I got to talk to several ladies of advancing age, having lunch and trying to relive their old stamping ground in the hotel. They seemed ’sporty’ (that’s a bad joke for those of you that have seen Intermission).

Since this is a blog that is meant to be about visits to places and what they’re like, I’m going to do the Hotel first and the camera second. Decor is interesting and particular in style as it should be in a Boutique Hotel, service is friendly and personal and the rooms are as good as I’ve seen, I had to look twice (and behind) a fireplace in the bedroom to see if it was electric or gas. It was electric, but they’ve moved on from a red bulb under a semi tranparent plastic mold of coal in yer grannys front room, I’ll get a pic of one later.

If you’re looking for a hotel with a pool and a gym, you wont want to stay there, you’d be better looking at other Donnybrook hotels. The building is an old row of nicely restored georgian houses, made to house the well heeled in centuries gone by. The hotels website says that it does have Free Internet, but I didn’t try it out to test the speed. I did however get this walk through of their drawing room, lobby and bar at about 3pm:

Hampton Hotel Donnybrook

I had the cod and chips in the bar, nice pice of fish, would recommend a stop off when the traffics too bad to check out the bar and the fish. They showed me the suite, it had a double walk in shower and two toilets. I didn’t ask how much it was a night, I knew it wasn’t for me .

For those interested in reliving the glory days of the 70’s club scene, They tell me they’re going to do a history section on the old Sachs place and the infamous club that was in it on their website). Get ready for sepia tone images of dancing at the crossroads (of Anglesea road )

Now, onto the camera: Disappointed. I had images of movie camera quality with my 14-24mm f2.8 Nikon zoom, and while the youtube encoding doesn’t give it full justice, it also hides some of the problems with it.

The are black bands that go up the screen, reminiscent of the old days pre-satellite when the fog would come in and S4C would go a bit funny, and panning too quickly looks like it drops frames. I used a fast SD card as the shop recommended, but I’m sorry: it went back to the shop.

Never mind: looks like redone are doing a nikon mount from that space alien 4K movie camera they make.

Don’t think we’ll be seeing them in Lidl anytime soon. I’m drooling.

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I’ve wanted to review this place for a while. I was here a few years ago, before the photo and kids madness took off and had a chicken sandwich. A chicken sandwich you say, well OK, proper chargrilled chicken in a roll and it was very good. So here I am back in Aughrim.

As a youf I used to work in the pub down the road from here. Has this place ever changed! Sign off the times: Biggest, newest building in the town is an estate agent. Tidy Towns is generating frantic meetings. I’ve been into Lawlers hotel, which was on the way, just to have a look. Nice looking old fashioned lobby, but a wait of 5 mins in a quiet bar for the bar menu, with the barman trying not to acknowledge anyone and working unbearable slowly made me remember….The STONECUTTER! It’s just up the street…

The chef is sunning himself at a table outside the door, the place quiet at 3.30pm, but the chef confirms its open. I feel bad. We’ve had ALL our summer in 1 week at the end of September, the roads are full of tractors rushing to save crops, and here I am, demanding food from the poor man…

The Stonecutter fills up a and it looks like the chef has seen the last of the sun for the day. The service is friendly and prompt. I order a white belgian beer called Blanche De Bruxelles.

It’s a nice crisp beer, with a tart taste, quite citrusy. It has a statue pissing on the label, but while the cherub may be suffering the effects of underage drinking and putting himself in the frame for an ASBO, he is assuredly drinking the Blanche and pissing something else, possibly Tennents.

Got the burger and chips on the recommendation of the waitress.

Spot on, rough ground real meat with nice flecks of onion, cheese, bacon and frites that are the shape of McDs but made of potatoe and gooooood with the sauces. Mayo with the chips and I had flashbacks of Hotel photoshoots in Antwerp and Ostend, but Belgians can’t do a good burger like these guys can. This was about as good as a burger gets and it was a fine filling portion.

Dessert. Again the waitress secommendations: Baileys and Chock Mousse Cake.

It was nice, huge portion couldn’t finish it, but then I’m more of a savory type, never had much time for desserts.

