If you read my review of the breakdown of the €16.50 Bewley's Fry (first of all, thank you), you'll remember me mentioning my local breakfast place in the same article.
I'm about to shoot myself in the foot here by letting you in on a secret that lies in the small town of Terenure but after forking out that much money for a quarter of the fry in Bewley's, I feel that the time is now.
I discovered
The Village Bistro almost a year before I moved to Dublin. Mayo v Dublin All-Ireland Football Final 2016, I was early, I was hungry and I was staying in my sister's house who was living just up the road in Bushy Park House.
I tipped down at around 10am on that Sunday morning while I waited for the rest of the Green and Red army to depart from Heuston and make their way over to Drumcondra.
I'm not going to make up some big spiel about how it was recommended to me or I had read about it somewhere or even that I discovered after careful research.
My stomach is like a ticking time-bomb and I want to be sitting with my food ordered by the time it goes off.
Like most places I eat in, I came across it completely by fluke and I'm delighted that I did.
The first thing that really impressed me was the price of everything. Although I was sitting in Terenure - a place that oozes fancy, expensive, the definition of the boom never went away - this is something that college me could afford without having to sacrifice an extra pint in The Big Tree or Quinns.
(Sorry to anyone who lives in Terenure, my perception of the place up until a few months ago was solely based off
this AB ad).
I had a gawk around to spot what the Full Irish looked like and I knew that it would go down an absolute treat ahead of a busy day of pints and shouting and crying in Croke Park, again.
With Tea/Coffee and Toast included in all of these, this is what the €7.95 Mini looks like:
Even though it was my first time being in the place, I knew the Mini was never an option for me. I'd rather fail miserably on a full than devour a Mini in record time.
Two sausages, two rashers, two of each pudding, two eggs, hash brown and an orange juice while you're waiting for the cup of scauld. The waitress was mid-scribble when I dropped the bombshell - no tomatoes please.
I was then asked if I wanted anything in replace of the tomatoes - which I thought was a nice touch. An extra sausage and rasher was added to the mix.
Although I was in no real immediate rush, I still like when the breakfast is fired out fairly snappy. I'm talking maybe a 10/15 minutes wait but the waiting time was filled with the little bits like tea and toast landing to the table.
The sausages were pipping hot, the rashers, just the right middle ground between crunchy but tasty and all you had to do was look at the fried egg and it would start running.
Delish.
All of this + tea, toast and juice for €10.
It's about a five minute car journey for me to The Village Bistro but unless I'm willing to venture into town, it's the local for me.
(Plus, the most time I get a fry is when I'm hungover and hungry and sometimes, making it to town is just not feasible before I spontaneously combust).
And anyway, why would I want to head any further when I have that a stone's throw away?
Especially when they have an offer like 'The Fuller Irish', the stuff that was made for Fry lovers and people like me.
It has all the occupants belonging to the Full but for €2.50 extra you get a shitload of beans, mushrooms and skinny fries.
As you can probably guess, I bumped off the beans and with my two red, yucky friends now excluded from the breakfast plan, three of everything appeared on my plate with a few extra skinny chips and mushrooms thrown in for good measure.
€12.50 gets you this:
That's when you know you're in a game. That's when you know if you're the real McCoy or if you've been lying about your frying all these years.
I can promise you, if you order the Fuller Irish, you wouldn't eat as much as a crumb for the rest of the day.
That is why this is hands down the best value for money full Irish you'll get in Dublin in my opinion.
