Full breakfast...and lunch, and dinner

On our first day in Ireland, our guide Eunan said that the one thing you won't do in Ireland is starve. Which was true more or less. We were given hot breakfast buffets at all of our hotels, quite varied and impressive: fruit and yogurt, cereals and pastries, brown bread, eggs, bacon (thick, chewy side of pork, hearty and salty), pancakes (crepes), ham and sausage, toomatoes, baked beans, cheese, coffee and tea, baskets of white toast, and the infamous black and white pudding. I decided on the first morning that I would give the black pudding a go, always having wondered at it on menus. I placed it on a separate plate, not to contaminate the rest of the amazing meal. I cut the ever-so-tiniest bite, tried not to smell it as I placed it in my mouth. It was the thought of blood more than the taste that had me gagging through the entire thing, chugging water and coffee afterwards to wash it down. I'm told the white pudding isn't as bad (just the pork, oatmeal, and drippings without the blood), kind of like sausage, but I had enough.

Lunch was on our own while on the road, stopping in little villages for pub fare mostly. Eunan did his best to hit up notables like Durty Nelly's, The Red Fox, and so on--standard fare being soup and brown bread, fresh seafood chowder, fish and chips, sandwiches (there is always a "Toasted Special" which is a panini with ham or turkey, cheese, tomato, and onion, grilled or panini pressed), and often hamburgers, though the ketchup tastes more like tomato soup even though the bottle is the same.

Dinner was mostly 3 course meals at the hotels, with a fixed menu, although for what it probably cost us, most of the time we probably would have rather gone into town to grab food on our own. I was pleased that steamed veggies were a mainstay, big bowls to be shared at the table, and plenty of fresh fish. Our hotel in Dublin at Croke Park had an impressive menu, fried goat cheese, Bailey's cheesecake, pesto gnocchi--yum!

It was of course standard to have a beer with dinner or just before. Luckily they offer glasses as well as the pints (a glass is about a 10-oz serving for half the price) or I would have gained 10 pounds. Every bar and hotel had Guinness, Bulmer's (cider), Smithwick's, and Coors Light (true story!). We tried all the stouts (my favorite was Beamish), several Irish whiskeys (Jameson is still the best), and pretty much every other beer they had to offer. Not quite the craft beer scene of Denver, but they've come a long way from the monopoly of "the black stuff".

We also were initiated into the traditional candy shop scene. Apparently American candy (ie: Twizzlers) is "disgusting" and we were literally gasped at when we admitted we hadn't tried cinder toffee. She promptly popped open the jar and gave us each a taste (amazing!). We also ate our fill of Cadbury chocolate, fudge, and bon-bons (like hard taffy balls in all different flavors). And most of the towns had at least one authentic gelato stop with flavors like Nutella, tiramasu, honeycomb, and nutty rum chocolate.

Yup, definitely didn't starve. In fact, amazed my clothes still fit.

The Auld Sweet Shop

Craft brews in Dublin

Fish and chips

Fried goat cheese amazingness