What I eat in a week – Late night drive thru and bread for every meal

Fiona Frawley

half of a ripe avocado with seed inside, with a pale pink background

Welcome to What I eat in a week in Dublin, where we find out what Dubliners are having. We’re asking people who live in this fine city what they are really having for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This isn’t a platform for lecturing or snarky comments, just a place for foodies to tell us what they are putting in their face holes during any given week.

Location: First half of the week, West Cork. Later, Dublin

Diet: Nothing specific but the diet in general is probably not the best – I often have gigs on in the evenings after work and have to eat on the go (please don’t judge the amount of takeaway I consumed towards the end of these seven days).

Is there anything you don’t eat/drink?

I’m a card carrying member of the I Hate Coriander Club. Our support group meets on Tuesdays.

What snack can always be found in your bag?

Probably a bag of sesame sticks or popcorn.

Your fridge is never without?

Real butter. I don’t store it in the fridge (room temp, obviously), but I suppose it could be considered a fridge item.

What’s your emergency dinner?

Probably noodles with peanut butter, frozen peas, crushed nuts, sesame seeds, chillies, egg or whatever’s going spare in the house.

If you had to eat at one place in Dublin for the rest of your life, where would it be?

Trying to answer this wisely… maybe the Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt Deli because it has everything.

Day One

Breakfast: This was Sunday so a mound of pancakes with the obligatory tapas of toppings – Nutella, bacon and maple syrup, sugar and lemon, the works. I mastered my pancake technique back in either lockdown 1 or 2, and now it’s become a bit of a weekend tradition. The trick is to make miniature sized pancakes so they’re really easy to flip – I measure them with the free scooper you get with porridge.

Lunch: Lunch and dinner became one in the form of roast beef with all the trimmings.

Snack: Chocolate Hobnobs and tea.

Evening: See above.

Day Two

Breakfast: I started the week working from home in West Cork so every morning I have a black americano from the local shop, and usually a filter made with my Aeropress and coffee from Bean in Dingle later in the day. I used to order beans from them all the time over lockdown and I’ve continued the tradition whenever I’m in that neck of the woods. Also, white bread toasted with lashings of real butter. I will not be taking questions at this time.

Lunch: Soda bread toasted with melted white cheddar and turkey slices.

Snack: A couple of satsumas and a corner yogurt because I’m in senior infants, apparently.

Evening: Pasta made by my fella with chicken and broccoli.

Day Three

Breakfast: The same coffee situation and also Fruit and Fibre. I go through phases where I can’t even look at a bowl of porridge, so this was the alternative today.

Lunch: A quesadilla. My making quesadillas at home journey has been an interesting one – I used to try and stuff them with everything and the kitchen sink in the name of being interesting but in my later years I’ve reverted to the basics – one wrap on top of the other with cheddar in the middle, fried, drizzled with hot sauce and on this day in particular, topped with smashed avo because I somehow hit the jackpot and had a ripe one in the house (it said it was 5 days out of date, this seems to be optimum for avocados).

Snack: Cream crackers with lashings of butter.

Evening: I won’t lie, we got takeaway pizza from the local chipper (pepperoni and pineapple for me). But I had no idea how many takeaways I’d end up having later in the week so give me a break, people.

Day Four

Breakfast: The Fruit and Fibre and americano situation repeated.

Lunch: I found out at the last minute that I’d need to travel back up to Dublin on this day for a gig (casual five hour drive) so lunch was an undisclosed amount of mini sausage rolls for €2 from a deli we passed on the way.

Snack: More sausage rolls.

Evening: Still on the road at this stage so we may have stopped by McDonalds for a double cheese, fries and a chocolate shake (the machine was working!)

Day Five

Breakfast: Soda bread toasted with raspberry jam. Whipped up some filter in a french press with coffee from New Kid (roastery from Donegal, my mum got them as part of a Christmas hamper and they’re delish.)

Lunch: One of the Happy Pear microwaveable chilli meals (vegan) which I took it upon myself to cover with grated cheese (not so vegan).

Snack: More satsumas.

Evening: Random enough but a roast beef sandwich from Fallon & Byrne. Was nice.

Day Six

Breakfast: *avoids eye contact* McDonald’s breakfast, featuring a sausage egg mcmuffin and two hash browns. Also an americano from Grind 101 in Carrickmines.

Lunch: I wasn’t too hungry then so I just picked at stuff – more yogurts, possibly another slice of toast (always a good idea).

Snack: A trusty bag of Manhattan popcorn.

Evening: A cheeseburger and chipper chips from Vincenzos on Thomas Street. Whoops.

Day Seven

Breakfast: Went for breakfast/brunch in Cinnamon in Ranelagh, got the eggs benedict with an obligatory side of hash browns and she was good.

Lunch: The eggs benny fairly saw me through til dinner time.

Snack: A packet of BBQ Hula Hoops (the best flavour).

Evening: Yet another takeaway, this time a beef Massamam from Camile Thai. After all the song and dance they make about the best part being the crispy shallots on top, they weren’t in the bag in the end but sure look. Was still delicious.

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