Dublin House

Stopped at Dublin House for dinner before a show.  We ate inside because it was hotter than hades the day we went. The restaurant is nice enough inside, casual and comfortable. They definitely need to shake up the kitchen. To begin with they had only one brand of Pinot Grigio and it was terrible - the kind of wine that makes you shiver when you take the first sip. Wish we had ordered a glass instead of a bottle.  I had the crab cakes and my friend had the haddock special. Both meals were simply awful. My plate was almost untouched but the waiter never even asked if everything was satisfactory. We both tasted each other's entrees and agreed that the meals were almost inedible. Based on the dismal experience with the entrees we abandoned our plans to spilt the homemade Irish Cream cheesecake. We did not dare risk the disappointment for that one. I will not go back to DH

The bar area is a bit narrow inside, but I really love the atmosphere - grab your drink and walk outside for outdoor seating if it's a balmy summer night. It's always been a pretty young crowd on the nights I've been there - lots of twenty-somethings milling about and getting drunk. There's free parking in the White Street lot after 6:00PM on weekdays and all day on Sundays.

This review is for the brunch offered at Dublin House, not an overall review of the bar, just our experience at the Dublin House on a Sunday morning.

Quick Overview - very disappointing - I don't usually write Yelp reviews, but all it took was a recent trip for brunch to this place and I had to vent about the dissatisfying experience. There are not many brunch options in Red Bank (are we the only ones who are looking for a bloody mary and western omelet on the weekend?) but we will probably not be going back to Dublin House for it.

Current deal is $16 for one drink (bloody, mimosa, etc) and a breakfast entree. Three of the four in our group got breakfast and feelings ranged from meh to very disappointed. I'll start with the drinks. The bloody marys were downright terrible. Might have been the worst I've ever had. Way too much pepper, weak on the liquor, no garnish, and the overall bloody mix just wasn't good. Not only that, but the size of the drink was pretty small (something I didn't complain about because the drink was weak). My personal take of what DH should do: Put a little more effort into this very important brunch drink and make them "endless" - I'd be much more apt to pay $20 for brunch with an "endless" title to it, especially it was halfway decent.

I ordered the french toast. They were ok, but the syrup (which I had to request - it wasn't brought out with the meal) was in McDonalds-style single serve packaging. I'm not here expecting 5 star sort of stuff, but whenever you serve something that reminds your patron of McDonalds, you are doing something wrong. Worse than that the fruit that came with the meal had mold on it. Mold! I brought this up to our waitress. She replied sorry...and that was it. Another in our group ordered eggs over easy. They came out cooked all through and the yolk was hard. The three egg omelet from another was given a "meh" rating and they were particularly disappointed that no toast or english muffin came along with. 16 bucks for an awful bloody mary and food that was really not good at all. Do yourself a favor and go up the street to the Broadway Diner and get better food for half the price.

Service was not anything to write home about either. I was a server for a number of years and so I always give them a little bit of a break, but the overall service was just not good. Our waitress was friendly and maybe she was really busy, but we had to request our silverware, napkins, and syrup. Nothing was done when moldy portion of meal brought to her attention.

Once I saw mold on the fruit, I felt I needed to have a chat with the manager to let him/her know our overall dissatisfaction with how the meal was going. Low and behold...no manager on duty. So not only did our entire experience lack something, anything that would bring us back, but the one person we could talk to, who might have a hand in changing that so we would actually return, was not even on the premises.

We sat outside and it was a lovely morning. The ambiance was great. But all we could focus on what how bad every part of our breakfast was...from the drinks to the food to the service. Very disappointed. I really want to like this place because, like I said, there are very few brunch options in the area. This town is ripe for someone to come in and put some effort and their name behind the food and drink they actually serve to the patrons.