Whenever I am feeling sentimental about my trip to Italy last summer, I find I am drawn to the quaint village of Dalkey, where the narrow streets and continental atmosphere tend to conjure up memories of my time spent on the Amalfi Coast. And so I decided to celebrate my birthday last weekend in "La Romana" in The Queens in Dalkey with 5 of my friends. I have been to the Queens Pub on many occasions, but decided that this time we would contribute to the cheery Italian atmosphere that filters out from La Romana (the restaurant on the ground floor), instead of being the usual on-looker from the pub.
La Romana's menu caters for all tastes offering a good selection of starters, all reasonably priced from €5 - €9. My usual favourite of goats cheese was yet again confirmed in my choice of a Goats Cheese and Cherry Tomato Flan, with the pastry cooked to perfection and a crisp green salad. The other starters selected included Coconut Coated Tiger Prawns, West Coast Mediterranean Mussels, Fresh Soup of the Day and Mixed Seafood Chowder, and needless to say clean plates all round got the meal off to a very tasty start!

A popular selection of main courses offered a good choice of steak, chicken, pork, seafood, fish, pasta and pizza dishes without being too exhaustive. Myself and another guest were quickly tempted by the Medallion of Pork Masala with a Fruit Chutney which was well presented and accompanied by lightly browned sauté potatoes which went down a treat. One of the other male guests has been joking earlier about his girlfriend cooking him Chicken and Broccoli Pie for his dinner with much dissatisfaction, needless to say there was not much banter from this "meat and two veg man" while he tucked into his Sirloin Steak with Pepper Sauce like the cat that got the cream! My other guests chose the Gaelic Chicken (no not a misprint for garlic chicken), Fillet Steak with Mushroom Sauce and a New Orleans Pizza. All the main courses ranged from €11 - €21 and in our opinion were very fairly priced for the delights we received. The only negative thing I can say (for I am quite partial to the odd veggie for two) was the lack of vegetables included with the main courses. If you want to get your daily dose of vitamins you have to order these separately.

After a digestion break and a few more glasses of the very palatable House White South African wine, a feast of about 7 mouth-watering desserts were on offer, priced from €5 - €7. Having feasted on too many sauté potatoes, I opted for the "lighter" selection of ice-cream, which was also a popular choice with two other of my guests and the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours were just perfect. I was sitting their smugly thinking I'd got away with the embarrassing annual rendition of "Happy Birthday", when another temptation of Chocolate Brownies and Hot Chocolate Sauce with the all important candles was produced in front of me, while the well known chorus was performed by my grinning friends (despite pre-warning!).

A selection of cappuccinos and liqueur coffees brought a thoroughly enjoyable, fairly priced and professionally served meal to an all to soon end. Whether it's a date for two, a night out with the girlies (or lads!) or whatever the occasion, La Romana is hard to beat - well a few Italian waiters would have been an added bonus, but hey, we can cope with that!