Marios Sandymount - Review

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I read a review on Marios in Sandymount in today's Independent by Aingeala Flannery and was disgusted. What ever happened to unbiased analysis and research. Ms. Flannery states "I'd rather eat my own eyeballs than have dinner with a child". If that's her attitude then why go to a particular restaurant on a Sunday, which happens to be family day in Marios!! Children were not allowed in the main dining area of the restaurant, but the owners received so many complaints from locals, that they relaxed this rule on Sundays. If Ms. Flannery had such an aversion to children why didn't she eat later in the evening? Marios do not allow you to book a table but if none are available when you call, they will oblige by taking your mobile number, allow you to go for a drink locally, and call you when a table becomes free. If Ms. Flannery had bothered to find out anything about the restaurant before she went, I'm sure she would have been made aware of all of the above.

On one hand Ms. Flannery says her pasta was done to perfection, and the prices are reasonable but she still manages to make the place sound like a nightmare!! "Extra chocolate sauce was administered from a squeezy bottle at the table"....what Ms. Flannery neglects to say was that this was not at her table, but the one next to her where the mother requested that the child be allowed pour his own sauce....the staff obliged by putting the sauce into a squeezy bottle thus saving him and everything else from being covered in chocolate!! How do I know this, well a friend was there and described Ms. Flannery as the po faced cow at the next table!!

She complains that cutlery was missing from the table and the plates were put down first. This has not been my experience of Marios, nor has my candle ever been allowed to go out. The only complaint about the food seemed to be that her starter was too small. I've had this starter and although it's served on a small plate, I have never received it as Ms. Flannery describes. She admits that the wine is good and the prices in general are reasonable but on the whole it was a vitriolic little piece which has the locals fuming.

Ms. Flannery ought to make up her mind what she wants when she goes out. The food, wine, price and place were good but she still manages to make it sound like a dump. Her main complaint seemed to be that they allowed children in...what is she? a food critic? or what. So there were children in a restaurant at seven in the evening on a Sunday....what a surprise????

I have no vested interest in Marios...just a satisfied customer.
 
Re. children in restaurants I completely agree with Angela Flannery. Nice kids are a pleasure and they can go anywhere. Unfortunately screaming, badly behaved kids (& their parents) are the norm and render a quite cup of coffee or bite impossible in this country.
 

I don't think you should be biting children in any case, no wonder they are screaming.

This attitude to kids in restaurants always surprises me. In most of the rest of Europe you see kids happily running around in restaurants without anyone complaining. Are Irish children somehow more troublesome than those on the continent?
 

The point was that Sunday is family day in Marios. If you want a quiet bite or a cup of coffee, check it out first. If she didn't like eating with children why go at that time? To have something to write about I suspect!!
 
Likewise, if you are not happy with a fixed menu, don't complain when you try to substitute and are charged extra.
 
> Likewise, if you are not happy with a fixed menu, don't complain when
> you try to substitute and are charged extra.

Well I don't know if the two issues are as comparable as all that.

In one case you have a restaurant that has put aside a very small portion of the week to try to accomodate families, and a restauraunt critic who happened to choose that portion of the week to visit.

She has a right to complain about the policy of having family days.
But in the interest of fairness she should have pointed out that she visited on family day, rather than giving the impression that it's impossible to get a quiet meal in the place.

In short she can complain about the policy of having family days, but given that she visited on Family Day she shouldn't be complaining that there were kids.

Similarly people who complained here about fixed price menus etc, have a right to complain about restaurants engaging in that business practice. But if they go in with their eyes open and know the policy they probably shouldn't complain about the outcome.

One grey area is where someone makes what they consider a reasonable request, "I'd like to exchange this for something else". A good business will accomodate a customer even if it is not strictly part of their policy to meet the specific request.

A bad business will stick rigidly to their policies in the hopes of making a few extra quid, with no regard for whether or not the customer returns.

