2 visits to 2 amazing neighbourhood restaurants in D4 &D6

I feel incredibly blessed. I live in Dublin 6 on the perimeter of Dublin 4. Dublin 6 is home to Ranelagh town which is quite the foodie paradise and then Dublin 4 has a range of great restaurants to choose from also.

Over Thursday and Friday I visited two of my favourites.

On Thursday, we were in Forest & Marcy which is rapidly turning in to my favourite restaurant. We enjoyed the tasting menu with a nice bottle of malbec. This is a cute cosy restaurant which leads you to cosy up to your dinner partner while seated in close proximity at the bar. 

I've blogged about Forest & Marcy before - click here & here.

Friday brought us to Dillingers. We go so regularly to this place that I honestly think they might send out a search party for us if we didn't visit at least once over the weekend!

I had the lobster special......and what can I say it was really special tasting! So special that I will probably order it again next week if it is still on the board..... :-) 

As I said I feel truly lucky to live in this neighbourhood!

"Bow and Pearl" in the Swan Centre

A few weeks ago I noticed that the Popcorn shop in the Swan Centre had closed down. I blogged about the popcorn shop here and when I saw it was closed I wondered what would go in to the location.

I wonder no more! This morning I was dropping shirts over to get ironed in the Swan Centre and I saw that Bow and Pearl has opened  in the old popcorn store.

 

Bow and Pearl used to be on the main street in Ranelagh. It was a cute shop with great stock and a lovely old fashioned bike parked up outside.

It's a corner unit and looks very nicely decked out. I look forward to having a browse here.

Here's a pic of the popcorn shop that used to be here.

With Bow and Pearl here, this part of the Swan Centre is now a very nice area to do a spot of clothes shopping - it's a great addition to the mall.

Delivering and Storing Art the easy way!

Yesterday was busy. We visited Storage World to see about renting a unit for Ciaran to store his work in. He paints big pieces so it was difficult to know which size would work best. We also need to consider what price we want to pay to store his art. 

Further conversation is needed.

Although he didn't commit to a storage unit, Ciaran did sign up for GoCar. It's a car sharing website that gives you access to cars and vans at an hourly rate. There are many car bases local to us but it is the GoVans that we are most interested in. Ciaran regularly needs access to a van for a short while to either buy canvas in Evans or to deliver paintings to new owners. GoCar is perfect for his needs.

While in storage world I snapped a pic of some of the supplies they sell. While they sell boxes, tape, locks it was the large roll of bubble roll that caught my eye. Ciaran uses a LOT of bubble roll when wrapping paintings.  We know where to buy it in bulk when we run out.

Saturday was fun!

After a lazy start to Saturday and while chilling out over coffee in Ranelagh I suddenly remembered that I had made arrangements to go see a lunchtime play with my mother and twin sister.

With little time to spare I got home, had a very quick (practically outdoors) shower and then cycled to the city to see Brendan Behan's "The Confirmation Suit" with actor Gary Cooke.

The play was in the teeny tiny Bewleys Cafe Venue in the Powerscourt Centre.

The play was hilarious with a particular story line being very personal to me. In the play, Brendan faints in the church on his confirmation day and as his father said, he showed great presence of mind to faint at the particular time that he could avoid taking the pledge of abstinence. 
Well would you believe the exact same thing happened to me on my confirmation day?!!
Yes I fainted too on my confirmation day!
And also at this point in the proceedings! 

After the play, Amy and I visited Tower Records where I bought a copy of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band.

It was 20 years ago today.......well not exactly, it was actually 50 years ago a few days ago when The Beatles created it in Abbey Road - and boy has it stood the test of time!

We also visited the Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street where Amy bought a bottle of whiskey as a gift.

And after all that I cycled home!

Fun times!

And more fun later in the new Bunsen in Ranelagh

Bernie Sanders -The Dalkey Book Festival

Dinner on Saturday evening was in Angelina's. The setting is amazing - we sat outside by the canal. 

I had tried to get tickets to the Bernie Sanders event as part of the Dalkey Book Festival but not surprisingly they were all sold out.

So.....

On the morning of the event, my twin sister contacted me to say that a set had been offered on twitter but that they needed to be picked up in Dublin Airport. I was able to get to Dublin Airport so she let owner of the tix know that we would take them off his hands.

The tix owner than rang me from Manchester where he was working at the Ariana Grande and friends concert. He explained where I could "find" the tickets.

This is a good one!

The airline desk wouldn't hold the tickets so he hid them behind some newspapers in a convenience store in the airport!! 

I drove over to the airport, pulled up at departures, ran in to the terminal, located the shop, rummaged around "The Racing Post" and found them!!

And that is how I ended up cycling to the Bord Gais Energy Theatre to see Bernie Sanders in conversation with Brian McWilliams.

What fun!

Click here to read about Bernie's event.

Art Weekend

Friday brought us to the opening of Shane Sutton's exhibition "The Space in between" at The Kemp Gallery in Gallery X.

I cycled to meet Amy and we then walked from her place to the gallery on South William Street, where we then met Ciaran.

It was a busy launch with lots of people, great music and tasty beer from Hope Beer.

Shane's work is very interesting and the spaceman is something that intrigues me. 

Then on Sunday it was the Dean Hotel for RM Kavanagh's (Rasher) exhibition "Perceptual Space".

This was another interesting exhibition with some very creative pieces. 

It's great living in Dublin and being able to wander around the city and check out the latest art openings.

Wedding Weekend

Last weekend we attended a Dublin City Wedding. It was an amazing weekend with nothing better than going to the wedding from your house and knowing that you would be sleeping in your own bed when you returned later that night.

I wore a Caroline Kilkenny dress, to the wedding, which I bought in the Kilkenny Shop a little while ago.

It's got a lovely sleeve detail (nearly like a double sleeve) that you can see in this pic. There is also a slight ruffle or stitching on the shoulder that gives a slight illusion of a shoulder pad.

In this picture you can again see the cap sleeve detail that was very flattering along with the slight ruching on dress. 

The dress was on sale when I bought it so luckily there was one size 10 left (that's a size 6 for my USA readers!)

Interesting to see that it is made in Europe and not further to the East!

 

And here I am outside the Kilkenny Shop with lots of purchases. It's a great shop for buying jewellery or quality gifts with an Irish connection.

What a great weekend, with the wedding on Saturday and then a fun after party that we cycled in the sun to on the Sunday. Dublin is one great city for a Wedding!!