A long time ago, in an era far, far away, there was an occasional Food on the Hoof series. I have written about the joys of food and travel from ZAmbia, SWaziland, Madagascar as well as less exocic 

It’s been a while since hoof met keyboard but it’s time to start again see where the scribbles take us.

A long time ago, in an era far, far away, there was an occasional Food on the Hoof series. I have written about the joys of food and travel from Zambia, Swaziland, Madagascar as well as less exotic locals as Brussels, London and Vienna, which, if memory serves, was the inaugural Food on the Hoof.

It has however been quite a while since hoof met keyboard, a great many miles of have been traversed and some really quite good meals and an frighteningly large amount of fairly mediocre meals have been consumed. However, it is time to start again see where the scribbles take us.

And where better to start that than somewhere that many people start their own journeys; an airport. In this case, Dublin Airport.

First of all, a disclaimer. I don’t usually enjoy airports, with one or two exceptions. Dublin is not an exception. Secondly, the last few departures from Dublin have been between 0600 and 0700, which means being awake and in an airport before 0500. Nobody should be in an airport before 0500. I am writing this a little 0430. Keep this in mind.

Since I returned to Europe from the sunny and gorgeously warm lands of southern Africa I’ve moved from being vegetarian to vegan, so my assessments for the Hoof have changed a little. Not much, but a little. However, the main tenants of the Hoof remain exactly as they were; good food, without the pomp and circumstance, often eaten in the hand, in the open air. The criteria hasn’t changed.

So, Dublin airport. 0430 on a late August Wednesday morning. Not an auspicious start. There are two main areas for food. One is a pseudo upmarket dining experience that purports to offer cordon bleu cooking, large plates with small portions. The second is a carvery style canteen delivery where the food is kept in chrome tureens under hot lamps.

The first failed at the first hurdle. Looking at a menu, ordering and paying has to be done through some bloody awful QR code, on line. There are a number of issues with this, not least that the cellular coverage is awful, forcing users on to the airport wifi, which is never a great place to be passing credit card details. Who in their right mind wants to be looking at a menu on a mobile ‘phone screen, endlessly scrolling up and down ? For that matter it’s only a short step from their to having your food arrive on on a moped. Pass.

As for the carvery canteen I rather wish I hadn’t bothered even looking. The sight of 45 fried eggs oozing around on a film of oil was enough to make feel ever so slightly queezy. The queue was longer than it really should have been. Pass. Deux.

Which means I ended up in Starbucks for coffee and Zurich for some hours later for a rather tasty Pret sandwich. Delish’

Dublin Airport Food on the Hoof :

, one out of ten