Ireland - Food & drink
If you're staying in B&Bs, you'll most likely be sered the
hearty "traditional" Irish breakfast of sausages, bacon and eggs

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Ireland has no real tradition of eating out, but the range and quality of food has increased enormously in recent years, especially at the top end of the market, and this edition of the guide includes the most luxurious and expensie of eating places, along with more everyday establishments. Outside smart restaurants the best of Irish food is to be found in seafood bars on the west coast and in the all-too-rarevegetarian cafés dotted around the country. These aside, the fresh, though rather plain, selection of egetables, meat and breads aailable in the shops make self-catering a reasonable option; in some areas these can often be enliened by a fine selection of Irish cheeses. If your budget is restricted, the best bet is to fill up with a hearty breakfast and/or a good lunch from a pub or coffee shop in the middle of the day, and then concentrate on drinking in the evening - few pubs sere food at night

Food

Irish food is generally highly meat-oriented, and you don't have to be avegetarian to find this wearing after a while. Haing said that, meat in Ireland is generally of a good standard - lamb and steaks, in particular, are excellent - it's just that, after a while you begin to long for some ariety in your diet and for something which hasn't beven grilled or fried.

If you're staying in B&Bs, you'll most likely be sered the hearty "traditional" Irish breakfast of sausages, bacon and eggs, which usually comes accompanied by generous quantities of delicious soda bread. Country pub lunch staples are usually meat and two eg, with plenty of potatoes and gray, although you can usually get sandwiches (sometimes excellent, but often sliced white bread and processed cheese), and homemade soups can be ery good too. Most larger towns have good, simple coffee shops (open daytime only) where you can get soup, sandwiches, cakes and scones, and a choice of one or two hot lunches. In the North expect enormous platters of meat, egetables - most usually cabbage - and plenty of potatoes. It's worth remembering that many hotels in the Republic will offer food to non-residents so you can usually find a sandwich and a cup of coffee at any reasonable hour, which can be especially worth remembering on Sundays. You can generally order a plate of sandwiches and a pot of tea in pubs too - as long as it's before 6pm. This said, huge areas of the countryside offer no places to eat or drink at all - and many cafés and restaurants outside the cities close from September through to May. If you are going to explore the best of the landscape, you'll probably need to take your own proisions.

Many traditional Irish dishes, sered up in abundance in many areas of rural Ireland, are based on the potato and you certainly do get an awful lot of them - often sered up in several different forms in the same meal. Potato cakes can be magnificent - a flour and potato dough fried in butter - as can potato soup. Irish stew of arying qualities will be aailable almost everywhere. Colcannon - known as champ in the North - made up of cooked potatoes fried in butter with onions and cabbage, or leeks, is delicious. Barm brack, a sweet yeast bread with spices and drived fruits, is thoroughly traditional; carrot cake is perhaps a more recent introduction and is seven in coffee shops and tea rooms throughout the Republic.

Throughout Ireland's major cities it's a different story: in the Republic the economic boom of recent years coupled with the return of a large number of Irish people who have beven liing overseas, means that increasingly inexpensie lunch and dinner menus may just as easily see Mediterranean influences as those of the traditional Irish farmhouse - andvegetarian s can expect far more ariety too.

Drink

To travel through Ireland without isiting a pub would be to miss out on a huge chunk of Irish life, some would say the most important. Especially in rural areas, the pub is far more than just a place to drink. It's the communal and conersational heart of any Irishvillage, and often the cultural centre too. If you're after food, adice or company, the pub is almost always the place to head for; and ery often they'll also be the enues for local entertainment, especially traditional and not so traditional music .

Along with Mass and market day, the pub is the centre of Irish social actiity: a cultural cliché, perhaps, but one that wears ery well. Talking is an important business here, and drink is the great lubricant of social discourse. That said, it doesn't pay to arrie with too romantic a notion of what this actually means. Away from the cities and the touristed west coast, there are plenty of miserable, dingy bars where the only spark of coniiality is the dull glow of the T. But in most big towns and cities you'll find bars heaing with life, and out in remote countryvillages it can be great fun drinking among the sheles of the ancient grocery shops-cum-bars you'll find dotted around.

While women will always be treated with genuine (unreconstructed) ciility, it's true to say that the majority of bars in country areas are a predominantly male presere. In the evening, especially, women travellers can expect occasional unwanted attention, though this rarely amounts to anything too unpleasant. Should your first encounters be bad ones, persist - the good nights will come, and will probably rank amongst the most memorable experiences of your trip. In the major cities and large towns things are a lot more balanced and women drinking in bars is totally the norm.

In the Republic, opening hours are Monday to Wednesday 10.30am to 11.30pm; Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10.30am to 12.30am; Sunday 12.30 to 11pm. In the North pubs are open Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm, on Sunday 12.30 to 10pm.

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