Green 19

Chateau de Cazenac, the stunning venue for the wedding in France over the weekend. If you’re thinking of an overseas wedding, this is your place! Magical.

Myself and Niall had a wonderful time in Bordeaux over the weekend. In fact, we were two hours outside of Bordeaux in a sleepy little village called Siorac. The wedding of my school chum was in a nearby chateau and it was literally, magical. The food was incredible. We had a six course meal with matching wines and we were eating for a good five hours, it was so perfectly paced with teary and emotional speeches from the usual suspects between each course. Brilliant.

Unfortunately, even though I had remembered to bring my camera the whole way over to France, sadly I had left the memory card at home in Dublin in the laptop!! Will not be making the same mistake when we go to Australia the day after tomorrow (eeep! excitement!)

I caught up with my mum tonight for a ‘see you in a few weeks’ dinner and I suggested we head to Camden Street in Dublin to enjoy Green 19.

Before myself and Niall moved over to the North Side, I used to live in Rathmines about a ten minute walk from Green 19. I remember myself and Niall walking past it before it opened last year, when they were building the place, saying to each other how it was a bad time to be opening a restaurant, would it be able to survive in these hard economic times blah blah etc etc.

We ended up visiting it four times before we moved house in January and after our first meal in the place, we were pretty sure Green 19 would be, like Beyonce, a survivor. The concept was so simple – straight forward yet delicious food at a very reasonable price. Nothing fussy on the menu, everything at the flat rate of €10 per main, a decent selection of wine, an excellent cocktail bartender, and a fresh, cool interior which still gives the impression of being out somewhere a bit special for dinner. Perfect.

It’s no wonder then that tonight, on a Monday where elsewhere in Dublin all was quiet, Green 19 was packed to the rafters full of people. For a moment, I thought myself and Mum weren’t going to get a table as we hadn’t made a reservation! We were seated in one of the long high tables near the bar, before being moved on to a proper table about 45 minutes in.

As usual, there was no fuss about the place – the waitresses were very competent, not overly doting, but absolutely efficient.

The food is perfect for the price. The menu hasn’t really changed since our first visit more than 6 months ago. There are a few starters, some sandwiches, and then main courses like the burger, roast chicken, lamb chump and chickpea stew. They have a choice of two desserts, a brownie or apple crumble.

(Apologies for the photos – they’re ok but perhaps don’t do the home-cooking of Green 19 justice. Ack, you might just have to head down to Camden Street to taste for yourself. Tis a hard life.)

We had a small plate of pinchos to start which were delicious, with lovely crispy bread and good quality cheese and meat on top (the best one was the black pudding, blue cheese and quince one, scrumy!).

Our mains were great, with my braised lamb chump extremely tender and the accompanying gravy and vegetables very tasty indeed.

I’d had the chickpea and winter veg stew on one of my previous visits and found it slightly underwhelming, perhaps because I make this type of stew at home a lot. But Mum’s this time around was a better version – good and spicy, and because there was a nip in the air tonight, a perfect warm-me-up dish, with a full-flavoured sauce to go with it. V good.

We shared a dessert of a decadently rich chocolate brownie with vanilla ice-cream. Nom nom nom…!

We had one glass of wine each and I had a macchiato with the brownie. So for one starter, two mains, one dessert, two glasses of wine and one coffee, the total bill came to €45.50.

I can personally vouch for the very decent brunch served here as well. I assume it’s served daily, but don’t quote me on that. I couldn’t find that info on their otherwise rather thorough website. You can have a look here at the brunch menu and here at the dinner menu, to whet your appetites.

Overall, the food at Green 19 won’t blow your mind, exactly, but it’s great comfort food, and at that price, you can’t really go wrong.

MP3

I’ll post this song especially for my mum. I used to sing a cover of an Indigo Girls’ version of this Dire Straits song and it used to make her really happy when I sang it. So there you are.

Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet – (Making Movies)