Sara left this morning at 6:30 AM. It has been such a joy and a blessing to have had the opportunity to explore Ireland with her. Goodbye Sara and have a safe journey back to Houston.
Dana and I sacked in and went out for brunch. Dana found a breakfast/brunch place called Tang. We walked in the rain for a half hour to get there but it was well worth the effort.
I had sunny side up eggs on a bed of sirachia infused hummus with a side of sausage and a side of Irish soda bread. It was one of the best breakfast/brunch dishes I have ever had!
Dana had avocado 🥑 poached eggs with chorizo.
After brunch we had about 3 hours to burn off the one thousand brunch calories we had consumed before we started the food tour at 2:00 PM.
We met Niamh our tour guide at 1:45 PM and the tour group spent 15 minutes introducing ourselves. On the tour we had an extended family from Manassas, Virginia, a young couple from Germany, and a young couple from Omaha, Nebraska, Deb and Dan. Deb is a school teacher so she and Dana bonded right away and gabbed throughout the entire three hour tour.
The tour included a stop at a restaurant for an appetizer and a drink, a stop at a second restaurant for a main course and a drink, and then a third and final stop at a restaurant for a drink and dessert.
As we walked to the first restaurant Niamh gave us a Cliffs Notes version of Irish history. Ireland has been invaded four times. First by the Celts, then by the Danish Vikings – this is where the Irish got their good looks and everything else that makes Ireland such a special place 😀 – then Ireland was invaded by the Anglo Normans and finally by the English. The Irish love the Danes, who doesn’t love the Danes, but they do not love the English.
Our first stop was at The Oak restaurant.
Everybody knows the story about the Lusitania, the British passenger ship that was torpedoed and sunk by the Germans during World War I. Nineteen hundred passengers lost their lives when the Lusitania sank. Lusitania’s sister ship was the Mauritania. A number of artifacts from the long ago decommissioned Mauritania decorate the walls of The Oak.
Dana and I had a big pot of mussels in a mushroom broth and a glass of Guinness for our appetizer course.
This is a picture of the row of tap handles at The Oak.
Niamh said that before Coors Light emigrated to Ireland young men in their late teens would drink shandy, a mixture of beer and lemonade, when they first reached the legal drinking age, which in Ireland is 18. When they got a little older they graduated to Guinness. Now they start their lifelong tippling careers with Coors Light and then graduate to real beer.
Next we went to Mulligan & Haines for our main course, Guinness beef stew with a glass of Guinness.
For our dessert course we went to Lundy Foot’s Bar and Lounge. Doesn’t sound like a place you would go for dessert, does it?
After we were seated Niamh gave us a demonstration on how to make a proper Irish coffee and then we all tried our hand at making Irish coffee. For those of you who don’t know how to make Irish coffee, I will give you the recipe. Put a shot of Jameson whiskey in a glass, put in a teaspoon of sugar, then fill the glass up to the top of the handle with coffee and stir, then put some good Irish cream in a shaker and shake, the put the spoon on top of the liquid in the glass and pour the cream over the top of the spoon so the cream forms a layer over the coffee and whiskey.
I think I did a pretty good job.
An Irish guy, Joe Sheridan, is widely credited with invented Irish coffee and after it became wildly popular, the Buena Vista, a bar in San Francisco, advertised that they invented Irish coffee. Joe Sheridan sued the Buena Vista and the court ordered the Buena Vista to cease and desist from falsely claiming that they invented Irish coffee, and give Joe Sheridan the credit he deserved.
I have a somewhat sordid history of drinking too many Irish coffees at the Buena Vista with some of you who are following this blog. And you know who you are.
To accompany our Irish coffee we had a slice of Baileys cheesecake.
Yum, Yum, Yum!
As we were walking back to the tour company’s office at the end of our tour we ran across this sign.
It is the infamous “Why Go Bald” sign. In Dublin you would meet on your first date in a pub. For your second date you would meet under the “Why Go Bald” sign. About 20 years ago the Universal Hair & Scalp Clinic went out of business and the City of Dublin wanted to remove the sign. Married couples from all over Dublin vociferously protested the proposed removal of this sign, claiming that it was an important milestone in their courtship. The City of Dublin relented and agreed to keep and maintain the sign in perpetuity.
We also walked by this hotel.
A number of years ago in the ballroom at this hotel there was a battle of the bands where unknown Irish bands could perform and hopefully get some interest from concert promoters or record companies. U2 played at this battle of the bands and were booed off the stage. They went to the bar at this hotel to drown their disappointment. They got drunk and rowdy and the manager of the hotel’s bar called them losers and threw them out of the bar and the hotel. Bono, the lead singer for U2, famously told the manager that one day U2 would be the world’s most most popular band, selling millions of records a year and playing concerts in sold out stadiums worldwide before hundreds of thousands of adoring fans. Bono told the manager of the hotel that when that happened he would come back and buy the hotel and the bar and fire the manager. The manager of the hotel had a good laugh at Bono’s expense and told Bono and his band mates to piss off.
Sure enough, five years later, U2 was the most popular band in the world and Bono came back to Dublin and bought the hotel and bar. I would like to tell you that Bono decided to be magnanimous and let the manager keep his job. But that didn’t happen. The first thing Bono did after buying the hotel and bar was fire the manager. As Paul Harvey used to say: “That’s the rest of the story.”
Dana and I had such a great day today. What a blessing it is to have an opportunity to spend time with Dana.
I hope everyone had a restful Saturday.
Good night from Dublin, Ireland 🇮🇪.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 