Restaurant Elephant & Castle 6.6.2011, Dublin

Once again we found ourselves in the Temple Bar area. The Dublin Elephant & Castle was opened in 1989.The restaurant focuses on New York style dishes like burgers and salads. Elephant & Castle was packed on Monday evening when we got there at 19:15. We had booked a table but arrived a little bit late because we had been shopping shopping shopping..... In spite of the reservation we had to wait for the table for a while - restaurant seemed to be very popular.

The Ambience in Elephant & Castle was lively and relaxed. The restaurant was full throughout the evening. We didn't pay much attention to the decor but it was cozy and simple.

There were lots of options in the menu: Appetizers, Warm Dishes, Soups, Omelettes and Homemade Burgers. We chose Caesar salad with chicken, Salad with goat cheese and chicken and Grilled shrimps with Ginger-Lime dressing, Spinach and Cous-Cous and couple of portions French fries. For drinks we chose white wine and beer.  Restaurant's most popular dish seemed to be Spicy Chicken Wings - we didn't try that one. 

Grilled Prawns

Food came quickly and all dishes looked beautiful. The Caesar salad dressing was excellent. One of the best I've ever tasted. Chicken was well made. Both salads tasted fresh. Grilled shrimps with Ginger-Lime dressing, Spinach and Cous-Cous was a very beautiful dish. Shrimps were tasty and especially the dressing was excellent. Couscous was a little bit too dry. There could have been a little bit more sauce in the dish. 

Caesar Salad

Chicken Salad

We had a nice dinner at Elephant Castle. Dishes were huge so there wasn't room for any desserts. Salads costed about 14 € and Prawns 17 €. Australian beer was 4,25 € and water was free. Elephant Castle was affordable restaurant and a nice place to have dinner. Elephant&Castle

Overall experience: 8,5

18 Temple Bar, Dublin

Restaurant Botticelli, Dublin 5.6.

We arrived Dublin at noon on Sunday. I was travelling with 3 of my friends, Mirka couldn't come this time. On Saturday we had had a really nice but also heavy party - school's out for teachers also :). This was our very first visit to Dublin, Mirka has been here many times... Although we were really tired after celebrating and travelling, we still had some energy left for shopping and walking around downtown.

In the evening we were starving and wanted to have something to eat quickly. We looked up few restaurants in Temple Bar area from  the Trip Advisor. Botticelli was one of the Italian restaurants in the area with good reviews, and it was also close to our hotel. It was only 10 minutes walk to Botticelli. Botticelli is an Italian restaurant that serves wide variety of pizzas, pastas etc. The athmosphere at Botticelli was nice.

We ordered Seafood Risotto and pizzas and also some garlic bread. We chose red wine and white wine. Risotto was very good. It was soft and tasty and very hot which I especially liked. Pizza with Parma ham, tomato sauce, cheese and rucola was good likewise Pizza with tomato, mozzarella and rucola. Garlic bread was tasty and crispy but not too greasy like it sometimes can be.

Service in Botticelli was ok. Risotto costed 14,95 €, pizza 10,95€, glass of wine was 6,50€ and garlic bread 3 €. Total cost for four was 80 €. So, Botticelli was reasonably priced, not expensive at all. Food was good and I would go there again. Botticelli

Overall experience: 8

3 Temple Bar, Dublin

Botticelli