Pifko Bar

I love when you go to a bar or restaurant in Dublin and when you leave, you feel like you've just been on a mini holiday.

Recently, Mr. S and I took one of these mini holidays at Pifko Bar. When we left, we felt like we had just been to the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Pifko Bar is the perfect place for an escape from the cold with some substantial grub and interesting beer choices to help you refuel after a long day of shopping.

"Pifko" is Czech and Slovak for "little beer", which is their way of saying "pint". It's a Czech bar which specialises in Czech and Slovak beer and food. It is located on Usher's Quay, a little past the Four Courts but on the Southside. We ventured out there after a busy day of shopping, and when we arrived, we were definitely ready for some dinner and a few pints.

The place is nice and welcoming inside, beside the tables they have areas with cozy couches to relax in. There was a mix of Irish, Czech and Slovak people, chatting away, enjoying their food, or watching the match on one of the many screens. Board games and dart boards are also available. The walls are full of interesting decorations and paintings.

We were there to have some Czech and Slovak beers and food, but Irish craft beer was also available on draught and in bottles, as were some of the macro beers. Besides the lovely Czech and Slovak foods, the usual Irish pub grub is served as well. Something for everyone.

It was around Halloween, hence the decorations.

We sampled our way through the various Kozel beers, the Zlaty Bazant and the Gambrinus. It's rare to find these on tap in Dublin, so it was a nice change.

The food was something else. We ordered a meat platter to share. It was absolutely enormous. A mountain of different varieties of pork: different types of sausages, pork belly, pudding, and so on. We thought we'd never be able to finish it, but then we tried it. It was so delicious that we polished off the whole thing. The platter came with a bread basket and some Sauerkraut on the side. Everything was really tasty and very good value for money. Definitely enough for 2 and it was around 20 Euro. The beers went perfectly with it as well. It's not for the faint-hearted but it's perfect after an exhausting day.

The other Czech and Slovak specialties all looked very good as well. There was Goulash served in a bread bowl, roast duck, grilled pork neck, potato pancakes, the Slovak national dish "Bryndzové Halušky" (potato dumplings with sheep cheese and bacon), Schnitzel, grilled aubergine, and much more.

The service was very friendly, attentive and quick throughout.

We really enjoyed our time at Pifko and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, whether you're looking to try some new beers and foods, or just want to have a few of the usual pints and pub grub. Everyone will find something they like here. Take a look at their website for their menus (there are special sections for the Czech and Slovak dishes and beers).

Pifko is definitely worth the trek. A great little escape to central Europe. Why not pop in after this week's Christmas shopping and try it for yourself?

Two Music Events you need to check out before you die!

It's been a while since my last blog post. My laptop died of old age, so I had to take an involuntary break until I got a new one. Now that I'm finally able to blog again, it's time for the first, long overdue Tunes post on Grub, Jars and Tunes.

I want to tell you about my favourite monthly and weekly music events in Dublin. I have chosen these because they are a bit different from the usual gigs in a pub or huge concerts in the O2. So if you're up for trying something new and interesting, keep reading. :)


My favourite monthly music event in Dublin is Kaleidoscope Night. It was created 4 years ago by violinist Cliodhna Ryan and cellist Kate Ellis. It takes place in the Odessa Club on the first Wednesday of every month, and tickets cost only €10.00.

The website says that "Kaleidoscope night, described by the Irish Times “one of those life-saving, spirit-lifting, pioneering Cultural Ventures we keep hearing about” brings a vibrant, dynamic musical experience to audiences and performers. Innovative and imaginative programming offers a diverse range of music from ancient to contemporary and experimental in a relaxed, intimate and beautiful setting." I couldn't agree more.

You can expect to hear anything from solo instrumental pieces or arias to duets, trios, quartets, all the way to the Mendelssohn Octet. There is always an eclectic mix of genres: there can be baroque, classical, contemporary and trad all in the one night. The program always flows perfectly, despite so many different styles.

I have heard some premieres of beautiful pieces at Kaleidoscope, and the best thing about those is that the composer is usually present and performing their piece together with other musicians. Kaleidoscope is a great opportunity for young and upcoming composers and musicians to showcase their talent, while at the same time there are "regulars" who perform almost each month, including the two curators.

