people from god forbid Tallaght coming in and ruining the buzz. Having said that I did find it because of tweets by two of Dublin’s biggest hipsters so the word might already be out. Put in simple terms it is so good I am worried about telling every single one of you 120 fuckers because you all have wives, families, friends and co-workers you can then tell. It is absolutely mind blowing…
It’s called IZAKAYA. Sounds like a nice Japanese name but it is actually one of the most culturally important parts of Japanese life. You can read the full Wikipedia here but this sentence stolen from there sums it up perfectly ” Food and drink are ordered throughout the course of the session as desired. They are brought to the table, and the bill is added up at the end of the session. Unlike other Japanese styles of eating, food items are usually shared by everyone at the table.” So the place in Dublin is slightly less traditional but they serve food in small tapas style portions and it fucking rocks. There is even a DJ table with all sorts of whiskey and the cocktails, wines and drinks are extensive. People come here to get drunk and unwind.
I started with prawn Gyoza which are little steamed dumplings. The lads make them upstairs (look in and you’ll see them) and they are fucking savage. I then had steamed scallop dumplings which tasted like kissing a gaggle of virgins while floating on a cloud. I then had the only shitty course, deep fried prawns which sounded all fancy but were just frozen shit.
Next up was deep fried calamari which the staff assured me was the best on the menu. It was. Salt n pepper, lots of lemon and juicy crispy tenderness. Last on the list I went back to the steamed dumplings with pork this time. Equally wonderful. The best thing about all of this… 5 courses for €25. See the Japanese and the Spanish like eating Tapas style and if I could bring one law in to Ireland it would be that. Eat small and eat often.
I sat there working and eating for about 2 hours under no pressure at all listening to pumping tunes and feeling very good about myself. It cost me less than €35 and it was one of those occasions where you have to leave a tenner tip even if it is out of proportion because the staff were superbly quiet and efficient.
I’ll do you a deal… you can go down here and bring one friend but that is it. This place is to strictly be kept between us. If I discover somewhere like this again and the blog keeps growing you’ll never fucking hear about it!
The View From Others
I am only one person eating there on one night and good have had a good or bad experience which is not fair. His is the view from others who have eaten there as well
Ireland.com
Yelp
(The really good news is there are hardly any reviews out there so nobody knows about this place yet!!!)
I love Italian food and after declaring Il Primo the best Italian in Dublin I set out on my mission to find somewhere better this week. My journey took me to San Lorenzo on South Great George’s Street which is a long and thin room that is beautifully designed with lots of wood on show. I love good quirky design and the jacks (toilets for any non Irish readers) where the highlight for me. As soon as you step in to them (unisex) you have a beautiful grandstand view of the kitchen. I don’t know if the photo I took does the view justice but you can literally see every inch of the kitchen. I love this because it means the chefs have to have the place spotless given that they are constantly on show from the gantry above. I’ve worked in a bunch of kitchens and they can be filthy places. They are usually well hidden away in the back of a building which means chefs get away with grubby habits but fair play to San Lorenzo for just pulling open their Kimono and leaving nothing to the imagination.
So the food was seriously good. Proper Italian fare and really well priced. The whole menu sounded delicious but I started with Confit of chicken with new potatoes, green olives and caper dressing. It was absolutely sensational. The restaurant was playing a blinder to date but then I started to fuck it all up. Being the geek that I am I was on both my iPhone and iPad working and browsing. I tipped my water over my starter, both devices and myself. No big deal as it happens all the time but i’d fucked up my own enjoyment as I started fretting over the state of my €1000 worth of precious goods. I forgot about the dining experience and starting worrying about all the people looking at me thinking I was some sort of drunk loner.
All dried off I awaited my main course with excitement. If it was anyway as good as the starter I’d be back in business. Out came my Spatchcock Poussin with roasted new potatoes, green olives and pancetta. The second the waiter set it down I realized what a complete and utter gobshite I was. I’d ordered chicken for starter and chicken for main course and to make matters worse both dishes were served with new potatoes. Now I can’t stress enough how this was in no way the fault of the restaurant or the menu itself. It was all down to me. I’d been a complete and utter asshole. Imagine starting a restaurant review blog and then ordering the same thing for starter and main. Imagine starting a restaurant blog that pontificates about doing the simple things well and then flipping the tables and ending up as the turnip yourself. Chicken followed by chicken. You literally couldn’t make that shit up. The poussin was absolutely delicious. Just as delicious as the starter but I actually resented every single mouth full because I’d eaten a smaller portion of the same thing minutes earlier. If I was looking for excuses I’d say that it was down to it being 6 on a Friday and I was absolutely wrecked after a tough week of work but the truth is that I was just a pillock. Oh how the chefs must have laughed seeing an order coming in for chicken followed by chicken. Fucking tosser they must have thought.
I finished the meal with the ultimate acid test for any Italian restaurant…3 Scoops of ice cream and a coffee. They didn’t just pass with flying colors but their cherry, chocolate and vanilla were as good as I have had in Dublin. The coffee was so strong you could stand your spoon up in it. Perfect.
So I left San Lorenzo pretty disappointed. Nothing to do with them as the food was brilliant, the service perfect and the pricing spot on. They hadn’t put a foot wrong. It was all to do with me. Who knew that the you could fuck up a brilliant meal yourself. So I guess when they say the customer is always right they were wrong. Sometimes the customer needs a good kick up the hole and to have a straight jacket fitted and his dishes decided for him. I will be back though, the cleanest kitchen in Dublin deserves another chance.
