As I mentioned before one of the main reasons we choose to visit Ireland was because it was foreign without being too foreign. Ireland really felt like visiting another state and their food was no different. One of my friends who visited Ireland a year before we did, didn't try much of the food and said they ate mostly at Italian restaurants. Boy did he miss out! Every place we ate had fantastic food! I don't remember not liking any of the places we ate at. Well, there was one that I'll talk about later.
I had Irish Stew and I did ask for 'bangers & mash' but the waitress wouldn't let me, she gave me a disgusting look and told me "NO". So, I ordered something else. Wish I could remember every place we ate, but I don't. But if you do go to Ireland, just know that anywhere you do eat, it's good.
I don't remember which restaurants these pictures are from, they are the only food pictures I did take. The one below is Irish Stew, I love Irish stew!! Wish I would have had it every night for dinner but only tried it once. Since we had pre-paid for our Irish Breakfasts with the vacation package we got from Exploring Ireland, we decided that we could get by only eating dinner and snacking for lunch. Most of the time we just walked around looking for restaurants that looked good which more often then not ended up being pubs, especially in smaller cities/towns. We did eat at subway a few times but manly because it's expensive to eat out every day and we were trying to save the budget. They don't have regular mustard in Ireland - no where in Ireland! Which really changes the taste of a subway spicy italian. We also found a great Chinese restaurant in Dublin next to our hotel that was practically free it was so cheap.
There was a bar we went to our first night in Dublin by one of the trendy areas that wasn't so great. I ordered a hamburger (yea, not Irish I know) plain. I thought that plain ment that it would come with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup. Yea, it didn't come with any of that! It came with a bun and a piece of meat! And then since they don't work off of tips and we didn't order beer, we didn't see our waitress again!! We avoided places like this and ate great the rest of the time.
Some other FYI's.....
Coke is more expensive then beer and comes in a 12oz bottle
They do give you ice with water
Waitress's don't work off tips, so you rarely see them (wish we wouldn't have tipped so much)
The pictures of us are at the Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub and a fantastic place to eat. I highly recommend that if you do visit Dublin that you visit the Brazen Head. Not only is the food great but it's got an awesome atmosphere.
