Ireland: The Challenge Begins

So the challenge begins!  We decided to start the year 2015 with a traditional Irish Breakfast.  With Bridget being part Irish, why not make our first country’s cuisine Ireland.  What else goes better with a nasty New Years hangover than blood sausage and soda bread?

After watching Phish bring in the New Years on a live feed, taking it easy at a quiet Irish restaurant was highly preferred.  We headed out to The Dubliner near Union Station early in the morning, at 11 AM, which is quite early for New Years Day much less any weekday morning with a hangover.

The Dubliner is run by 3rd generation “Publicans” and states itself as authentic Irish.  We walked up and saw large Ireland flags swinging in the cold air, how could this not be perfect?   Then we sat down, looked at the menu, and talked to our maybe-still-drunk-server.

Bringing in 2015 by having an Irish breakfast with my Irish girl was enough to make the challenge exciting in its own right.   We both decided that the only way to go to celebrate this together was to order what they call a “Irish Country Breakfast.”  The server brought to us what was basically what you get at Denny’s when you order the Two Eggs Breakfast.  We received two eggs, bacon, side of potatoes and toast.   I thought to myself, “Well I guess I’ve never been to Ireland, maybe this is traditional there.”

As we looked at our food, confused, we thought why not just dig in.  Again, being hungover probably wasn’t the best way to start this challenge.  Another server noticed our wrong order, came over and removed our plates.  Mind you, we started eating our food and were plenty satisfied at this point.  About 15 minutes later a “traditional” Irish breakfast was served.

We didn’t very much enjoy the meal but were excited to start the year off with this Irish tradition.  Irish bangers, blood and white pudding, fried eggs and soda bread was the best way to kick off 2015 and help a 2014 hangover.  With a touch of Ireland to start this challenge, we have high expectations for the rest of the world!

-Matt