I love what AA Gill said in last Sunday’s Sunday Times Style magazine: “Just buy food raw, on the bone, with a head, with slime, with eyes, with fur, with mud, blood and paws. Buy it with roots and scales and spines and pips and shells.” (You can read the full article here). Cook from [...]

The other day I came home from work and looked in the fridge. I had nothing to eat. NOTHING. And my pay cheque is not due for another week. I was really hungry. After sitting on the sofa for a full ten-minute huff, I went back to the fridge and looked again. There must be [...]

News just came in via @lunchblock on Twitter that Carluccio’s have closed their Dublin branch.  I thought their meal deal (€12 for a starter, pasta and a coffee) was one of the best around, although people left mixed reports here previously on their service.  The notice in their window suggests that high rents were the [...]

There was a really interesting piece in the Irish Times on Tuesday about a study carried out on Irish consumers by Price Waterhouse Coopers.  According to their findings, Irish people are devastated by guilt over their profligate spending during the boom, and consumer confidence may never recover.  Apparently it will be akin to having grown [...]

I tuned into the Pat Kenny show yesterday to hear the AMAZING I Draw Slow being interviewed. Okay, okay, I’m shamelessly plugging my husband’s band, but there was also a segment about how this will be the most frugal Christmas for many. As a result, people are hitting the €2 shops for the first time, [...]

Christmas work do’s are a funny affair. Depending on who you end up sitting beside at dinner, they can either go really well or just be brutally boring. In either case I always looked forward to them - free meal after all.
Then of course, there’s always someone who gets too drunk. I remember one year, [...]

The mass swell of shoppers across the border continues, and with Christmas fast approaching, it’s going to turn into a flood.
Today’s Pricewatch questions the difference in prices in major supermarkets operating in the Republic and the north, pointing out that a recent Consumer Association of Ireland (CAI) survey showed that a basket of goods in [...]

The Restaurant Association of Ireland made the news yesterday with their claims that the Irish restaurant industry is in serious trouble.  They say that one in three restaurants are due to close within six months, potentially causing the loss of a further 21,000 jobs.   The RAI blame high rental costs, VAT and excise duty, and [...]

We posted here recently about the news that O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars had gone into liquidation. Yesterday, the Irish Times reported that the company has been acquired, so the sandwich shops may be rescued after all.  Abrakebabra Investments Limited has bought the O’Brien’s brand, and they already control Abrakebabra, the Bagel Factory and Gourmet [...]

Tesco in rip-off shock. Surprise, surprise. This morning’s Irish Times reports that Tesco, despite their much publicised Change for Good campaign, remain 18% dearer in the Republic of Ireland than across the border.
The survey carried out by the Consumer Choice magazine found that some items were up to 37% more expensive down south. In a [...]