Taste of Dublin 2014

JellyB1

Just wondering if the Taste of Dublin festival next week is worth paying for? Had a look at ticket prices and they seem quite pricey for what it is... Opinions? Anyone know where I can free tickets for it?

The Hill Billy

Check out some of theses threads about the event over the past few years...

http://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?query=Taste+of+Dublin&forum=35&user=&date_from=&date_to=

MissFlitworth

No free tickets unless you have a corporate connection. It's a lovely, lovely evening but in my opinion it is a huge rip off. Would never pay to go back again, if I was spending, at least, €100 on a food night out if would be in a fancy restaurant.

[NB: we went on a Sunday and all the stalls could have given less of a sh!t about catering to us. Many closed more than an hour before the official closeing time and many more 'ran out' of nice food]

snickerpuss

I won two VIP tickets for next Sunday which include bubbly and a cocktail. Didn't include any florins but hopefully there'll be a few nice dishes on offer.

Whistlejacket

It's horrifically expensive in my opinion. I went once a few years ago. A lovely day out, especially if the weather is nice, and lots of top quality food on offer from excellent chefs and producers but there is no way I could justify the cost to myself.

It's really a showcase/corporate event I think: fair enough, there's definitely a case for having one to promote the industry. I'd agree with the earlier comment though, I'd prefer to spend 100 plus euro on food in a really nice restaurant or go on a spending spree in the English market :-)

Bateman

Never went, same reasons above, if I was spending that bread it'd be in a restaurant

ScottSF

The Friday afternoon ticket if you have a flexible work schedule is a good value at EUR 10 plus that ridiculous booking transaction fee which they could easily have avoided forcing upon us. At that price it is definitely worth it for the overall experience since there are talks and demonstrations from chefs, free samples from Irish food companies, cooking vendors, and entertainment.

http://tasteofdublin.seetickets.com/event/taste-of-dublin/iveagh-gardens/773277

At the higher weekend price I would say it is overpriced compared with similar events. I think they are trying to make the event seem exclusive. I did attend the last two years and the wife and we did enjoy ourselves despite the cost. From a quick glance at the website it seems there are fewer restaurants participating than last years which is disappointing.

Also the ticket should have definitely included at least one or two "taste" tickets as I'm sure some will be surprised that restaurant food is extra. In all fairness the Taste of London ticket prices are similar but they have about 40 restaurants participating while Dublin lists 17.

grimm2005

Managed to get some free tickets to this myself for Sunday evening, have never been before but myself and the gf will be checking it out. How much should we expect to be spending while in there? The website mentions that each dish is about 5 florins/euro and that they are tapas sized portions. Would 5 portions each be enough and what's the story with drinks does anyone know?

Would be nice to get away with €50 - 60 altogether but if that's wishful thinking then perhaps we won't go in on empty stomachs. Any opinions are appreciated!

ScottSF

Last year my wife and I probably shared 5 or 6 "tastes" which was enough for us since you can also sample foods for free from Irish vendors such as cheese, chicken, crisps, chocolate, apples, and even pizza. Hopefully it will be the same this year. You can buy drinks with more Florins. We purchased a bottle of wine to share outside in the sun and listen to the music. There will be drink samples too for promotional purposes.

If you look at the Exhibitor list you can get an idea of the free samples that may be available:
http://www.tasteofdublin.ie/getinvolved/exhibitors-list/

paudgenator

Bigger & better than last year. Best deal on wine is the O'briens wine bar.. 1 florin for 3 generous tastings, 4/5 for a glass & 12! for bottle....Other places are 6/7 a glass & up to 30-45 per bottle!

Food is great..lots of samples.

Crabbies, Tom Creans, singha beer, cuisine de France, Keoghs crisps....value deals & lovely people.

Havana club....buy a cocktail, return your glass for a voucher for a cocktail at Cafe Seine.

Toilets not great..ran out of paper half way through session, dirty & wet floors & sinks, no hooks on doors so you have to balance your bags!

enjoy!

Faith

Merged with existing Taste of Dublin thread.

jennypenny71

You can get a discount enter chill 15 in code section.

positivenote

IMHO very much a Celtic tiger type thing... You pay money to go in and pay money for food. I was expecting a little bit more than a few cocktail sausages for my entry fee... It should be either a free event that you can register for tickets or get at least some florins for the price of your ticket

RasTa

Had a free ticket, watched the Michel demo and left. Pretty pointless event

Toulouse

Scored a free VIP ticket which gave me free entry, a glass of champers, a cocktail and €20 in florins to spend.

VIP lounge was fine, nice to have somewhere to sit down, champagne lovely, cocktail undrinkable.

I don't like where they've moved the Chefs Theater to. It's a couple of years since I've been but I thought it was very hemmed in this year. We each tried a dish from The Green Hen and Il Primo, wasn't overly impressed with either, certainly not enough to book a table on the back of it. Jerusalem got our vote! Not as many freebies as there used to be when it first started.

The main draw was Smash Hits playing at what I presume was the main stage. Hilarious and they had a massive crowd watching them. Nice to sit out with a beer and watch. But again, this wouldn't have happened in the first few years as the music was just incidental.

