O'Neill's Trinity Street Cardiff

Sometimes, on rainy days like today, I get a craving for bangers and mash in a pub. As this was O’Neill’s in Trinity Street Cardiff, it was Irish Pork and Leek Sausages (three plump ones) served on Colcannon (Irish mash of potatoes, spring onions and cabbage) with a rich Red Onion Gravy. I washed it down with a Brains S.A.

Service was friendly and efficient. Portion size was excellent for the price, being £3.49 for the food. Nothing was over-arranged on the plate. O’Neill’s is a welcoming chain pub; a good place to relax. Christy Moore in the music rotation, old Guinness adverts on the walls. They have live music many evenings.

But what’s with the little blue “o’neill’s” labels? They get stuck everywhere - on the beer glasses (not good) and on the napkins (makes them difficult to open). It’s a fussy little detail in an unpretentious pub.

Irish food and Irish music - it’s almost an excuse to quote some Joyce (as if I need one):
“He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, polonies, black and white. Fifty multiplied by. The figures whitened in his mind unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links packed with forcemeat fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pig's blood…
The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with blotchy fingers, sausagepink.”

Pub website:
http://www.oneills.co.uk/oneillstrinitystreetcardiff/
20-21 Trinity Street, Cardiff, CF10 1BHTel: 02920 371 26
(there’s also an O’Neill’s in nearby St Mary Street Cardiff)