I try to make the social scene*

The old Pravda

There’s a lot happening in the capital this week so I thought I would do a little round-up of events that have caught my eye.

First up, Dave over at Dublin Culture alerted me to the fact that Dine In Dublin is taking place this week. Running from today, Monday 18th October, to Sunday 24th, this sees more than 50 of the city’s best restaurants offering special promotional rates of €25/€30 for a 3 course ‘Dine in Dublin’ menu – including a choice of 5 starters, 5 mains, 3 desserts and tea/coffee.

My picks would be Marco Pierre Whites, L'Gueuleton or Frankies (also by MPW) but if they don’t tickle your fancy, there are plenty more great restaurants on the list.

On Wednesday, Chaos Thaoghaire is taking place from 7.30 pm at The Grand Social on Liffey Street or -- as I will probably always refer to it -- the old Pravda. Billed most interestingly as ‘a night of storytelling, games, camaraderie (ha!), bloody-minded rivalry, and mutual humiliation’, the theme for this month is monsters and the storytellers are selected in advance, so no need to panic that you'll be put on the spot. In the interests of full disclosure I should probably say that I’ve never been to one of the regular nights before, but I did check them out at Electric Picnic and very much liked what I found.

And so to Thursday, where there are two fun happenings taking place: the BTW meet-up and the return of Poetry Night to The Gutter Bookshop. The former is the brainchild of Jason Roe and the acronym stands for Blogger-Twitter-Whatever. These are free, fun, informal get-togethers that, in my experience, tend to involve cocktails. Just sayin’. This one kicks off at 7pm in the Church bar on Mary street.

Poetry Night involves less cocktails and more, well, poetry. It’s run by the good folks at The Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar, is free to attend and the really good news is it runs from 6pm to 7.15, so you can head over to BTW once it’s done.

On Saturday, Shebeen Chic will play host to a Tea Party & Vintage Market, which I first heard about from Anne Marie at whatshewears.ie. Taking place from 12 – 6pm, this promises to be a fabulous day with live music, stalls selling all varieties of vintage goodness from jewellery to clothing to furniture and, of course, tea and cake aplenty.

Sadly that’s one I’ll have to miss since I’ll be at the Wee Chill in Glasgow on the same day, instead.

Are you planning to attend any of the above? Make sure you say hello if you do. I’ll be the one trying to figure out the flash settings on her (borrowed) camera…

Photo of green sign courtesy of Bob at The Gutter Bookshop

*Post title: lyric from The Dictators, ‘Stay With Me’