The verdict: This place is friendly, unpretentious and the food and drink are selected and prepared by people that care about good food. Get out of your hotel or apartment and drop in here if you’re passing, it’s a gem.

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So you’re in Gorey or Courtown for the weekend of relaxation. Pajamas in the afternoon and slabs of Royal Dutch are the order of the day. You spot a break in the clouds! It’s time for a Bar B Que!

Do you opt for the following (Kebabs and chicken in a nice marinade)?

No! You’re in the Sunny South East and it’s down to Tesco for Burgers!

You’ve walked the few miles from Courtown, dodging the odd Impreza and souped up Renault Megane, the hangover induced by that last round of West Coast Cooler the night before screaming for grease.

You get into Tesco, pick up a packet of burgers and a disposable BBQ, you hitch back to the mobile home, fireup the BBQ, kill 70 wasps and what’s this?

THE BURGERS ARE GREEN! HOW CAN THIS BE!!!!???!!

Oh wait: It’s the end of August and the burgers went off the previous June. Nice!

Back to Tesco the next day to complain (and to alert the management to a potential public health risk). Meet the customer service people. Ask to talk to the manager. Kept standing around with a bag of green burgers for 25mins. No one comes. Back to customer service. ‘Oh the manager is having a HR meeting’ and ‘can’t see you now’. A little piqued: down to the back of the shop to investigate. Into the store room and what’s this? The reason the queue at the tills is usually 5 deep with 3 tills open: all the staff are hiding down here. Good for them, it’s badly paid anyway.

Manager is hiding in one of the side rooms. Shouting draws him from his layer. He tells me he was having an important meeting. I ask was it about selling meat that is 3 months past ‘use before’. Works out it wasn’t. I ask him how his priorities have changed. He takes an official complaint and I am somewhat mollified.

Later in the afternoon I get a call from tesco: more details collected and then: nothing, not even a normal coloured bag of burgers. They changed the manager. I’m not going to start the process again with the new one. I did my bit for public safety.

Here’s where the good food tips come in…There’s a farmers market on Sat 9 to 3pm in the neighbouring carpark. Eggs are cheaper, so is cheese. The meat from the Lamb and sausage guy is much better than Tesco and works out the same pound for pound. The Lebanese place does some great stuff, the veggies stand is good, and you can haggle with them.

And guess what? It’s all fresh, these people have reputations to think about after all.

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I was compelled to do the sums: you can get a Ryanair flight to Anzio near Rome, stay in a 3star hotel, eat a better meal with less pretentious service, leave a big (by Italian standards) tip and fly home again. As long as you take a bus and not a taxi, you’ll still be ahead.

The food is pretty good, but not at all exceptional. But the worst thing is the portion size is abysmal, I read a review in the Irish Times that said the only people who complain about the portion sizes are country farmers that would be better advised to go where they can get a good feed of spuds. Now I’m a person who has never got good value out of an all-you-can-eat-special, and I weigh in at a miserable 11st @ 5′10″ and I was left ravenous. The bill for dinner for 4 of us over €400.

Avoid like the plague unless you’re an accountant and a Partner with no imagination drags you out to dinner there.

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Restaurant filled up fast from just before 1pm. Interesting looking menu, with reasonably priced mains.

Settled on the venison bangers and mash. Mash met my high standards, sausages had an excellent flavour, gravy was definitely made in house and made well. Washed it down with a nice Spaten beer and pontificated to my handler (quietly, to avoid blowing my cover) that my meal was ‘Hearty yet refined’. See photo below.

Onto dessert and the miserly Guestspy budget took a hit with €7.00 for Butter Cookies. Butter Cookies? for 7 euro? My greataunt used to stretch to a whole tin of them every Christmas and still had enough left over to pay for socks for presents. Here’s what arrived.

They were well tasty, and grudging I have to admit I would order them the next time I visit. And I will be visiting again.

Coffee needed work, about half the water would have been better, but I’m really nit picking here, great meal.

Too early for me to hit the vino, and beer with the sausages just seemed ‘right’, but here’s the wine blackboard FYI

Food: *****
Service: *****
Ambiance *****
Value for Money ****
Verdict: Eat here

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