Country Cafe

I stopped in here to get out of the rain for a latte and carrot cake. Both were very good and the staff friendly. Not sure why the hate.

While I’ve never actually ate inside the café, I’ve had many soups and sandwiches to go from this location.
The principles at my office like to grab a soup and sandwich on the way back from Four Courts and very often would pick one up for myself as well.
Recently, I’ve had a salami sandwich, which was on brown bread, with tomatos, salami, and cheese. It is a nice enough sandwich and quite tasty, much better than the Spar down the way. That said, it is also much more expensive than the Spar down the way.
Previous times, as the food was brought to me in kind gesture, I was blissfully unaware as to the price of these takeaway lunches. A salami sandwich and tomato soup was just over 9 Euro. Considering the salami, cheese, and (I believe) bread is brought in and only assembled at the café, that’s quite a mark-​up — even for city centre!
The soup was pleasant, it came with it’s own bread and an orange. It was a cold and damp day, so the warm broth was welcomed. It had a pleasant taste and wasn’t bland. The portion was quite generous.
Still. 9 Euro for soup and a sandwich. If you have the time, you can cross the Liffey and for 8.95 get a 2 course meal and wine.

I live really close to this place and after I had passed by and noticed how cheap it seemed I was hoping it would be great and I could have found a new regular breakfast joint.
Alas I will have to keep looking. I ordered the country breakfast and the black pudding was crusty and had a taste that sorta freaked me out.(considering what it is made of I didn’t take any chances) The eggs were made to look like they were poached but the yoke was cooked all the way through and tasted like they were microwaved, and I did hear little beep noises more often than you should from a kitchen so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Sausage and rashers were good but were offset by the eggs and black pudding.
The coffee was good, but not anything special.
With that said, The baked good on display looked really delicious and I heard they make their own bread but I’d have to go back to try them.
We’ll see.

I ordered a smoked salmon scramble and a smoothie for breakfast. The smoked salmon was the best part of the breakfast. Coincidentally, it was the only thing not actually made at Country Café.
The scrambled eggs were hard and in the shape of small pebbles. Between hubs and myself, I saw three things go in the microwave and although I could clearly see a functioning hob from my seat, nobody thought to use it – not even for EGGS. I’m sorry but microwaved eggs are a cardinal sin.
Then there was the smoothie incident. Not only was it forgotten until I was halfway done with breakfast but it was overpowering. Strong is how I like cocktails served, not smoothies. Obviously it was made from one of those high-​sugar concentrates and they didnt think to measure the proportion. The first sip was like a swig of un-​diluted Ribena from the bottle – completely undrinkable. As it sat on the table through the rest of breakfast, I watched as it slowly separated into pure concentrate at the bottom with the ice shavings floating at the top of the glass. It cost me € 3.90. Gross all around.

I thought this place was another sweaty little café but am pleasantly surprised! I suspect a lot of its clientele are from the nearby law courts, and it’s quite a little find. There is an all-​day breakfast menu with the usual fry (which looked yum when passing me by for another hungry person) plus seven other types of hot breakfasts available. The daily specials looked great, there was a tomato-​based soup that smelled like heaven in a bowl. I had a tuna ciabatta sandwich, playing it conservative, and it was lovely, fresh hot (but not quite toasted) bread which was perfect, totally fresh lettuce leaves and a tuna/​mayo combo which was the right side of firm. Nothing worse than a cheap gloopy tuna sandwich. It’s quite small and so it’s all the more amazing that this place has such a good menu. Nice service, clean bog. Sandwiches are between 4 – 6 yoyos so not cheap, but I will be back to try some more interesting menu items.