Restaurant Review: Bodega, Dun Laoghaire

I went for a walk in Dun Laoghaire a couple of days after Christmas in a vain effort to make up for about two weeks of gluttony and incipient alcoholism and followed it up with a doubt-ridden trip to the Bodega, doubt-ridden because I’d read it wasn’t that great. And not great it proved to be. Pretty terrible actually.

It’s not that my food was bad. In fact, I had rather nice lemon sole goujons, but €14.50 for what was ostensibly a light bite is a joke.

And – in the context of half the things we originally ordered mysteriously not being available – repeatedly being regaled with stories of kitchen inefficiencies by the waiter (seriously!) is bordering on the ludicrous. Also, from the looks and sounds of things, I was lucky with what I got because some of the people sharing this painful experience had dreadful burgers and nachos. And we had to ask for the air conditioning to be turned off three times, finally using the two babies in our party as emotional blackmail in order to get our way (“Please, for the children…”).

Oh, and when we asked for extra ketchup they pretty much refused to bring it, which, for someone who nearly likes condiments more than the food they accompany, I see as, at the very least, a venal sin. I could go on an on. In true Irish tradition, I grumbled at the time and now, 400 years later, the searing heat of my anger would do the job on a nice rare steak.