The vibe of the night is always welcoming and relaxed. There is nothing posh or exclusive about this event. Everyone just relaxes with their glass of wine/beer and listens to the beautiful music.

Intimate venue at the Odessa

Kate Ellis

Cliodhna Ryan

If you want to experience something different and escape into a magic world for a couple of hours, Kaleidoscope is the event to go to. Apart from the "normal" nights, there are also some special events. We went to Kaleidoscope's 4th birthday party in the Sugar Club recently. It was an amazing night of outstanding music, which also featured a drinks reception and an after party with a great jazz band! :) Every year, Kaleidoscope Night goes on a tour to visit different cities in Ireland and bring their performances do new audiences. To keep up with their events, visit their website, Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter.
All pictures above © Kaleidoscope Facebook page

After Kaleidoscope Night, you will most likely experience severe music withdrawal symptoms. But fear not, there are many great weekly events in Dublin to keep you happy and entertained.

My favourite weekly event is Gin & Jazz Thursday in the Mint Bar at the Westin Hotel. The Mint Bar is a great venue which has recently won the "2013 Bar of the Year Awards". It is located in former bank vaults in the basement of the Westin and offers very good food, delicious cocktails and great service.

Every Thursday, they bring together great Jazz music and delicious G&Ts. What could be better? Here's what: There is no entry fee and that delish G&T is only a fiver! There are many special cocktail promotions on the night, and some tasty cocktail bites to nibble on while you listen to Cary Posavitz and the Players performing all the Jazz classics and even your requests! Cary was the first American vocalist in Riverdance and has starred in many famous international productions. Together with his brilliant and extremely entertaining band, he sets the perfect atmosphere to lean back, enjoy your G&T and start your weekend early.

© Cary Posavitz and the Players Facebook Page

Cary and the Players play gigs around Dublin and are also available for bookings if you want to jazz up your next big event. Check their website and Facebook page for more details.

If you've been looking for something new to try, why not check out one of these events, or even both? I hope you will enjoy them!

If you have any great events to share, please do let me know, I'm always looking for interesting music in and around Dublin.

My Highlights of the Irish Craft Beer Fest

The Irish Craft Beer Fest was great fun altogether! I went on the Saturday and it was absolutely jammers. It was brilliant to see so many craft beer lovers and the ever-growing number of Irish craft breweries.

Here are my 3 highlights of the Fest:

1. Attending with the Dublin Ladies Craft Beer Society

This is a brand new group for craft beer loving ladies. The Craft Beer Fest was the first outing. Ideas and craft beer stories were shared I felt like we clicked immediately. I can see great friendships developing through our common appreciation of proper beer. There are still not that many girls on the Dublin craft beer scene, so this group is a fantastic way for the ladies to meet new friends who share their obsession. I'm super excited about our next events and I can't wait to meet more fellow female craft beer fans! So girls, check out our Twitter, Facebook, and Meetup pages to learn about our upcoming events. We have a lot of things planned, for the next few weeks, such as batch parties, beer talks, beer & food pairings, Oktoberfests around Dublin, and so on. JOIN US! :)

2. The Randall from Black's Kinsale Craft Brewery

It was really interesting to watch the beer going through the Randall, and it tasted absolutely delish! The hops made a huge difference to the taste and this was my favourite new beer I tried at the Fest. I hope many will follow the example of The Bull & Castle and install Randalls in their bars!


3. Buying a growler from J. W. Sweetman

At last, growlers have arrived in Dublin! They are a very common thing in the States, but a novelty to most of us here. Mr. S. and I were very excited when we started seeing these appear here. We just HAD to get one, so we popped back to the Fest on the Sunday and picked one up. They were not allowed to fill them at the Fest as no off-sales were allowed. But when you buy one in their pub, the price you pay gets you the growler filled with beer. There is a special offer rate until the end of September, so get there quick!

I had a brilliant time at the Craft Beer Fest. I met lots of lovely new people and got to try a lot of very good new beers.

Already looking forward to next year!

Antipasti and Wine at KC Peaches Wine Cave

Last night, Mr. S. and I decided to check out a great offer at KC Peaches Wine Cave: An antipasti platter plus 2 glasses of wine for 20 Euro. This offer is on every Wednesday and judging by the pictures on their Facebook page, it sounded like pretty good value for money.

