Dublin Lunch: The mylunch.ie al fresco options #2

Following the success and good reception of our last post, we at mylunch.ie have decided to give you some more options for outside dining in Dublin. We’re hoping that if we keep writing posts about good weather, it might stay around a while longer, or return as the case may be!

Tribeca
The enthusiasm, and eclectic New York orientated menu of Tribeca has been constantly winning admirers in the past while. Situated in Ranelagh, Tribeca stands out from the crowd with a unique position right in the centre of Dublin’s self styled food village. Its tasty lunch time offering is a staple of workers in the area, and with a daily updated special menu, usually consisting of omelettes, pasta, fish and other dishes, plus a huge standard menu, you will be spoilt for choice. Topping this offering off is a street-side terrace which rivals anything seen in the Big Apple, and which usually buzzes with atmosphere in this foodie orientated part of the world. Tribeca’s menu is available here, with the daily updated specials, including omelette, pasta and soup options are available here.

The Unicorn
A firm tradition of workers in the Baggot St. area, The Unicorn offers both contemporary and traditional Italian cuisine using only the best ingredients, and for great value. Staples of the lunch menu include bruschetta, fresh fish dishes, and of course some of the best pasta options that Dublin has to offer. With a full and impressive wine list, and an even more impressive page dinner menu, there is no surprise that The Unicorn has been a firm favourite for two decades. The restaurant comes alive when the sun is shining, and the covered terrace, which is just off Merrion Row, is a perfect slice of a Mediterranean town transported to Ireland. Currently on mylunch.ie, we are offering a free dessert with your lunch, with an onsite voucher, so you can enjoy a free tiramisu as you watch the world go by! Check out The Unicorn page here.

Merrion Square
As was stated in the last blog post on this topic, Dublin in the Summer is full of leafy parks and green areas to wile away a lunch hour in bliss, with Merrion Square the epitome of this. Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of Baggot Street and the overlooking Government Buildings, the square provides the opportunity to enjoy ones lunch in perfect tranquility. Again, there are numerous take-away dining options within the area. These include:

Itsa...
Since 2004, Itsa... has served fresh bagels, home-made soups and goodies, as well as tea and coffee from mainly Irish suppliers. A tasty pick me up at lunch time, Itsa... bagels also reach the holy grail of a good value, healthy lunch option (€6 euro for any bagel and a tea/coffee). The premises is in well located, and suited to grab and go, meaning enjoying a “Californian” (onion bagel with bacon, avocado, mozzarella, lettuce, basil and mayo) in the shade of Merrion Square is an experience you should not miss!

Spar
Our second option is the flagship Spar store on nearby Merrion Row. The gold fronted retailer offers numerous food concepts (including noodles) for lunch on the run, as well as a small seating area. Current specials include sandwich of the day plus an apple for €2.99, and any roll, Hunky Dory crisps and Spar water for €5, while other favourites include skewered chicken satay and pre-made fresh salads.

So there you have it, there are plenty of options on mylunch.ie for outside dining to help you make the most of those rare sunny Summer days, as the last two blog posts have shown. We promise to arm you with the information, all you have to do is find a spare spot in the open!
Stay tuned to the mylunch.ie blog for more great value lunch offers, competition and vouchers...

Dublin Lunch: The mylunch.ie al fresco options

With Summer 2010 in full swing, and the warm weather hopefully here to stay (thanks in no small part to a daily mylunch.ie office sundance!), we here at Ireland’s hottest (pun possibly intended!) lunchtime deal site have decided to help you soak it up by offering some tips on Dublin options which combine both great value, superb quality food, and an al fresco dining experience. Because, as we all know, good lunch is good, but good lunch in the roaring sun is great!

Here are some choices we’ve come up with:

GBK
Fast becoming a lunch institution, all three Gourmet Burger Kitchen outlets in Dublin city centre (Sth. Anne St., Sth. William St. and Temple Bar Square) have a large, spacious open air area outside. Incidentally, the three are also located in perfect people watching spots, which is always an added bonus with al fresco dining!
Combined with this great set up, GBK also offers a full drinks menu; but the real piece de resistance is the food. Mouth-watering options like the Jamaican, Mexican, Avocado Bacon and Kiwiburger, which consists of beetroot and pineapple amongst other toppings (a real “must try”), are a perfect compliment to a balmy day eating lunch in Dublin! And if this isn’t enough to entice you, we at mylunch.ie currently offer a great value voucher for all GBK’s around Dublin, giving you the option of “any burger on the menu for €5 when you buy a drink, side or starter”. What better an excuse to enjoy a gourmet burger and chunky fries for lunch?

