Post 32 - An amazing Food Blog: French Foodie in Dublin

I have been in Ireland for almost 9 years and one thing that annoyed me when I first moved here was that I could not find all the food and food ingredients I was looking for. Things have changed now and I know where to go to find all the stuff I love.

When I discovered French Foodie in Dublin's blog, I was really impressed and since then I follow this blog everyday: http://frenchfoodieindublin.blogspot.ie/

FFID as she calls herself has an amazing talent for finding news places where to eat, sharing recipes and taking great pictures. She is now organizing Cinema and Food nights and tours of Dublin. Everything she is doing seems to be a great success.

Here are a few tips if you are a foodie in Dublin (French or not):

• Great bread: Hansel and Gretel Bakery and Patisserie, 20 Clare Street, Dublin 2
• Great cheese: Sheridans Cheesemongers http://www.sheridanscheesemongers.com/
• Great food hall: Fallon & Byrne http://www.fallonandbyrne.com/
•  Great food magazine: Food & Wine Ireland

Gilles Cognard, another French Foodie in Dublin :)

Post 31 - Weekend away : London

Dublin is great and the city is not so far from London, UK, a proper British accent! So, why not going to London for a weekend? Not too bad would say an Irish guy! Indeed London is lovely, London rocks and London is massive, the city will fit to all kind of people!

If you arrive from Gatwick airport you will have to take the train to Victoria station (15 pounds) and then the tube to go where your hostel/hotel/flat is! You can get accommodation through airbnb or hostelworld, easy booking!

London ok, but for what? You can go to Twickenham for a Rugby game, to Brick lane and try excellent yummy Indian food, to Hyde park to meet with squirrels, to Buckingham palace to watch the guard change, to Big ben to take the imperial buses, to Leicester square or Piccadilly circus to go shopping, to spend hours and hours in the National Gallery and then to Camden town to party in a very friendly atmosphere!!

A lot of connections from Dublin airport, I recommend to change euros in pounds in Dublin’s post office to avoid taxes. Let’s go for a totally different weekend! Enjoy it!

Florian

Post 30 - Never pay an apartment deposit without seeing the apartment

The housing market in Dublin is going through a difficult time at the moment because there is not enough apartments to rent. This is creating a difficult situation for whoever is currently moving to Dublin. I have been following a French community on Facebook and I can see that lots of people are struggling to find a place to live.
However it seems that people always manage to find an apartment. It is important to have a back up plan (hostel or friends...) and to be patient.

One of our candidates recently got a big problem with a landlord and I wanted to share this with you. The landlord had a place to rent online and our candidate wanted to secure this place. So he paid the deposit without meeting with the landlord or seeing the place. Then when he was supposed to get his keys the landlord told him that she was on an unexpected business trip and would only come back to Dublin the following Friday. Then she emailed him on Friday saying that she would only come back on Monday and now she has disappeared with his deposit...

We are investigating this issue and will try to help our candidate to get his money back but it seems that this is happening a lot.

Be careful who you are dealing with and never pay a deposit without meeting with the landlord and visiting the place!

Post 29 - Hurling

I never heard of Irish sports before I moved here but this is a huge part of Irish culture. They have 2 main ones: Football (I will blog about this later) and Hurling. I think Hurling is the most spectacular one. This is highly physical and all players carry a wooden stick called Hurley so this can get pretty dangerous... Apparently this is a very old game that has been played for over 3,000 years.

This weekend it was the All Ireland Finale (all county have a team and compete with each other). This was Kilkenny against Tipperary. Kilkenny is one of the best team in the country and won the All Ireland 34 times... However this time they did not win, they drew and there will be a replay!

The big change this year is that the games are now live on Sky Sports so this is available in the UK. I don't think that many countries will start playing Hurling but this is definitely a sport that deserves to be on TV. The finale is played in Croke Park (which has a capacity of over 80,000 people) and the atmosphere is absolutely amazing!

Have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBx7ZsjziHQ 

Post 28 - The IFI (Cinema in Dublin) Temple Bar

I love movies and when I first moved to Ireland I was living in City Centre. I discovered this fantastic little place called IFI in Temple Bar. This is a great cinema that shows lots of International movies. Being French I got to see lots of French movies but also the best of Spanish, German or Italian cinema.

Now they also have a little café/restaurant and shop that sells DVD and books.









I would strongly recommend to anyone to pay a visit: http://www.ifi.ie/
6 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Post 27 - Dublin Bikes and Bike to Work scheme

Ireland like most European countries are trying to encourage people to exercise more and to avoid traffic jam in City Centre. For those reasons, the government has set up 2 scheme and both of them are pretty good and highly successful:

• Dublin Bikes (http://www.dublinbikes.ie/)

This is a great way to get from one place to another. The subscription cost only €20 a year and every first 30 minutes of your journey is free. There are lots of stations around Dublin and more bikes will be available very soon. 

One issue though for being a user myself is that sometimes there are no bikes available or that there are no space free to leave your bike. In both case you have to wait or go to the next station.

However this is overall a very successful project and the bikes are well looked after.

• Bike to work scheme (http://www.biketowork.ie/)

The bike to work scheme is a great scheme to help people to buy a brand new bike and safety equipments worth up to €1,000. You can repay monthly through your salary and save up to 52% in tax. I have used this scheme myself for a bike I rarely use to go to work but this is a great plan.

Post 26 - Irish beers

Here is an interesting subject. Irish people are number 4 in the world when it comes to beer consumption with 90 litres a year per person. It is not bad but nothing compare to the world champions: the Czech drink 159 litres a year per person! There is a good reason if Irish people drink beer: they make nice beer and the most famous of them all (Guinness) is drunk all over the world.

When you come to Ireland you have to try some of those:

• Guinness, the most famous Stout in the entire world - it is delicious and most people are very surprised when they try it for the first time. It is very creamy and not strong at all (4.2 degrees). Pouring a Guinness takes a bit more time because the barman will need to do a "Double Pour". That's part of the pleasure to drink a Guinness.

• Smithwicks, this is an Irish Red Ale from Kilkenny. This is highly available in Dublin so no excuse.

• Kilkenny, this is an Irish Cream Ale and this is also delicious!

• Murphy's,  this is the direct competitor to Guinness from Cork. It is not as easy to find as Guinness but give it a go when you find it, it is lovely.

• Beamish, this is another Stout from Cork. Again you won't find this in every pub in Dublin so get one when you see the logo.

In addition to those big brands there are a few micro brewery in Ireland. Try them all :)

• Porterhouse (http://www.porterhousebrewco.com/brewery.php)
• Galway Hooker (http://www.galwayhooker.ie/)
• Eight Degrees (http://www.eightdegrees.ie/)
• 9 White Deer (http://9whitedeer.ie/)