The View From Elsewhere
I am only one person eating there on one night and plenty can go wrong so here are some views from other people who have eaten there and reviewed the place as well
Paolo Tullio
The Irish Times
Lucinda Osullivan
We love town
Phantom.ie
Any Given Food
Dublin Reviewer
Breakfast is a very particular thing. You always wake up hungry and you usually have a craving for something very particular. Breakfast at the weekends is like the holy grail for me. It’s the only time that the phone stops ringing, the emails dry up and I can finally sit down and take a deep breath. It’s the best time of the week. I wanted to share the one definitive place to have breakfast in Dublin but it turns out I couldn’t split the winners. A dead heat. So in a week when a bunch of people like Des and Stu rightly gave me shite for the posts drying up here I decided to come back out and give you 2 reviews for the price of one. You’ll never be stuck for Brekkie again because these are easily the 2 best weekend morning spots in Dublin in my humble opinion…
Odessa
If you don’t know this place by now and you live in Dublin then you clearly don’t get out much. I don’t even really need to be writing this review. The place is awesome. It opens at 11.30 on the dot and when I get down there at about 11.25 most weekends there is a queue of about 15 people. If you are later than 12 and don’t have a reservation forget it. Cop yourself on. What they have nailed is perfection. They don’t do anything wild just the simple brunch classics like….Full Irish, Eggs Benedict, Steak Sandwich and my on personal favorite Chicken Quesadillas which you can see in the pic. The have great juices, lovely cocktails and the place is always buzzing. The word brunch must only have been invented when somebody saw what Odessa were doing. It feels like a little bit of New York in central Dublin and I can’t suggest strongly enough that you go and eat there and make it your “go to” brunch place. I’ve never ever had a bad meal in here and I’ve been at least 50 times. It nails it every single time. No brainer. Check it out. I actually had two meals there in two weeks and as you can see from the salmon eggs Benedict it is savagely tasty stuff.Small tiny complaint is they have the salt and pepper in those little bowls where you grab it with your hand. Looks nice and all that but who wants to be getting a fist full of some guys ass that he was scratching 5 minutes earlier or a big snotty bugger. These sort of shared condiments suck but apart from that all good.
Some other opinions on the place
Entertainment
Cheap Eats
The Dubliner
Stitch And Bear
Gerry’s
Restaurants come and go in a blink of an eyelid these days but this place has been around for 20+ years. This is the perfect working man’s Caf (women obviously frequent the place as well but you know what I mean). It’s a greasy spoon. No frills. So no frills it doesn’t even have a website never mind a Twitter or Facebook page. I only discovered it when I moved in to where I live now as it is literally downstairs. I wake up, pull on a pair of joggers and I’m sitting down ordering 20 seconds later. It’s only about 90 seconds from St Stephens Green as well. The reason I love it is because I work in marketing. People (including myself of course) talk a lot of shit in our business. I couldn’t be more removed from reality given my day job. Gerry’s is always full of construction workers, bouncers, criminals (i’m only guessing that) and people who are on the dole. Everybody in here read’s The Sun as is proud of that fact. I go in here for a reality check. When you hear people shiting on all week about billion dollar valuations and ROI it can be refreshing to switch off all technology and get a finger back on the pulse of real life. The food is pretty decent too. Gerry is an Aul lad of about 50 who cooks it all himself. The fry up is €6.50 with a load of scalding hot tea and a big basket of toast. 6 fucking 50!! Put that in your Celtic Tiger and smoke it! They also happen to do amazingly simple lunches and dinners with old staples like Irish Stew, Chicken Kiev and Brown mince and spuds always on the menu. In a world gone mad with poncy shit this is the perfect tonic for anybody looking a decent bit of simple food.
Some other opinions on the place
Aiden Kelly
Boards.ie
You’ll find Italian food in pretty much every city in the world. It’s mostly shite. Watered down crap that has been adapted to sell to the mass market. Real Italian restaurants are few and far between but Il Primo where I ate this week is the real deal. The thing about Italian food is that at it’s best it is wonderfully simple. They strip out all the bullshit and rely on amazing ingredients and a level of confidence and arrogance that only comes with knowing that you are the best.
So I’ll start off by saying the food was really really good in here. That wasn’t what made the meal though. What made the meal was two very simple things that the front of house team did. First off I was on my iPad (all the photos taken with an Ipad this week even if I did look like a plank doing so) and the waiter asked if I needed the WIFI code. It wasn’t a public WIFI system but he essentially gave me their private code which made me feel special. His second piece of wonderful proactive service was asking me if I wanted a break between starter and main course. It seems like a small thing but nobody wants to be in and out of a restaurant in 20 minutes and having the knowledge to see that I was there to relax and take my time is what good service is all about.
So to the food…Proper Italian like I said and ridiculously simple and tasty. First up was bread with olive oil and balsamic. Perfection. Next I went for sirloin steak strips with rocket and Parmesan. Couldn’t really have been any tastier. Simple elegant flavors. 3 Ingredients but they were all melt in the mouth perfect. The main course was pasta with seafood and the huge big juicy pieces of flaky fish were to die for. I’m a sucker for pasta and this was the best I’ve ever eaten in Dublin.
I finished the meal with a delicious polenta tart that again was wonderfully understated and simple. To round it all off the coffee was as good as any double expresso I’ve ever had in Italy which means you could more or less stand you spoon upright in it. The place was quiet but there are a couple of wonderful seats in the window that are among the best in Dublin for people watching. It’s also cheap and less than a stone’s throw from Stephen’s green this really is a lovely little spot that very few people will know about. You should check it out, it’s easily the best Italian food in Dublin. (total was less than €40)
The Balanced Opinion
I’m only one person eating there on one day so it is important to get the opinion of other people. Here are some of the other reviews…
Fodors
Taste of Ireland
Stitch And Bear
Food and wine
