A better night than the blip

We must have been having a really good time, because all that made it to the camerea for the entire day were four shots of bar interiors, two of which were variations on this jump-out-at-you red chair in The Presidents bar in the Davenport hotel, where Carl and I met before going on for a meal in Diep Le Shaker.

When I phoned to make a booking for 'around 8.30' I was offered either 7.00 or 9.00 pm, with the earlier time involving giving up the table for 9.00. I never like being rushed like that, so we went for the later option. That left lots of time to get in the mood, which meant continuing on from the Davenport to McGrattan's which is on the way from there to the restaurant (a rather strange place, we thought: surprisingly small inside, with a weird snug-type space tucked in behind the bar).

The Diep experience was mixed. There were some things on the cocktail list which took my fancy when I checked things online, so we began downstairs with a warmer-upper (mine was a strange-sounding but rather nice Chocolate and Cranberry Martini). Thankfully, our table was upstairs, nicely tucked away towards the end of the gallery. The food was average, we thought, not stunning by any means, and the best part of the experience was when our waiter actually drew our attention to a special offer of three courses each plus a bottle of wine, all for 60 euro. We certainly had no complaints when it came to value for money, at least.

After the meal we called in to what used to be the Pemnroke Inn, just round the corner (now called Matt The Thresher, for some reason). It's all a bit bright and brash, and we didn't much care for it. After that it was only right and proper to go a bit down-market and more genuinely Dublin, so we moved on to O'Donoghue's in Merrion Row, where the only drink which could possibly cross your mind to have is a Guinness. That was more like it! We tried our best to continue what was turning into a bit of a pub crawl, but both the Dawson Lounge and Davey Byrne's had finished serving by then.

Moving on to La Cave wine bar, we actually had the effrontery to send back the first bottle of wine, which was very, very rough indeed (the second one was just fine). After the wine it was time to think about getting a NiteLink, but we just missed one at College Green and went across to Doyle's to wait for the next one (a good recommendation for anyone who needs a late-night drink in Dublin). Time successfully passed there, we finally got the 3.30 am NiteLink to Carl's place.

All in all, a hugely enjoyable (if rather packed) night.