Last Ireland Post and some Gratuitous Pictures of Food…

We got to Dublin and checked into our hotel. We had to stay at a hotel near the airport, because for some reason there were no rooms available inside of Dublin. We took a bus into town and bought a two day pass for a double-decker sightseeing bus. You can hop on and off as you wish for two days, and the buses run about every 20 minutes. We could also catch a local bus from near our hotel into the city with the same pass.





We went on the Guinness tour, which while not actually being a tour – was still fun. There is some law in Ireland against people touring actual breweries. So if they let you in at all, so they usually just show you a video. But the Guinness Experience is a self paced multimedia exhibition. It’s got multiple floors, with a bar on top and a tremendous gift shop at the bottom. There is the bar where you can have your “free” sample, and another one where you can try the different beers that Guinness brews (you have to buy these though). I’m sure that everyone at the Haven is familiar with Guinness Draft, and many are familiar with The Guinness Extra Stout that comes in bottles. If you want a real treat, and you can get your hands on it, the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is the stuff. It has a tremendous amount of flavor, almost coffee like – but a very strong coffee. It is also high in alcohol, and very bitter so it’s probably not a real summertime refresher.



While we were waiting for the bus outside the Guinness tour, we were talking to this woman from New Jersey. Previously, we had found out that Bruce Springsteen was playing a couple of shows in Dublin while we were there, and I asked the Jersey Girl if she was stalking Bruce. Well, she denied it, but we both started laughing when she told us that she had already seen him in London and was going to Paris to see him too. Not really a stalker, but only a serious fan would follow him throughout Western Europe.

We didn’t get to see Bruce.

We wondered around for about 2 days, seeing the sites, stopping for a pint now and again. Dublin is really a nice city, and I think that if I ever get back to Ireland (and I would like to see the Western part of it) Dublin would be well worth another trip. Everyone was very nice to us, we had some great food, and the stouts were better than good.



The Guinness Foreign Extra Stout was good, but the two best that I had were at the Porterhouse Brew Pub. They have an Oyster Stout that is very good (they actually throw a couple of raw oysters into the conditioning tank while it’s brewing) and they also have a stout called Wrasslers XXXX Stout, which was exceptional.

Check out my flickr page, because I’ll be uploading a bunch more pictures from Dublin later.


Gratuitous Food Pictures…

Here is a sandwich I made a couple of weeks ago. I started out with this olive roll, sliced it and laid down a bed of cucumber slices…



Placed some tomatoes on top of that…



Added a fried egg and some Creole seasoning…



Some Tsatziki sauce on top…



A little lettuce…



Voila!



About two weekends ago I decided to have some friends over and smoke some meat.



The pork shoulder was a little dry, but the chicken was very good.



And I think Gib would be proud of my work on these ribs.




Everything was enjoyed by all present, and I even had enough smoked chicken left over to make a hellacious smoked chicken salad the next day. Of course that was after I finished off the ribs ... for breakfast.


If everything works out I may be heading to Amsterdam this weekend.