Beyond these four walls

I do get out on occasion, y'know. I venture beyond these four walls quite frequently, in fact. Not as much as I used to, admittedly, but I don't think I'm alone on that one. Going out for dinner is something that I do fairly rarely these days, though I had cut that out a long time ago. I just love cooking so much, I find that it's more enjoyable to make my own food at home (and know exactly what I'm eating) than go out and potentially eat lame (or even downright horrible) food and potentially sit in not-very-lovely surroundings and potentially have random strangers who are paid to provide service actually be very rude to me - and pay all-too handsomely for the pleasure. Because this has happened in the past, so I got into the habit of suggesting that I would cook any time I was making plans to meet up for dinner. Not always, mind, but as frequently as I could spare the time and the money.



This means that going out for dinner is more of a treat now, but then it's also a bit of a disappointment when it doesn't entirely live up to expectations. Which is unfortunately what happened on Saturday night. We went to a restaurant that I've been to a few times and it hasn't ever disappointed me in the past, it's buzzy and it's fun and the food is lovely. While our starters were delish (black pudding and gorgonzola is such a killer combination), and my main course was yum, one of my friends found that her  meat was actually, well, off, the other that the meat was really tough and the other that the squash in her salad was undercooked. With the result that, out of four dishes, only one was returned fully eaten, and the other three were half picked-over. The manager offered us free desserts and coffees, but the mood had been killed a little at that stage, so we declined. He did take off the price of one of the mains, but it was a bit of a pain in the back side to be honest and taking €18 off the bill wasn't much compensation for a spoiled dinner. And I felt a tad guilty cause 1) I picked the restaurant and 2) my main had been pretty delicious. Better luck next time, I guess.

A cheap and cheerful option on Sunday proved considerably more satisfying, though in fairness all we had was coffee and a bun. I'm looking forward to going back for more I have to say. It's the Sound Bites café in Tower Records on Wicklow Street. I was finally getting my hands on the new Kanye West album (Un. Friggin. Real. I have been listening to it constantly ever since, it's amazing), I had heard about the café upstairs and we had time to spare before we went to the cinema.

Mocha, free Rolling Stone to flick through, cute bowl made out of an old record.

Taaaaaaasty eats. In case you want to DIY, the recipe for these cinnamon buns is in How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

And HOW dinky is this little milk jug?

Lots of retro bits and pieces, it's also lovely and spacious. The perfect way to top off an afternoon of browsing through CDs and DVDs.