A Fork and The City: The week in lunch!

Fresh from a stint as a guest on this very Lunchbox, Lorraine Griffin, user, Dublin city centre worker, prospective blogger and all round food lover is back, and this time, she's giving us a taster of what a week in lunch is like for her! So, without further ado, take it away Lorraine, and take us through your week!

Lunch choices are generally selected according to hunger level and mood de jour.  Working just around the corner from Grafton Street means I can satisfy pretty much any food craving every day.  So it’s great for lunch options but bad for cashflow!

The easiest way to tell you about the best haunts around Grafton Street is to take you through a typical week of lunchtime scoffing….

Monday

Inexplicably starving (likely due to expansion of stomach over the weekend with massive Sunday roast).  

Mood: Positivity is a challenge, so it’s all about the comfort eating. 

Result: Thai chicken curry from Deli counter at Fallon & Byrne.

Top Value tip: Opt for no rice, they fill container to the brim so you get 2 lunches/dinners and you can provide your own rice!

Cost : €7.95 (just under €4 each if you sharing!)

Tuesday

I’ve just about adjusted to the fact that the weekend is over so am starting to get stuck in (to work). Time for an 80s-style Power Lunch. 

Killer Sambo alert:  It has to be the ‘Chicken Whoopee’ at Munchies, but my version has a few amendments.  Firstly, you mix it up by getting toasted tomato & fennel bread rather than your standard ciabatta.  Then you have to insist they lay it on thick with the chilli mayo and throw in some pepper and onion mix (to give it the crunch factor).  One bite and you’ll be hooked.

Cost: Around €5

Wednesday

It’s midweek buzz and the end is in sight.  The mood could be described as ‘chirpy’.

Time for anAvoca (on Suffolk St).  They do a daily homemade soup which is served with a slice of their fresh multi-seed bread and it only costs around €4.

Tip: Add another slice for 40 cent, fill yourself a complementary portion of fresh raspberry jam and you’ve got a tasty mid-afternoon snack (it’s all about the forward-planning folks you don’t want to be chowing into a stale Rivita when the 4pm slump hits).

Thursday 

Likely to be a few office beers tonight so it’s all about the stomach lining. 

Try: Blazing Salads on Drury St.  Plenty of low G.I legume action (nope not referring to beefed-up army personnel it’s the glycaemia index.  Here’s the science bit: when it’s low, it’s good, it means you’re fuller for longer).  They do pizza slice + soup combos for around a fiver (and it’s not your bog-standard maguerrita, they use gluten-free dough and interesting toppings like goat’s cheese and marinated peppers).  I throw another €2 into the mix and go for one of their curries with brown rice from the hot counter. 

Carnivore Alert:  It’s veggie all the way here so don’t be expecting beef or salmon.  But their use of cashew nuts, butternut squash, pulses and grains make these dishes equally as sumptuous as any meat-laden ones.

Friday 

In need of instant gratification with lots of strong flavours.

Temptation Strikes:  Have a huge desire to head straight for the Happy Meal option.  But I know happiness derived from this misnomer will be short-lived so I walk that little bit further and keep it real at the aptly named ‘Honest to Goodness’ in the George’s St arcade.  Ever stood at a kitchen counter and watched with dismay at the lack of love going in to your sandwich?  Although you are dictating the ingredients, they’re not coming together as you had intended.  A silent voice screams in your head 'No, no not the end bits of the tomato.  Take them out!’; “More mayo, more mayo please I can’t stand the dryness’; “Ah come on could you not spread the ingredients out to the edge?’   I have challenged a few times, and it can go the other way.  Over-mayoed soggy sambo, or in the case of one deli lady I encountered ‘We can only give one scoop per sandwich’.  Firstly, an ice-scream scoop for sandwich fillings is just wrong.  Secondly, watching tuna being unballed in this manner is plain off-putting.    Anyway, I digress, back to Honest to Goodness.  Sandwiches just the way you want them.  Succulently moist but not soggy.  Crunchy but in all the right places.  A real lunchtime treat and perfect for any post-night-out urges.  And you won’t need to ‘go Large’ to get the right hit.  These bad boys will do the job.

Cost: Around €6 for a takeaway sandwich

And, seeing as it’s Friday, I deserve a tasty treat for after. 

Cupcake Madness:  We could dedicate an entire post to cupcakes such is the proliferation of these pastel-coloured dainties across Dublin.  But for the sake of brevity (and actually getting to the point here) we’ll just take 2 examples now. 

Lolly & Cooks – Go for the strawberry one! Or alternatively, head into the Powerscourt Centre, and you can get Baileys, Oreo cookie or Carrot Cake flavours!

And so a week’s work done, fuelled by the best that Grafton St has to offer!

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