Lucinda O'Sullivan's Ireland

About The Restaurant

The hip and cool dining and shopping scene in Dublin, in the past couple of years, is undoubtedly around the Exchequer and George’s Street area with lots of new restaurants and gastrobars opening.  However, Fintan O’Reilly was way ahead of the posse with his Boulevard Café, which opened in 1996 and has been feeding happy regular diners for the past fifteen years.  

What attracts people to Boulevard is not only their quintessential European Mediterranean style cuisine, but the fact that there is always a buzz and a happy friendly atmosphere, with good food at good prices.   I get my hair done locally so I find it so handy to pop in here for lunch or when shopping late night.  I always see familiar faces at their tables, and people do not go back and back again, unless the restaurant is doing something really well.   

The a la carte dinner menu is filled with those dishes we all love on a regular basis.  I particularly adore the goat cheese tartlette, which is a delicious confection of puff pastry, goats cheese, caramelised onion, rocket and beet salad.  Loin of tuna is paired with shaved fennel, potato crisps and sauce vierge, whilst Cashel Blue cheese is matched with Clonakilty black pudding and served on baby rocket leaves with caramelised apple and walnut.  Tiger prawns come with sweet chilli oil and coriander and mango salsa, whilst the ever popular Bruschetta is toasted ciabatta brushed with extra virgin olive oil and garlic and topped with tomatoes and fresh basil.

Dinner mains include slow braised lamb shank on creamed potato, roast Mediterranean vegetables and mint jus, whilst breast of Barbary duck is roasted and served with poached plums, Fondant potato and a wild berry jus.  I love that particularly.  Sea Bass is panfried and served on a Nicoise salad, served with dill crème fraiche whilst a chicken supreme is on sweet potato mash, sauteed baby leeks and a Madeira jus.   There are always great steaks here too.  A cracking 8 oz fillet steak comes with home cut fries, sautee mushrooms and onions, and a choice of creamy peppercorn sauce or garlic butter, whilst a rib eye steak has field mushrooms, home cut fries and peppercorn sauce.   They also do pastas and pizzas.  Tiger prawn linguine is tossed with virgin olive oil, white wine and garlic, juicy Tiger prawns and cherry tomato, whilst the ever popular Tagliatelle Carbonara sees the pasta tossed in traditional fashion with smoked bacon in a creamy garlic and Parmesan sauce.  If pizza is your passion try The Godfather which consists of Mozzarella cheese, pesto, spicy chorizo sausage and broccolli.   Alternatively you might fancy Florentina – I love this one too because it has Mozzarella, shaved red onion, asparagus, spinach and egg.
There is also the Cajun Chicken or the Valentina Rosso.

The lunch menu too, is delicious and offers a wide variety of options at really good prices.  They do what I call great ‘posh’ sandwiches, lovely breads with lovely fillings and toppings.  Cured meat ciabatta is one of my favourites. The lovely fresh bread is brushed with virgin olive oil, and filled with delicious charcuterie, rocket, and olive and fennel salad.  They also have a great toasted ciabatta steak sandwich layered with red onion confit, sirloin steak and mushrooms, served with home cut fries.  Brendan loves goats cheese so he always goes for the goats cheese tartlette and follows up in the French style with Beef Bourguignon which is succulent and rich, tender and juicy.
He also likes their homestyle organic beef burger which comes on a sesame bun with aged cheddar, bacon, and home cut fries.  They do a great lunchtime deal which also includes any appetiser, main course, and tea or coffee.

They have an excellent selection of wines by the bottle or the glass, and they also do half bottles which I always like to see these days.

You won’t go wrong on this Boulevard. 



 
 

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