KOH
Fancy a little slice of Asia in your lunch hour? Located on the fashionable Millennium Walkway near Jervis St. Dublin 1, KOH’s self stated philosophy is to offer reasonably priced, quality, original and traditional Asian dishes using as many local ingredients as possible. Their Light Bites menu offers a vast selection of dishes, of which three can be chosen for €12, while their daily special is both health conscious and divine. Again, not only do KOH offer fantastic dining, but also a spacious outdoor terracefor al fresco dining or relaxing with a beverage from the well stocked cocktail bar whilst watching the world go by. KOH is a thoroughly modern and funky option for outside lunch, in a newly refurbished and modern part of Dublin.

St. Stephens Green/Iveagh Gardens
Our final al fresco lunch option is the most obvious of the whole lot, yet criminally overlooked by many. St. Stephens Green is the heart and soul south of the river, and really buzzes at lunchtime in Dublin, while the up until recently well kept secret of the Iveagh Gardens is now widely known as one of Dublin’s gems. So, what are your take-away lunch options in this area?

Firstly we have Munchies on Baggot St. (one of numerous Munchies dotted around Dublin). These guys pride themselves on providing wholesome food using only the finest ingredients, as well as organic fair trade coffee. Their extensive lunch menu includes wraps, salads, soups, and of course the famous Chicken Whoopie. The Baggot St. branch offers the great deal of any sandwich under €5 plus soup of the day for €6.50. We are also currently running a voucher on-site.

The second take-away option, which we here at mylunch love is Insomnia. With 13 locations in Dublin 2, including Wexford St., Earlsfort Tce., St. Stephens Green and Pembroke St, Insomnia is home of hand crafted coffee and gourmet sandwiches. Added to this however, is the great value available. All Insomnias offer a sandwich & any hot beverage for €5, and a panini & any hot beverage for €6, as well as other great lunch deals, which we bring to you on site every day.

Finally, what good is a post on al fresco dining without the Italiano option? They may have gone out of the World Cup at the first hurdle, but their lunch offering is still world class! Pacinos on Suffolk St. is a family run restaurant known for their delicious pizzas and pastas, steaks and salads. Offering both eat in and take out, Pacinos is Italian cuisine done very well. And if this wasn’t reason enough to try it out, we are currently running a 2 for 1 voucher on take out from Monday to Wednesday! The massive take away menu includes the above staples of pasta, salads, and pizza, but also delicious ciabattas, wraps and paninis.

So as long as the good weather continues, (hopefully we haven’t put a jinx on it!) you have numerous options to enjoy it during your lunch hour, thanks to www.mylunch.ie!

Invite A Friend To Lunch:

Folks we’ve just launched a handy new facility on mylunch.ie that we think you’ll love.

Most of us belong to a lunch crew of some sort, maybe even a couple of them… one crew from work, the other a few mates working not too far away. But as we all know getting the whole posse together can be more difficult these days, with everyone being busier, and more under pressure than ever. So we thought we’d help you out with our brand new ‘Invitation Generator’! It’s a quick and easy way to get all the info to the right people in double time!

You simply go to www.mylunch.ie and find a restaurant, cafe or bar whose specials or menu you think everyone will like and click on the ‘invite a friend to lunch button’ on that venue’s page. Then just add the time, date and your mates’ email addresses and bingo, you’re done! You all get an email with a link to the menu and specials of the venue you’ve chosen so everyone can have a quick look with no hassle. Problem solved! We can’t guarantee that they’ll all be free but we’ve made it as easy as possible for them to say yes!

Let’s face it, work is busier and a lot more stressful these days so we all need to make the most of our lunch break! With this in mind, we are also offering you the chance to win free lunch for you and your friends as a reward for putting our Invitation Generator to use. Lucky winners will be picked at random and will receive lunch on us at the venue they have selected. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?!

Register on www.mylunch.ie to use the Invitation Generator and to be in with a chance to win free lunch for you and your friends.

www.mylunch.ie brings lunch value to the consumer

www.mylunch.ie has been up and running for almost 4 months now so many thanks for all your feedback, support and usage of our website. As I’m sure you are aware, we are focused on providing consumers with the most up-to-date lunch information and the best lunchtime value. The former has been achieved through daily interactions with retailers, bringing what they are displaying on their daily specials blackboards to their personalised www.mylunch.ie pages.

