I was lucky enough to go and see Leonard Cohen in concert in the O2 a couple of weeks ago. Oh Leonard, how do I love thee? Anyway. Before the gig, Maria Crispy and I tried to find somewhere decent to eat in the IFSC, the particularly soulless financial services area in Dublin’s city centre. There are plenty of restaurants in the area, but as it’s not the most enticing part of town, I didn’t really know any of them.
A thorough look on Menupages.ie turned up a few places that looked ok. We first opted for a Thai restaurant called Kudos, which is part of the Clarion Hotel. However Kudos was jammed, and after waiting for nearly ten minutes without having anyone even approach us, we gave up and went across the street to the New York Grind, a large diner-style place. New York Grind was busy too – clearly, concerts in the O2 are very significant for restaurants in the IFSC.
New York Grind was offering a pre-concert menu, which had a decent amount of choice – burgers, pasta, pizza, all for around the €12 mark. We ordered a beef stew for Ms Crispy and a burger for me. The burger looked slightly small when it arrived, but it turned out to be very tasty and tender. Maria’s stew was ‘hearty’, although she said it could have done with some more herbs for a richer flavour. Service was quick and friendly, and it turned out to be a good option for a quick meal before a concert. If I’d missed any of the concert because of faffing with food…well, there would have been trouble.
Thursday 6 August, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Is the New York Grind a kind of large self-service place? If so, I was in there one day and walked out as the food looked fairly unappetising. We went to L.C. at o2 as well, but ended up eating in Bar Italia (http://stitchandbear.blogspot.com/2009/07/bar-italia.html) as our first choice, the tasty Il Fornaio (http://stitchandbear.blogspot.com/2009/03/il-fornaio-ifsc-dublin.html) was busy.
Friday 7 August, 2009 at 10:47 am
concerts in Croke Park are also significant business for the IFSC. Went to U2 concert on the Monday night – stopped at the Vaults pub in Connolly Station/IFSC on the way. Unfortunately, they decided to have a different shorter menu than their normal menu – and a burger was the cheapest main course on the menu at €16.95! I saw the burger on another table and it didn’t look all that special!! We already had a drink at that stage but decided to leave and went to the Harbourmaster instead where the menu was much more reasonably priced and we didn’t feel like we were being ripped off.
Friday 17 December, 2010 at 1:30 pm
NYG seems to be closed now. Shame – it was a good spot for burgers etc. Always seemed to be busy, so I’m surprised that it’s gone.