Welcome to thedublingobbler, a blog about eating and drinking in Dublin, the capital city of Ireland. We look forward to following the food trail around Dublin and bringing you the best (and some of the worst) places and things to eat and drink in our magnificent city.
We’re a funny bunch of eaters in Dublin. We’re next to the sea but most of us eat our fish from the deep-freeze compartment at our local supermarket. Our favourite food to eat out is probably Italian or Chinese rather than boxty. People who live in Dublin are cosmopolitan and local, citified and provincial, open and narrow minded, foodies and philistines. But we have one thing in common: each day we arise no matter what the weather (and that doesn’t change much) and we eat and drink something
Dublin is, like most European cities, a city of contradictions. Foreign visitors usually seek out an Irish welcome, a pint of Guinness in a friendly pub, an Irish fry, a slice of soda bread. When you live here you know these things exist, you live with them every day but they carry a different weight. We don’t see them as tourist items, but as part of the inherent fabric of life, mixed in with supermarket shopping and patios and dinner parties and trips to the pub on the way home from work. When we eat a sausage with an egg and a bit of black pudding for breakfast it is because it is Saturday or Sunday or because we have a hangover and need fat to soak up the alcohol and not because it is now effectively our national dish. We hope thedublingobbler will reflect that colour and texture and paint a true picture of our eating and drinking culture.
Come with us on our journey to find the best artisan bread in Dublin, the most delicious dim sum, the creamiest pint of Guinness, authentic Japanese sashimi, the place to go for an Italian meal with mama… If you live in Dublin let us share the benefits of our ample tummy and calcified liver with you. If are just visiting, we’ll show you the places that you can visit as a tourist but leave as a friend. And if you are wearing your business hat, we’ll tell you where to get the best table, how to navigate the wine menu and where you and your clients will be treated with care (and where you won’t). Best of all, we get to write about our three loves: Dublin and food and wine.
We’ll also share a little of our Irish past with you for only through the past can we understand our future.
Feel free to email us and tell us what treasures you find on your travels too. You’ll find us at infoatthedublingobbler.com (obviously make the ‘at’ into an @).
The Dublin Gobbler
PS: You may be wondering why we chose the name thedublingobbler for this blog. Well, to gobble means to eat hurriedly or noisily. Irish people usually eat their food quickly. Some people say it’s because of the famine, that we believe this may be our last meal. Others point to the large noisy Catholic families of previous generations and say that you had to eat your food fast before someone else took it off you. When we mentioned the name thedublingobbler to a few friends they wondered were we setting up a dating site and thought we may attract inappropriate emails. In truth, we liked the name and it has the benefit of being a phonetic annagram of ‘blogger’.