The latter has been boosted by great offers being run by retailers exclusive to www.mylunch.ie. The www.mylunch.ie vouchers have proven a roaring success, with the right offer bringing consumers flocking to avail of it. 2-for-1 lunch is something a lot of people are liking the sound of at the moment, with 2-for-1 lunch vouchers available on www.mylunch.ie for venues such as Dandelion, The Baggot Inn, Oil Can Harry's and the Ocean Bar, and 2-for-1 coffee at West Coast Coffee proving very popular.

Retailers have benefited too because they are not really losing out on 50 per cent of a purchase. Consumers are appreciating the effort being made and end up purchasing drinks/coffees/desserts to go with their meal because they know they are already getting that extra bit of value.

We would love to know your thoughts on the value you have been achieving thanks to www.mylunch.ie. As was stated above, bringing value to the consumer is a key focus of our business and we will have more great offers (including more free lunch with the 2-for-1 vouchers) coming onto the site over the coming weeks, so keep an eye out on the website for these as well as the other great offers.

If We Had a 100,000 Users

So it’s like this. www.mylunch.ie is a new website, and like many new websites it was started with great intentions in mind. We want to bring value and choice to all our users, whether it’s a 2-for-1 lunch voucher, or a free bottle of water with your sandwich, we want to know about it, so we can bring it to you.

So far we’ve got a number of these deals on our site, but we want more.... a lot more. We want to ensure that any user of www.mylunch.ie, anywhere in Ireland, can find the best lunch value in their area, on any given day, on www.mylunch.ie. We want to ensure that our users know which retailers on their street are willing to go the extra mile and fight for their custom. We want our users to get a great lunch, at great value, but we also want to reward the retailers that are making that extra effort for your business. That way, they keep running specials, and you keep getting value. The best way that we can do that is by bringing them custom from our users.

So if we want to bring you the best deals in your area, then we need to let the retailers know that we have the users. This begs the question, what would www.mylunch.ie do if we had a 100,000 users.

First off, 100,000 monthly users may sound like a lot, but this wouldn’t even put www.mylunch.ie in the Top 30 busiest websites in Ireland, so it’s a good place to start. Most of all though, 100,000 users would mean that rather than www.mylunch.ie going to the retailers and asking them to run a lunch offer for our members, retailers would be coming to www.mylunch.ie and asking for a way to target our users. In other words, www.mylunch.ie would have the combined bargaining power of 100,000 users (are you thinking He-Man at Castle Greyskull? or is it just me)

So what could we do with all that power? Well at www.mylunch.ie our concern is about 2 things.... your stomach and your wallet, so let’s keep the focus on these.

First off, www.mylunch.ie is about real choice. This means bringing you a wide selection of retailers, from the convenient shop on the corner, to the bar down the road, to the Michelin recommended restaurant around the corner that you didn’t even know was there. With a 100,000 users we will get 2,000 retailers on www.mylunch.ie before the year is out. That means that wherever you work in Ireland, we will have the retailers in your area on our site, and we will continue to ensure that we display their menu updated on a daily basis (because that’s just what we do).

So let’s talk about your wallet (or purse for the fairer among us). To date we run a lot of vouchers on www.mylunch.ie, but here’s the thing.... whether it’s a hangover of days that have passed, or something deeper in the Irish psyche, we’ve found that people just don’t like using vouchers with lunch unless there’s a significant saving involved. So with a 100,000 users, there would be great benefits available with the www.mylunch.ie card. All you will need to do is check out www.mylunch.ie before going for lunch and see the retailers that are running special promotions for www.mylunch.ie cardholders. Then simply show your card when ordering or paying and you could benefit from a range of treats be they 2-for-1 offers, a free beverage with your meal, or maybe an upgrade on the size of your coffee. What you can be sure of though, is with a 100,000 of these cards in circulation in Ireland, every retailer will want to show the www.mylunch.ie users that they are willing to fight for your custom.

All of this means your week of lunching will result in better variety, and more money in your pocket. So if you think www.mylunch.ie having 100,000 users sounds like a good thing, then help us make it happen. Visit www.mylunch.ie and register today for updates and our regular competitions, tell your friends about www.mylunch.ie, become a fan of www.mylunch.ie on facebook, follow us on twitter, (tweet or retweet) or create a link from your webpage to ours and help us all.

Thanks for reading

A Week Of Using www.mylunch.ie To Decide My Lunch: The Outcome

So I decided it was time to put www.mylunch.ie to the test, the test being to select places to go for lunch every day this week based on the offers they were displaying on the www.mylunch.ie website and to see what lunchtime value was really out there.
Here is how I got on:

Monday
The Monday blues were in full force and I wasn’t feeling too social, so I went for a quick soup and a sandwich from Spar on Dame Street. This cost me €4, including a free 500ml bottle of water. A good start to the week I thought.

