You’re 23 years old, it’s 1.30am and you already can’t wait to get home and go to bed. The session died about 3 years ago for you and now all you crave is eight hours of undisturbed sleep.
You plan on going home but how can you without indulging in the tradition of getting drunk food with your mates and regretting it in the morning? You feel adventurous tonight, trying to dispel the realization that you’re getting old, so you decide to try out something new. There’s a vegan chipper you hear, up on Camden Street, not too far for you because once again, your night ended in Coppers. You try to convince a group of drunk 20-somethings to follow you in the quest for food, which they most likely will not be pleased with. You leave out the unnecessary detail that this place is in fact, vegan. A few minutes later and you’re standing outside the red front of McGuinness Traditional Takeaway.
The unassuming, slightly run down look is part of the gimmick. The lit up neon sign which entices with “BURGERS” and “KEBABS”, the quintessential bar stools and general lack of seating going on inside - all these elements are part of a carefully curated ruse for non-vegans to try out something new. And the menu doesn’t disappoint either.
Your mates and most other people in the establishment are either too drunk to notice or too drunk and too adamant to care that the menu is strictly “vegan”. Some of them can’t tell the difference, others want to prove a point by tasting it to berate it, and you have both kinds of people in your group. You all order and you all wait patiently. As soon as the food arrives and everyone takes their impassioned first bites, you know the vegan chipper has won. You know it has won because you cannot tell the difference - it looks like meat, it smells like meat, it feels like meat and it certainly tastes like meat. Apparently no one around you can tell the difference either, as they happily munch away on their meatless meals.
You look around with a silly grin on your face feeling chuffed. All you have left to say to anyone out there is don’t knock vegan food till you try it, and take your drunk friends on an adventure some night soon - they’ll thank you later.
- Website: https://www.mcguinnesstakeaway.ie/
- Opening Hours: Everyday from 5.30pm - 2.30am
- Address: 84 Camden Street Lower, Dublin Southside, Dublin 2
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