On arrival, the place was not yet very busy, so we chose a table and were greeted by a very nice waitress (the service was lovely throughout!). When we asked for the deal, she gave us the option of red or white house wine, and we both went for white. It was delicious and crisp and turned out to go extremely well with the food.

Arriving next was lovely tomato bread and some butter served on a little slate. The bread tasted super fresh and had a great combination of tomato and herbs (we tasted rosemary and probably thyme). It was so delicious that we had eaten all of it by the time our antipasti arrived!

The antipasti platter was served on a wooden board with a slate inlay. The menu had informed us that it included Jamon Iberico chorizo, Jamon Iberico Cebo ham, Pâté, Smoked Gubbeen, Chulchoill goats log, Coolea extra mature and Hick’s bacon jam plum compote. The presentation was lovely and everything looked delicious!

It tasted delicious, too. In addition to the very tasty compote, there were crackers, olives, grapes, strawberries and walnuts, which all accompanied the cheeses and meats perfectly.

Being an antipasti platter, this is obviously not a full dinner for 2 people. However, it was fantastic value for money and a delightful experience.

Definitely recommendable for a hump day treat! :)

Grub & Jars on a random Tuesday

Random nights are the best. Sometimes it's just much more fun to go with the flow and see where you end up. Last Tuesday was one of these random nights for me, and during the course of it I discovered some delish new grub & jars that are worth sharing.

First, I was off to Probus Wines, who were lovely enough to have offered me a free Trooper beer for being the 666th person to like them on Facebook. My boyfriend (henceforth referred to as Mr. S.) gladly came along because we'd been to Probus Wines before and really enjoyed it.

Probus Wines is quite a unique place in Dublin. It is an Off-License with a license! This means that you can buy wines and hundreds of craft beers from their great selection to take away, or you can choose to stay around for a while, sit on one of the bar stools at barrel tables and enjoy your beers there, for a 20% surcharge on the price. It works out a lot cheaper than a normal pub and it is a really great concept!

My Trooper beer was quite nice, a solid ale. Nothing too special, but still enjoyable.

They also serve a great selection of food and you can tell that they care about the produce they use, which translates into the taste. This was the first time I tried the food there. We both went for the Daily Special, which was a Lamb Kebab in a crusty baguette with a mint yoghurt sauce. The lamb was very tasty and the mint yoghurt was refreshing and went perfectly with the lamb. The baguette was good enough to eat on its own! At only €7.95 this was amazing value for money and definitely set us up for some further beer sampling. :)

Next, we tried the beer they had on tap. I had never heard of it before, so it needed to be sampled! It was a Copper Ale from VG Noster Brewery in the Basque Country. Now this was something else! It was delicious. I think what'll give you the best idea is to get yourself in there asap and taste this lovely brew before it's all gone!

We also got to meet fellow craft beer enthusiast Alex (check out his blog here!) who used to work at Probus Wines and was helping out that night. He recommended the extremely tasty Kentucky IPA to Mr. S., which he enjoyed very much. We would have loved to stay longer, but it was time to gradually make our way home.

Next, we decided to pop into Kelly's Wine Cellar. It is in my neighbourhood and after walking past it many times, we had finally taken a look inside over the weekend and were delighted to discover a huge range of craft beers! So on Tuesday night, as we had already sampled some beers, we thought we might as well sample another few.

We took a good look around their "Craft Beer Corner" and the other shelves and fridges offering a huge collection of Irish and international craft beers. There was even a little book with info on the beers to help people decide! The beers are reasonably priced, too. There are 2 other off-licenses on the same road which also stock craft beers, but this one has by far the best collection and the best prices. It's always great to see an independent place like this getting it 100% right.

I decided to buy two beers I had been meaning to try for quite a while and which I was very happy to find in Kelly's: Mountain Man Green Bullet and Black's Kinsale Pale Ale. Both were so delicious, had it not been a school night, I would definitely have gone for a few more bottles of each! These two are great additions to the Irish craft beer world.

After all this, the night was still young, so we decided to visit another place we'd walked past a few times and had been meaning to check out for a while:
The Bram Stoker pub.

