High tile

WARNING -- Long-Winded Entry

Last night's dinner with my mate Tom began inauspiciously in The Presidents Bar in the Davenport Hotel. I got there first and phoned Tom to see what he'd have to drink. The place was almost empty, but still I was sitting there for almost ten minutes before the floor waiter, who'd served a table and taken two separate trips to clear away two others, acknowledged my presence and took my order. It was simple enough: a gin & tonic with a dash of lime, and akir. There was a convention or annual dinner of some sort taking place in another room, and quite a big crowd of women came into the bar for a drink before whatever they were involved with. This seemed to fluster the bar staff totally, since first and other ten, then fifteen minutes passed and still our drinks didn't arrive. The waiter had to be told what a kir consisted of when he took my order, and I jokingly suggested to Tom that the delay was because they'd had to go out to an off-licence to get a bottle of creme de cassis. I went up to the bar to enquire about our order and got a vaguely murmured response which gave me the impression that I shouldn't worry, and that the drinks would be with us soon. Twenty minutes after placing the order, the waiter came over. For starters, Tom's kir was a very strange colour, looking as if the creme de cassis had been added very light-handedly, and there was no lime in my gin and tonic. Our dinner reservation was for 8.30. I called for the bill at 8.25. When it arrived almost the minutes later, I was surprised at the amount, especially when I saw on the itemised list that I'd been charged ?4.85 for a 'dash of creme de cassis'. I queried this, the waiter went off, came back with apologies to the effect that they were unfamiliar with the concept of a kir and had charged for a full measure of creme de cassis rather than a dash, and refunded three euro. Not a good start to the evening.

The meal in Dobbins was okay but not great. Starters and desserts were good, but both our main courses were very ordinary. Service was intrusive -- we were no sooner seated at our table (booth-style, which neither of us liked) than one of the staff pounced on us to ask about pre-meal drinks (we literally didn't have time to catch our breath), and the manner of table clearing between and during courses was unprofessional, with much reaching of arms across the table between us without as much as an 'excuse me' (caused, of course, by the booth-style seating). By the time we left we felt we'd paid too much for too little.

When we finalised our meeting arrangement, Tom said he wasn't sure where Dobbins restaurant was. I told him it was in a laneway behind O'Dwyer's oub in Lower Mount Street. O'Dwyer's is also the venue fir a nightclub called Howl at the Moon, but we decided it was still too early for it to have changed from bar to club and went in for 'one drink'. We were very, very impressed with the place itself (laid out very flamboyantly over four floor floors in a most interesting way, with top-notch decor and high-class finishes everywhere), and we found a pleasant little bar on the third floor where we decided to have a couple of beers. That was okay until the clubbers began to arrive, already drunk and obnoxious, and rudely determined to order their drink by pushing between us to get to the bar even when there was plenty of free space for them to stand at without causing any disturbance. Tom had a folding umbrella with him, which he'd placed on the counter in front of him. At one stage a very drunk and very pushy girl reached over with a word of warning and went to pick up the umbrella. I had to grab it from her, which she was very unhappy with. In general, the atmosphere went rather rapidly downhill, so we tossed back our beer and left

We take turns deciding our meal venue each month. I'd chosen Dobbins, and Tom had been talking about a little bistro place he'd been to which he thought might be worthy of being added to our list of possibilities. On our way from the restaurant we passed this place, which also has a wine bar connected. We decided to try the wine bar. Bad idea. I'd ordered the wine for our meal (again, okay but not great), so Tom chose this time. They did the usual bit-in-the-glass-sip-it-and-see-if-it's-okay thing. Tom nodded acceptance, wine was poured into our two glasses, we lifted them to our lips, took a sip ... and almost spat it out, it was so nasty. We made it clear that we didn't like it, the girl behind the counter said she was sorry, but we'd tried the wine and had indicated that we were happy for her to pour it, and that we could either leave it undrunk or take it with us. Either way, the wine would have to be paid for. Protracted negotiation involved the girl going into a back office a couple of times to talk to the manager. The final outcome was that we were given a glass each of a different wine without charge. We drank that (a pity we didn't get a bottle of that one instead), and left, with Tom ?40 out of pocket.

There was nothing for it after all that but to go on to another drinking establishment. Fortunately, the sushi/sake bar on Exchequer Street was absolutely amazing. There was karaoke in progress downstairs, but it wasn't in any way intrusive, there was a good bit of coming and going, the music was great, the atmosphere was electric, the crack was mighty, we established a deeply intense friendship with a guy who had come up from the karaoke to get in a round of drinks for his friends who, like himself, had been guests at a wedding earlier in the day. Our first bout of conversation was so interesting that we had to remind him to bring the tray of drinks down to his thirsty mates. Ten minutes later he was back p again, our conversation took off again, our undying friendship was intensified, and by the time closing time arrived at 3.30 am we were full of the joys of life. Tom and I parted, he to walk home, me to get a late-night bus. Unfortunately the 4.00 am NiteLink was just pulling out as I got to the stop, the driver refused point blank to open his doors and let me on even though he was only a few yards from the stop and was halted in traffic, so I had to hail a passing taxi. I was home by 4.20 am.

All of this, of course, happened on Friday night, and there's a lot of stuff still to go into about Saturday itself. I'd better hold that over until the next entry. I'll just say that I hosted the Music Group session, we went to my local pub afterwards, and I spotted this tile in the gents toilet.