Stokers Lodge

Upper Edward Street

IN a former life I regularly lunched at Stoker’s Lodge.

It was ideal for people whose workplace was located outside of the town centre and didn’t want to hassle of finding a parking space. There was always a good crowd there and the food was good.

Not set-the-world-alight-fantastic, but, y’know, good. That was a long time ago and having dined there again during the week, I found not much has changed.

However, the first thing I noticed on entering was that it was surprisingly quiet for a lunchtime. I know Stoker’s is a big place and there was about eight or nine tables taken up with happy diners, but at the same time it wasn’t that busy.

The decor hadn’t changed a bit in the seven years since I was last inside the doors, with pine floors and furniture giving it an old-style, traditional feel.

One of the main reasons I used to go to Stokers all those years ago was the open sandwiches which came in a plate overflowing with various salads.

I spotted ‘open sandwiches’ on the regular menu (which also looked the same as in 2007), ordered one of the chicken variety (€6.95) from the friendly waitress and duly waited. When it arrived it was like old times.

Let’s see…there was curried rice salad, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, grated cheddar cheese and a regular salad alongside two large slices of brown bread topped with nearly a breast of chicken. It genuinely could have fed two people.

Besides the bread being a little hard, the chicken, though placed plainly on top of the bread, worked well when joined on a fork with some of the tasty salads.

Some of the lunch specials included ‘pan roasted chicken breast with rich roast gravy (€9.95)’,  ‘beef stir fry with rice (€9.95)’ and ‘seafood tagliatelle in rich cream white wine sauce (€11.95)’. Desserts were very reasonably priced at €3.95 each.

I had a cappuccino to finish, the bill coming in at €9.25 and I was stuffed.

Stokers offers good value for money and the policy seems to be ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

3.5/5