The reason we wanted to check out this place is because it's in the neighbourhood and it seemed like a place where one could have a relaxed drink with great sea views. We were not expecting to find many craft beers there. All this proved to be true. The sea views are great, and there was no craft beer to be seen in the place. I was quite surprised that they didn't at least offer one or two bottled options, which seems to be pretty normal these days. Especially because this is also a hotel and I'm sure the visitors would be interested in trying an Irish craft beer. I think it would be a great idea for them to stock at least one or two bottles.

When we got here, we found out that it happened to be "Cheap Ass Tuesday". This meant that all main courses (except steak) were only 5 Euro and all pints and long necks 4. Since we had already eaten the lovely food at Probus Wines, we shared a portion of chicken wings with hot sauce, blue cheese dip and celery sticks. The portion was generous and the wings were tasty. The sauce was just the right degree of hot and the blue cheese dip was delish. Other people were having the main courses and the portions looked big, like what you would usually expect to pay about 12-15 quid for. And if the chicken wings were anything to go by, I would expect the rest of the food to be tasty, too. Options included Fish & Chips, burgers, lasagne, nachos with beef chili and cheese, etc. We will definitely be going back here next Tuesday to avail of the great main course offer. Serious value for money!

When this random Tuesday came to an end, we were very happy to have discovered so many lovely new beers and food offers in just one night.
Cheers to randomness! :)

Sand Sculpture Exhibition in Dublin Castle

Some free culture is always good in my book, so I headed to Dublin Castle over the weekend to take a look at the free Sand Sculpture Exhibition that is on at the moment.




The sculptures were created by Duthain Dealbh, a group of three DIT graduate sculptors who have been working together around the world for 15 years.

The theme of this year's exhibition is "What can we be proud of / happy with, being Irish?".

I found it intriguing to look at each sculpture, guess what it is about, and then read the description which is posted beside them. So I'm not going to give too much away, in case you want to guess for yourself.
Just two very obvious hints - the Irish Mammy and the Claddagh Ring feature:

You have until the 27th of August to visit this exhibition. It's interesting and it's free, so pop by during lunch or over the weekend and see for yourself!

A little escape to Spain

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you will have heard about Las Tapas de Lola already. Pretty much every food blog, newspaper and magazine in Ireland has published reviews of it - and it's praise all round. There's a reason: they've brought authentic Spanish tapas to Dublin and eating there almost feels like a mini holiday.

From the minute I first spotted their tiled restaurant front that looks like it was lifted right out of Spain and planted on Wexford Street, I got very excited about this place. Would this be the real deal? There was only one way to find out.

I went with a friend a couple of weeks after they opened and even then they had to turn away anyone who hadn't booked a table, such was the hype about this place. And believe me, it more than lives up to the hype. The food is absolutely delicious and the quality of the produce is great. They also have a good wine list with several options by the glass, delicious homemade sangria, and some great beer options (more about that below). The atmosphere in the restaurant is lively and friendly, with guests of all ages, many of them Spanish. Always a good sign!

Before I post some pics, I'd like to mention how lovely the 2 owners are. The second time I went was with my boyfriend and we mentioned to the Spanish half of the owner duo, Anna, that we were going on holidays to Barcelona very soon. We had heard that she was from there, so we asked if she could recommend some good places to eat. Next thing we knew, she returned with a whole list of restaurants for us to check out! How nice is that? We went to every place on her list, and while some were closed for their August holidays, the ones we did get a chance to try were absolutely brilliant (blog post about Barcelona is in the making). Next time I go, I will definitely need to thank Anna for her great recommendations!

These little fish are called Chanquetes. They were given to us both times as a little taster. They come whole, and you eat the whole thing in one! Might sound unusual to some, but they're actually delicious!

Jamón iberico - often doesn't live up to the real thing here, but this one is just like in Spain!

Spinach & Chickpeas - I love this dish and the spinach in this one was super fresh and delicious!

The Calamari come with a lovely aioli. It's super garlicy and super delicious (don't say I didn't warn ye!)

This dish is definitely one of my favourite dishes I've tried there so far. It's a gratin of scallops and white fish. Heaven in a shell!

Definitely save some room in the dessert compartment for the crema catalana! It's perfect, and cracking it with the spoon is fun!

A very interesting alternative to wine is the Estrella Inedit. It's a beer that has been "crafted to go with haute cuisine". It is served in a big wine-style bottle, with a cooler and wine-style glasses. It's definitely worth a try and went very well with the food.