When travelling, I like to plan ahead, so I know what gluten free options are available to me on arrival. My trip to dublin has been something different. Arranged at the last minute, at the bequest of my employers, I had to make some quick judgment calls to allow things to go as smoothly as possible.
I chose the hotel mainly for its proximity to a branch of Tesco. The theory being that the work laid on lunch would probably be impossible to eat (there was no time to get dietry requirement changes made), so I could at least be sure of picking up something to eat. As such, I went for the Best Western Dublin Skylon. Overall, I’m a little dissatisfied with the hotel – the internet access is poor (flakey, with no wifi in my room), and the rooms lack both air con and security safes. Still, its clean, and upmarket with pleasant staff, and it looks like I can probably get something gluten free to eat at the bar.
The nearby Tesco (Dumcondra Road, about 5 minutes walk from the skylon) does indeed carry a (small) range of free-from and gluten free foods, enough to allow me to construct some supplies. For a while I had trouble locating the gluten free bread – but eventually found it with the premium breads rather than the free-from foods. They apparently stock Genius bread – but had run out by the time I went shopping.
In fact all the major dublin supermarket chains in dublin supply gluten free foods. however, I approached a Centra near East Wall (around the corner from the east point business park), and was disappointed that they were not good at free-from foods.
For lunch I ate at the East Point business park’s Metro cafe bar. It wasn’t a fantastic choice for a gluten sensitive like myself, but I was able to find food that was gluten free and tasted very good.
In my research I quickly found two places to eat which offered good gluten free options
Beyond that, it would probably have to be the old steak and salad option in many places. Especially as local delicacies (irish stew, potato bread, irish sausages) all contain gluten.
