Restaurant Review – The Radisson Blu Hotel, Cork
Bar food in the Banks Bar, Radisson Blu, Cork
Meal time:
Dinner in the evening
Choice:
There were a good few dishes on the menu that seemed like good choices. I noticed the food being brought out to others diners, matched the description on the menu. Sometimes they don’t…….
I don’t spend my time in restaurants looking at what other people are eating! If I know the restaurant I don’t even think about it. When dining in new places it’s good to know if the food will be swimming in sauce which can make it hard to know what ingredients were used.
If you like what you order and find it carb friendly, your sneaky look at other people’s food will confirm if there are other suitable dishes for you to try if you visit again.
I love to find eating places that give consistent results when carb counting for insulin. Then I know that if I eat there, the food won’t have lots of additives and hidden ingredients that will cause me to under or overestimate my insulin, causing me to have high or low blood glucose level later on.
What I had (as described on the menu):
Kenmare smoked salmon plate with celeriac remoulade, caper berries, red onion salsa and traditional soda bread
Ease of figuring carbs: 2
(1 – 10, 1 being easy and 10 being hard to know how many carbs are in the dish)
- The salmon didn’t have any extra dressing so it was carb free.
- I estimated the carbs in the remoulade and salsa to be 7 carbs, but it could have contained several different ingredients.
- There was brown bread served with this dish, which would have added approx. 80g of carb if it was all eaten. Portion sizes of bread vary a lot in restaurants so it’s a good idea to become familiar with how many carbs in whatever type of bread you are likely to be eating.
- Bread adds about 45g carb per 100g of bread.
Food rating (taste and presentation): 8/10
Note: When eating in restaurants that you are unfamiliar with, it’s a good idea to choose meals that you can easily identify what ingredients are in them to make carb counting easy and accurate. This meal without the bread is very low carb. If the 2 slices of bread are eaten it moves it into the high carb area.
Meal time:
Dinner in the evening
What I had (as described on the menu):
Pan fried fillet of sea bass with fennel, orange, radish & hazelnut salad, lemon & sesame dressing
Ease of figuring carbs: 2
(1 – 10, 1 being easy and 10 being hard to know how many carbs are in the dish)
- The fish and salad are carb free and the orange and dressing would have had minimum carbs (it could have had a little honey) so I estimated this dish to have 5g of carb.
Food rating (taste and presentation): 7/10
The fish was overcooked and the green salad was a bit tired, but the orange, radish, hazelnut and dressing were lovely.
