Should I quit my job at The Company and try to make it as a food critic? Someone at Ely bar wouldn’t agree…

Menupages.ie is a website where you can review restaurants, every review gives you points, that you can exchange with lunch offers. My profile is cheeseandpears.com  (they don’t let you leave a link). I had bad and good experiences. The latest one so far, at Ely wine bar in city centre hasn’t been positive at all. You can see my review here.

Now, this is the reply of an Ely employee.

Hi Cheese & Pears,

My name is and I work for ely winebar here in Dublin.

I am just following up on a comment that you left on http://www.menupages.ie in relation to your experience in ely. (apologies for contacting you through these means, but unfortunately this is my only method of communicating with you).

Firstly I would like to say that at ely our main focus is our customers and the experience they have with us – it is with regret that I read your review.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. There have been times where we have taken the stew off the menu, but we have had to promptly put it back on due to popular demand. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

We have always, and will continue to welcome feedback from our customers on our offering, and have always trained every member of our floor staff to check their tables regularly (without intruding) to ensure that everything is as it should be. On the rare occasion that something is amiss, this allows us the opportunity to rectify any problems there and then and ensure that our customers leave happy.

Perhaps had we know of your disappointment with our offering during your visit it would have not only have afforded us the opportunity to clarify and correct any issues you had but also allowed us the opportunity to reassure you that we are committed to offering the best produce and best customer service possible.

The time this person took to reply to my poor review deserved a reply, so here we go.

Our stew has been a signature dish on our menu for the past ten years, and is organic and from our family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. It is unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy yours and a real pity that this was not brought to our attention on the day and we could have looked into this further and made any amendments that may have made your visit an enjoyable one.

There was no amendment to do, I did like your stew, it’s just that it tasted like boiled meat. There’s nothing wrong with that and indeed it was really good, but I was (and still am) puzzled. I thought that the “a stew boiled is a stew spoiled” was one of those simple, unquestionable truth, but I’m having doubts.

You reference to our ice-cream offering is incorrect and mis-leading. It is an offer for sale at €5.95, not €7.00 and for that it is three large scoops of our own homemade ice-cream and our home biscuit. Having not ordered this I feel that it is a very unfair judgment on your part.

I didn’t remember the price of the ice-cream, so I looked in the Menupages menu. And yes, I admit that sarcasm about something I didn’t order is sort of a cheap shot.

It is also worth noting that our venison dish is an offer for sale at €27.95 and not €30.00 as quoted in your review thus again incorrect and mis-leading.

I trusted  my friend when he said “30 euros for a venison dish, are they crazy?” Why did he order it then? I hear you asking. That’s a mystery to me too. Anyway, he obviously rounded to 30. Accept my apologies for not doublechecking, but even with €2.05 euros less, I still think the dish was either too expensive or too small.

Lastly I fail to understand your reference to a 10% tip. It is quite clearly printed on all of our menus (in all three ely venues) that “Service is not included except on parties of 6 or more when a 12.5% gratuity will be added to your bill”.

When the waiters deserve it, and the guys that served us that night surely did, I tip 10% anyway. My reference to the tip was just an advice for those who don’t read through the menu and don’t check the receipt before leaving the restaurant.

With coffee places at every corner, a good espresso in Dublin is now easy to find, and expensive, as an espresso macchiato would cost you 2 euros. I guess coffee is still seen as something exotic, and fortunately enough, I tend to forget how cheap it is in Italy (“90 cents” said the barista last time I was in a bar in my hometown.  “Are you sure?” I replied). Anyway, the place in Dublin where I had the best coffee is Butler’s Chocolate Café at Blanchardstown Centre.

If you’re at home, use coffee maker, which we call moka (if you’re reading from Europe click here). You can find all sizes: from single cup coffee makers to twelve. If you already are a proud owner of this interesting device invented by Alfonso Bialetti, you should already know  how to use it, if you don’t, here you can find extensive instructions. In a nutshell it’s:

water in the base + coffee in the strainer +  top part + fire

Well, there’s more actually, these are a couple of things you want to know:

• use filtered water. The coffee will taste better, and and the moka will last longer
• it doesn’t matter if you like strong stuff, don’t push the powder in the strainer or the coffee will taste awful
• the moka needs to retain the coffee flavour, so don’t wash it with soap, EVER!
• for the same reason, if you only use it less than once a week, make one test coffee first, and throw it away
• change the gasket and the filter when it’s brownish, that’s becasue it’s burnt
• when the base pot is covered with limestone it’s time buy a new moka
• with a low flame, the coffee will brew slower, enhancing the flavour. A higher flame though, will give you hotter coffee, which is part of the pleasure
• keeping the lid open while it’s brewing will let the steam go away, but you wanna close it when the coffee is starting to come out, or it will spatter all around
• spend a little more and get decent stuff. Here in Dublin I buy Lavazza, and if we were not in recession I would definitely buy Illy
• no instant coffee, please
• if this coffee maker just isn’t your cup of tea, you can go for other types of coffee makers, like a small coffee machine or one of the best electric coffee makers.