Tuesday
Feeling a little more social, I decided to meet a friend for lunch and check out Dandelion’s new special offer. They are running a voucher on www.mylunch.ie Monday to Wednesday of 2 main courses for the price of 1. I printed off the voucher and made my way to Dandelion. Friendly staff, great food and a super location. I went for a chicken fajita and fries for €11.00 and my friend went for the lasagne at €10.95, so with our voucher it worked out at just €5.50 each… Sweet.

Wednesday
Café en Seine’s new offer looked intriguing so I decided to check it out. €5.90 for Soup & a Sandwich and I was very impressed. One of Dublin’s most upmarket night venues offering great lunchtime value too.

Thursday
Feeling like something different yet healthy, I headed for Wagamama. They’ve a great lunch special menu and I went for the yaki soba for €9.95, which came with a choice of free drinks. As I said, I was feeling healthy so I went for the Apple Juice, but the offer of a free Tiger Beer was very tempting.

Friday
It being the start of the weekend, we in at the office decided to treat ourselves. We checked the site and found that FXB on Lower Pembroke Street were serving up a steak sandwich for only €10. These guys are known for their great steaks, so at just €10, this capped a great week’s lunching.

So I think that’s some quality lunchtime eating for an average of just over €7 a day.
Think about what you spent this week. Did you get the same choice & value?
We’d love to hear your thoughts…..

mylunch.ie, The Hottest Lunchtime Offers:

Our lunch specials and offers website, www.mylunch.ie, has been up and running since November and we’ve had a great response so thanks to all who have become regular viewers and users of the site.

We’ve set up the website so that it is as user-friendly as possible and easily brings people to the information most useful to them. Say you are working in an office on Lower Baggott Street, our research tells us that your main lunch concern will be what lunch offers are available in the surrounding area. A visit to www.mylunch.ie and a quick selection from our homepage dropdowns shows you what restaurants, cafés and pubs have lunch specials available in and around that street. A click on one of these retailer’s logos then shows you the lunch offers they are running for that day.

The fact that we update retailers’ lunch specials daily means it will definitely be worth your while to check back to the site any time you are thinking about lunch. As we mentioned in our last blog, we are about promoting lunch value, so if you want to easily know where this value lies then your best bet is to consult the www.mylunch.ie website.

Our stance on who to include on the site was to be open-minded. We want to cater for the needs of everyone; from those looking for a low cost lunch to those looking for the best value fine dining. People’s lunch venue preferences and requirements do change daily so our site has factored in these changes and everyone should be able to find something to their liking on any given day.

Our site and our business offer a new, original experience so we would be delighted to get some feedback on how people are making use of the site in fulfilling their lunch needs. We would love to know what influences your searches (e.g. would you primarily click on the lunch venues you are familiar with or do the places less well known to you draw your attention more?) and how often do you actually end up buying the offers you have seen through our site?



Blog Directory

It is Now the Era of the Lunch Deal

My concern for the lunch hour has prompted me into action. I know I said before that lunch was about more than just a meal, but if you walk around Dublin these days you will see some great lunch deals.

Admittedly in the past the off-putting high prices could have influenced my lunch preference for a quick take-away sandwich accompanied with a quick retreat back to the office. Now though things have definitely changed, and even though people might have less spring in their step about work I think they can at least find some comfort in knowing that they can expect greater value when they go out for lunch, no matter what their dining preference.

Myself and some colleagues are confident that people are recognising that this is the era of the lunch deal and embracing it wholeheartedly, and so we are developing a website, www.mylunch.ie, that will conveniently show people just where this lunch value lies and the lunch specials that are on offer in these outlets that day.

Anyone else been impressed by the newfound eagerness for business being expressed by lunch retailers through their updated deals and specials?

Give me back my lunch hour!

What ever happened to the lunch hour? I now find that lunch has become something you have to get over with quickly because time away from the desk is time away from productivity. Most days my lunch is eaten at my desk, in between calls to clients. I am sure many of you face a similar situation as a rushed lunch appears to be becoming the standard practice everywhere.

I can just about remember the days when the lunch break had meaning and was something to be treasured.
For me, with a lunch hour came:

-Less stress
-Greater job satisfaction
-A greater sense of freedom
-A more sociable working environment
-A chance to get some fresh air
-A work day that went by quicker

I miss these forgotten days and I want to start a petition for a reinstatement of the lunch hour. Are you with me comrades?!