Skip to main content

Cheap OK eats at Doolin's

Doolin's Irish Pub on Urbanspoon
I really don't blame Doolin's for being more than just an Irish pub specializing in only Irish food as that probably isn't going to cut it in fussy Vancouver. For your classic pub stuff, there is a "Pub Favourites" section of the menu. The rest is... the rest. Call it what you want, but it's basically a mishmash of everything comfortably familiar and safe to order.

Duck Bites ($8) Chipotle and ginger marinated duck bites topped with spicy pickled jalapenos, wrapped in bacon and topped with a sweet sesame soy glaze

  • You get about six of these, which are really bite-sized. The rest of your plate is salad.
  • There's spicy heat here, so if you're not used to spicy, watch out.
  • Whatever taste the duck had was covered up by the stronger flavour of bacon.

Short Rib Flatbread ($10) Red wine braised beef short rib with caramelized onions, dry roasted cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, and tomato sauce, topped with a house-made blue cheese aioli

  • The rectangular portion you get is about half the size of a medium pizza.
  • Any flavour the beef had was hidden under the sharp-sour flavour of the sauce.

The two particular items I had weren't that great, but price for portion was okay, and with most menu items hovering around $10 or less, it's a cheap place to snack while hanging out with friends.

Service was okay, all things considered.
We were in the rear section that is quite private from the rest of the pub. Headcount was about 30-ish, maybe. Apparently the service is divided into sections and waitresses are assigned to sections. We couldn't get more tables or chairs to extend the long table for our party, so we ended up being split up into some of the side bar seating. Which was okay, since we didn't give them an accurate headcount -- in turn because we under-booked due to the inevitable no-shows in any large booking.
With that many persons and seemingly just the one server running around, drink orders were bound to be slow. But things would get worse because we decided to order food more or less at the same time. Not sure how that came about, but I suspect it was the organizer announcing it was time to do that, just to get things moving along. With many people seated at the same table, there's often the issue of someone ordering too early or too late, and then you have people eating and others waiting.
Anyway, with just one server (but a few bussers), taking orders and delivering orders from the kitchen took quite a while. It was actually hard to catch anyone just to get cutlery and I ended up getting it myself for my second order.
And when it came time to leave, all our bills were processed all at once, which obviously took a long time not just printing it out but figuring out who had what, collecting cards for payment, and then giving out the processed bills for signing.

I don't want to blame the establishment for the slow service since we were also at fault, ordering all at the same time and getting our bills at the same time. I just wanted to mention it because some coordination or at least some understanding is required on the part of patrons as to why things turn out the way they do.
Also, it was awfully nice of Doolin's not to force a limited menu on us, which some restaurants do nowadays, to keep things streamlined in the kitchen and process larger orders quickly.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

How much candy can you bring to America

I have a friend in the US who used to live in Canada -- so she's noticed that some things taste differently. Such as Twizzlers . And she likes Canadian Twizzlers better. So I inquired with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as to how much I could bring: I am visiting a friend in San Francisco later this year. She wants Twizzlers -- she says the same product in the US tastes differently from those in Canada. How much am I allowed to bring into the US for her? I don't go to the US regularly and she doesn't come to Canada regularly, so I was thinking of getting her more than just a couple of bags. Here is their initial reply: You can bring the candy to the US, and there is no set limit on the amount. All you have to do is declare the food to a CBP officer at the border or airport. Mark Answer Title: Food- Bring personal use food into the U.S. from Canada Answer Link: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/1273 Answer Title: Travelers bringing food into the U