Review of Irish Florists

Irish Florists


Two bouquets, same price, big difference in quality.

I wanted to thank my two sisters recently for giving up a weekend to travel to Cork and help me move house, so I ordered a bouquet of flowers for each. Same price, but two different florists as one lives in Rathfarnham, Dublin, and the other in Wicklow. What a contrast in the quality of the bouquets.

The one from irishflorist.com, based in Glasnevin, Dublin 9, was stunning, jam packed full of exotic and colourful flowers. Unfortunately the other, from Sheila's Flowers in Bray (contacted through http://www.buy4now.ie/sheilasflowers/), was disappointing, although attractive it didn't look as if it cost 60 euro.

I e-mailed Sheila's Flowers and, in fairness, they did respond with a lengthy email. They explained that the bouquet didn't fully match the photos on the website because some of the flowers were out of season but that they did use equivalent replacements (in my view the replacements fell short of the flowers in the photo). They've offered a 10 euro refund, or a box of chocs with the next order. Think I'll take the refund and just use next time.

Rated 4/5 on Sep 07 2007 by famron

Review Tags: florist, flowers, online, gift, plant, present, shop, store, thank you

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Super French restaurant in Torremolinos suburb

La Normandie Brasserie

★★★★☆ In the Torremolinos / La Cariheula / Benalmadena area there are plenty of average and, frankly, below-average restaurants. So, it’s a pleasant surprise when, for a special treat, you find a good restaurant serving tasty French food at reasonable prices.

After our order was taken we were each brought out an appetizer of a shot glass of gazpacho, with a mini roll of Serrano ham on a cocktail stick resting across the top. Perfect, one of our group had avoided gazpacho for years on Spanish menus but was instantly converted, to the extent that she ordered a bowl in another restaurant the following night.
For starters I had a mild-flavoured duck pate with onion marmalade on the side, which gave the duck the required zing. The other two diners wanted light starters so went with the smoked salmon salad. The presentation had the wow factor (no photos unfortunately), chicory and radicchio leaves were filled with alfalfa sprouts, scattered with smoked salmon and dressed with a balsamic dressing.
Our three mains were tender veal medallions with a rich port sauce. Dorado (popular Mediterranean fish) stuffed with prawns, accompanied by spinach, asparagus, with a lemon sauce. Dover sole with ginger butter, delicious pan fried fish, subtle ginger and creamy sauce (superfluous tomato though). We were all extremely happy with our choices and polished everything off.

We had no room at all for desserts, so settled for coffees. With all of the above and 4 glasses of wine, 2 mineral waters and 3 coffees, the bill came to 85 euro. Great value. And the waitress was charming and helpful.
Location: The restaurant can be difficult to find as it’s set back a little from the road, here’s the address: Centro Comercial Montemar, Avenida Carlota Alessandri 57, Torremolinos, Tel: 952 38 73 23