One more round

We'd arranged to meet our friends for lunch at 1:30 pm at what used be the Berkeley Court hotel in Ballsbridge. Carl and I were both using the DART, approaching our destination from opposite directions. I pride myself on my punctuality, but I messed things up today. I would have okay (just) if the traffic lights at my local church had cooperated. I'd expected traffic to be light, and thought I'd get to Killester DART station in time without any problem. But the holdup at the church meant that the train was just pulling away as I got to the ticket office. Not wishing to turn up late, I decided against waiting a further 32 minutes for the next one, so flagged down a taxi.

Carl was ensconced at the bar when I got there, and our friends arrived about ten minutes later. I'd been told yesterday that the hotel didn't do Sunday lunch and that bar food was the best we'd get. The other guys had checked out the Dublin in Jury's hotel round the corner in hopes that they might be doing a carvery, but they weren't. So we decided to stay where we were, bar food or not. The restaurant was virtually empty, though newly redecorated in a nicely welcoming manner, so first impressions were good. They improved as soon as we sat down and the maitre 'd came over to say we should forget about the bar food menu and handed us an unlisted lunch menu after all. At 25 euro for three courses, it sounded like a good bet, and the choices were very tempting.

I had smoked salmon which was very nicely presented and tasted delicious, followed by a beautiful bit of pork and finished off with a really nice tart tatin. All in all, a really good meal. I have to say that we probably wouldn't have been offered the lunch menu if we hadn't been with our friends, who are very much regulars. We hung around for a bit of a chat afterwards and then parted outside.

Carl and I didn't fancy going straight home, so stopped off in Bellamy's pub for a pit or two or rather delectable Guinness. We kept an eye on our DART times, decided once or twice that another pint would make more sense than a mad dash for the train, and it was 9:30 by the time we finally broke up. A good, enjoyable, sociable day.