THE BLARNEY STONE – BORDEAUX!

Something we don’t do on holiday is frequent Irish Pubs, mostly because we can do that at home and frankly the “Irish Pubs” abroad are often dark and scruffy places that don’t reflect actual pubs in Ireland (not since the early 20th century anyway).

However, we were on a short shopping trip in Bordeaux recently and we decided to see if the food in The Blarney Stone Pub off Rue St. Catherine (the longest shopping street in France as every guide book will tell you). To be honest, we had eaten there before and we were in no mood for somewhere new or fast food, so we headed to familiar territory.

The waitress was in fact from Westmeath – a lot of these pubs are staffed by locals – and when Marian ordered a bacon and cheese salad she explained (almost apologetically) that the cheese would be French; no problems there. I ordered a cheeseburger and ‘chips’ (not fries).

The salad arrived in a stainless steel serving bowl and was, according to my better half, delicious as well as huge. The cheeseburger was also huge and delicious, as were the chips – they tasted like the chips my aunt Eileen used to deep fry in lard – and real coleslaw.

The moral of this tale is don’t tar every “Irish Pub” with the same brush and if on a visit to Bordeaux you want good wholesome food at a very reasonable price then The Blarney Stone is well worth a visit.