Perhaps if the critic had a problem with kids she could have asked to be seated further from them. Or she could have enquired if there was a time when she could visit when there weren't any kids.

If the Original Post is correct, it sounds like the Restaurant were facilitating a request of a customer by allowing the child to add their own chocolate sauce. This to me sounds like an excellent example of a good business, and if I were a restaurant critic I would have lauded them both for having a family day and for going the extra mile to make the family happy.

-Rd
 
I actually think the principle of 'family days' is great as long as we can have 'family-free days' but somehow I don't think that would fly! So I can see Ms. Flannery's point if was along these lines....
 
> as long as we can have 'family-free days' but somehow I don't think
> that would fly! So I can see Ms. Flannery's point if was along these
> lines....

I would have thought Family Free was pretty much the norm. I've eaten in Marios in Terenure and I don't think I've ever seen kids there. Similarly most resteraunts in Dublin. If you are eating dinner in most restaurants (as far as I can see) the norm is to see couples, and groups of friends, and occasionally a group of co workers.

I ate out A LOT, when I lived in Dublin, over the course of 8 or 9 years I probably ate out more than I should have, but I enjoy it. I don't recall even once being disrupted by kids.

Ingorant Adults yes. Many many times I've witnessed appaling behaviour by Adults, but I can honestly say no incident with a child sticks in my head. Maybe I just don't notice them.

Now, I was eating mid-weak, from about 8pm onwards. I would have thought it was obvious that if you go to any restaurant on a Sunday Afternoon then you'll find families there.

To be perfectly honest I don't know how anyone with kids could afford to bring the family out for dinner in Dublin. My ability to eat out was helped by not having any dependants to spend money on. Looking at the cost of raising kids I don't think eating out regularly will be on the agenda.

Over the last year or two I noticed restaurants in general were a lot quieter than they were prior to that. Not only were there no kids, on more than one occasion we were the only ones in the restaurant, or there might have been one other party.

I can't believe that people desperate to get away from kids would have any trouble finding a quiet spot in Dublin.

-Rd
 
Tom Doorley in the Irish Times recently did a review in which he basically said that he wasn't gone on scallops and yet he ordered them in this place. What is the point of that? I reckon that most restaurant reviewers are too up their own posteriors to take what they write seriously.
 

Aah please, leave Tom alone, he's my hero.
 

It all depends where you go. If you go into the steakhouse in Liffey Valley on a Saturday, you expect to see and hear kids and so you should. They should have places to go and enjoy themselves. That said, there is nothing more annoying than trying to have lunch with screaming kids at the next table where you don't expect them. Some parents just seem to become immune to the sound. I mean, with the price of food in Dublin, the leasat you can expect is that if one party is making a lot of disturbance, they will be asked to keep it down. For some reason it's not PC to ask families to keep it down but if it was a bunch of lads they would be asked pretty quickly to stop disturbing other customers
 
To be fair, does anyone take Angela Flannery seriously as a food critic anyway?
 
Sunny said:
To be fair, does anyone take Angela Flannery seriously as a food critic anyway?
Click to expand...
As someone recently said:

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"What Angela Flannery knows about food, restaurants or indeed anything very much can be written on the back of an aspirin with an axe and still leave room for 3 Hail Mary's".[/FONT]

Couldn't agree more!
 

Sounds right. Read a couple of her reviews but got sick of hearing about her "gentleman friend"....So she found some poor unfortuante soul was willing to go on a date in exhange for a free meal. Yippee!

Give me old Paolo Tullio any day....
 
> her "gentleman friend"....So she found some poor unfortuante soul was
> willing to go on a date in exhange for a free meal.

On condition of anonymity obviously.

-Rd
 
I have eaten in all of the Marios and wouldn't rate any of them to be honest. Totally overrated.
 
Marios in Sandymount used to have the same rule, kids upstairs only. Locals were furious. They reversed decision but then get a terrible review because they allowed kids! I think the food is good in Sandymount particularly for the price.
 
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