I’m a sucker for special offers, frequently finding myself with 2 bottles of the same shampoo or 10 lemons in the fridge at once. Perhaps it is a trait I inherited from my mother, or perhaps it is the eternal ‘student-mindedness’ in me! Special offers when it comes to eating out are no exception, and with a huge proliferation of cafes and restaurants in our capital, lunchtime menus and offers are common fare.

So I took my friend Sheilagh to TGI Fridays during her lunch hour midweek, on a day I was nursing a hangover from the previous night’s work do. Retail therapy was the cure of the day, so I decided to stock up on shopping fuel first. The lunchtime menu at this popular American cook-house is available from 12-3 on Monday through to Friday. You can avail of the club sandwich and soup for 3.95, or get a ‘lunch’ portion of several main course dishes. On a whole, the dinner menu is extensive. Starters include buffalo wings, Caesar salad, deep fried stuffed chili peppers, loaded potato skins and nachos. Soup, American style sandwiches and wraps include a club, mushroom and caramelized vegetable roll, and other unusual and tasty combinations, all served with salad or fries and coleslaw. Mains include 5 pastas, 4 salads, 2 seafood and 3 chicken dishes, 8 burger varieties, plenty of steak and pork options, not to mention lots of side orders.

For example, choose from steak chicken or vegetable fajitas, 14oz rib eye steak with JD glaze, Cajun fried chicken salad (plenty of salad dressings on offer!), a seafood medley or spicy Thai chicken noodles. For lunch, I choose the chicken chardonnay-pan seared sliced chicken breast sautéed with zucchini, onions, tomatoes, red peppers, chardonnay sauce, garlic, and mushrooms and served over tagliatelle. The dish was particularly tasty, but not overly hot (no one dishes up hot food like my mother!!). Regretfully, the kitchen had run out of Parmesan, so I made so with some black pepper. Sheilagh’s Caesar salad with grilled chicken was also a success. Alas, the portion size did little to satisfy me, so we ordered some chocolate chip milkshakes. And boy were these good! Almost a dessert in themselves, I was tempted to ask the jolly waitress for a long handled sundae spoon to finish off the large chocolate chunks at the bottom! Being true sweet-tooth’s, we decided to share a dessert. A little pricey at 5.00, but hey I though, start as I mean to go on!

I can heart fully say this was worth every penny! From a choice of Ben & Jerry’s Ice-cream (Haagen Daas no longer interests me after tasting this little bit of heaven), a caramel apple pie, a classic chocolate malt cake, “Cookies gone bananas”, I opted for the “Cookies Madness”; Chocolate crumb cookie sandwiched with vanilla ice-cream and topped with hot fudge and caramel sauce, The waitress obligingly added 2 scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream, just to make our eyes and our stomachs bulge that fraction more. Sinfully delicious! Our lunch dishes cost 5.95 each but I was graced with a 2-4-1 voucher so lunch cost just over 10.00 each.

I find American style restaurants in Dublin generally quite pricy, especially the themed ones, but you certainly get your money’s worth. However, you get both quality and huge quantities at TGI’s (at dinner that is!). the cocktail bar is a favorite of mine, it’s never ending menu always enthralls me for a few drunken fun hours! Not to mention the highly entertaining staff always ready and willing to demonstrate their renditions of Tom Cruise in Cocktail! The restaurant is huge and always full at weekends, especially with English folk. It’s big, noisy and jolly. And if it were not for the rather young and oh-so-attractive Irish manager, you would swear you were in the heart of the American countryside at a ranch bar. A great venue for group meals.