Continental

Linda and myself are trying at least once a week to meet in town for lunch and our main 'joints' are actually Fenn's Quay and Nash 19 but on Thursday we decided to give Continental a try.

Run by a Polish couple, the welcome is great. I arrived before Linda and was offered a newspaper straight away. Water and breads came straight after the newspaper. A friendly smile really made you feel as if you are a long lost friend finally returned.

The lunch menu is short but well thought through. Soup of the day was tomato and red sweet chilli (€4.50), place in batter (€13.95), homemade fish cakes (€13.95) and steak sandwich (€12.95) were the usual suspects of a lunch menu. But what made this lunch menu a bit more special was the 'Bit of Both' Special. It offered a cup of the soup of the day, a slice of the tart of the day (on this day goats' cheese and onion jam) with either salad or rustic potatoes and tea or coffee. All that for €9.95. We both went for it. The platter looked beautiful. The soup came in a coffee cup and was creamy, smooth with a lovely kick to it. The tart was build like a savoury bakewell tart with the onion jam on the bottom of the tart and the goats' cheese mixture on top. The sweetness of the jam was cutting nicely through the tartness of the cheese without overpowering it or being overpowered by it. I chose the salad but Linda went of the rustic potatoes which were crispy (without being inedible hard) and soft in the middle. All in all a satisfying lunch for a satisfying price.

The interior was relaxed, clutterfree, clean lines in earthy colours in contemporary design. Black & White photographs on the wall showed food related images. All in all, a welcoming ambiance.

They also have an evening menu so I might pay them a visit again to see how the 'night-shift' works. For lunch it got my thumbs up.