I stopped going a few years back as I felt it had started to go downhill. It was nice to get a free ticket and it was a lovely evening but it just reinforced my feelings about the food aspects of the Taste festival.

jjjade

Hey guys. Was there yesterday and bought a bottle of canella Bellini from one of the stands. Does anyone know what stand was selling it r were I can get it

Recently returned

Complete sham, suckered in, in going friday. Thinking for 23bucks I'd get at the least
one meal. Instead I went hungry.

Tastings : Bread french (name escapes me) stand.
Crisps (irish, kettles or something)
Dips (standard supermarket style dips of sauces)

Food : **** small below average sized portions on paper plates for 5euros minimum.

Stop this florin bull****, like its not money, but flowers or something, Use Rips instead.
I could go on, please spread the word on this bull****. Its a disgustingly greedy sham.

allandanyways

I really wanted to go and see Michel Roux Jr, Monica Galetti and Tom Kitchin but have heard from numerous sources that the whole system is a shambles and it's a total rip off.

It's a shame cos I believe the TASTE festivals run in London, Helsinki etc are really good and you get a lot out of them.

Saw Cian Healy, Gordon D'Arcy et al were in attendance, having a great time eating loads of food... I'm sure it was great value when everything was already paid for! :rolleyes:

Bateman

Got a couple of free tickets and went for the first time.

Was surprised at how popular it is, ie how many people are prepared to pay the entry fee just to get in.

It’s a nice afternoon in the sun with nice food and drink, and the market dictates that it’s a hugely popular event. Enough people are prepared to pay for what it is, so no point in whinging, if you don’t consider it good value (and at the retail prices, I would agree, it isn’t) just spend your money elsewhere.

Got a few glasses of a decent Argentinian Malbec for €4 of florins a glass, and a tasting dish of duck from Aniar at €7, which was alright. Didn’t spend too much but would be easy to lose the run of yourself if not careful. Other half won a Chapter One cook book during Ross Lewis’ demo so was a day well spent.

superblu

Headed in for a look on Thursday evening after getting free tickets. Have been a few times before so knew what to expect. Had a look at the Tom kitchen demo which I have to say I really enjoyed. It was quite obvious that Tom himself was going through the motions but he seemed like a sound bloke and went around and chatted to everybody afterwards. Grabbed a bit of grub from Jaipur which was pretty scabtastic for the price but what I expected. I then made my way through the various designer bearded square jawed jocks and st tropez lacquered birds and plonked my backside down and listened to smash hits for the night. Absolutely brilliant.

Richardstorm

personally, I went there a few years ago thinking it would be great but was utterly disappointed. If i have to pay in then i expect to get things for free or at the very least at a strongly reduced price but that was not the case. The restaurants there to showcase their Menus and products, gave really small samples that we had to pay for with the price of a starter. After 8 tasters we had spent a lot of money. we never went again. I thought the restaurants are there to give tasters away and maybe offer vouchers with a reduced price to draw people to their restaurants / generate new customers. After, I did not go to one restaurant's featured because i was so disappointed spending a fortune to sample their stuff.

nicowa

Toulouse wrote: »

We each tried a dish from The Green Hen and Il Primo, wasn't overly impressed with either, certainly not enough to book a table on the back of it. Jerusalem got our vote! Not as many freebies as there used to be when it first started.

The main draw was Smash Hits playing at what I presume was the main stage. Hilarious and they had a massive crowd watching them. Nice to sit out with a beer and watch. But again, this wouldn't have happened in the first few years as the music was just incidental.

Didn't try the first two places you named but we thought Jerusalem was bland. We got a falafel wrap and it was almost completely tasteless.

Got a lovely lamb dish from Jaipur but the chicken I got later I didn't like. Lovely desserts from Chapter One -om nomnom! Another delicious lamb dish but from Diep. I can't recall the last place we are from.

Had loads of free whiskey, toffee whiskey, tastes of craft beer etc.

Didn't get to Michel Roux Jr.'s thing but did get a photo with him. Went into Tim Anderson in the Electrolux kitchen and he was great.

Basically I had a great time. Yes, overall it was expensive but I have friends who would go out and spend €100 on a pub night out. At least this was a little different.

I would have liked more food places (the drinks places are beginning to take over - see even at a food tasting event the Irish simply drink). I went a few years ago and the plates were often only 3 florians. This year they were pretty much all 5 or up. But I put that down to a need to cover costs - again, if people are willing to spend the money on a bottle of wine/champagne rather than the food that they're supposedly there for, the good will cost the rest of us that bit more...


Anyway, like I said, I had fun. And I'll probably go again next year.

ETA Really "sample their stuff"? Pretty much everything I got was a good size dish (especially the one from Jaipur).

Bateman

nicowa wrote: »

the drinks places are beginning to take over

I noticed that as well, drinks stalls heavily outnumbered food seemingly

The Hill Billy

jjjade wrote: »

Hey guys. Was there yesterday and bought a bottle of canella Bellini from one of the stands. Does anyone know what stand was selling it r were I can get it

Cassidy Wines have it.