Let’s Do BelFAST

July 15, 2023

Yesterday was our first day in Ireland, but it felt like at least three days because of the absurd travel itinerary.  We met Tyler and Morgan at the airport bar around 1:45 pm on Friday and boarded our plan two hours later.  Serendipitously, their seats were right in front of ours; not that it mattered much as we all focused on pretending to sleep in the hopes of actually dozing off for a bit.  Our flight was supposed to get into Dublin at 5:00 am, but we arrived at 4:30 am on Saturday, at which point the pilot came on the loudspeaker to announce that the Dublin airport didn’t open until 5:00 am, so we would just have to sit and wait on the tarmac.  Shockingly, that was the least of our airport delays.  The first bag from our flight hit the carousel at 5:33.  We finally got our bags after 6:00.  Then it was on to the car rental counter, which took nearly an hour.  Finally, we got on our way to Belfast, where we showed up two hours later despite being unable to check into our hotel until almost 3:00 pm.  Yet, despite the gauntlet it took to get here, we had a great day.

On the way into town, we saw a number of impactful militant murals.  The neighborhood was still shuttered when we made our first stopped at C.S. Lewis Square in East Belfast.  It was peppered with statues of Narnians, and the experience literally brought me to tears.  Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or perhaps it was the fact that C.S. Lewis is one of the most influential and formative literary forces in my life.  Regardless, it was a cathartic experience.  While in East Belfast, we swung by where Van Morrison was born at 125 Hyndford Street, and drove past the Hollow, immortalized in his classic song Brown Eyed Girl, before moving on to the main attraction.

We arrived in downtown Belfast around 9:30 am and made our way to The Merchant Hotel.  The Italianate building feels like something out of a different world.  It was originally the headquarters of the Ulster Bank, which was built on the site in the mid-1800s.  When the designs were first shown at the 1858 London Architectural Exhibition, the literary magazine Athenaeum described them as “very commendable, earnest, massive, rich, and suitable.”  More than a century later, founding member of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society C.E.B. Brett said the building offered “every inducement to linger and ponder on wealth and its advantages.  The hotel was opened in 2006, and the Victorian grandeur throughout is something to behold - from the grand dining room and massive chandelier to the beautiful cocktail bar.  We weren’t staying in the hotel for long, but it’s the type of place that makes you want to stay longer and just enjoy being there.

After dropping our bags, we took to the streets.  The biggest shock to us was that everything was closed.  Shops, tourist attractions, you name it.  Virtually nothing opened up until close to noon, which made exploring the city during the morning both challenging and depressing.  After a failed attempt at visiting St. Anne’s Cathedral - we showed up at 9:45 and it opened at 10:30 - we blew through some of the key sights in the city.  The Albert Clock Tower is Belfast’s answer to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It was erected in 1865 in honor of Queen Victoria’s late husband.  As locals like to say, “Old Albert not only has the time, he also has the inclination.”  We also stopped through St. George’s Market, which is Belfast’s oldest continually operating market (est. 1896).  Right inside the door was an amazing fishmonger shop with all sorts of incredible local seafood.  There were also a number of great looking food vendors, but the vast majority of the market was taken up by standard shops selling chachkies.  From there, we walked by the city’s Renaissance-style City Hall and the Grand Opera House, which opened in 1895 but had to be restored in the 1990s following IRA attacks.  By 11:15 am, we were out of things to do and the place we had picked for lunch - John Long’s Fish & Chips - didn’t open until noon.  So we bought a coffee at a Starbucks, posted up in a corner, and took a power nap for 30 minutes in the hopes of beating the jet lag and making it through the rest of the day’s itinerary.

At lunch, we got regular (read king-sized) servings of fried fish accompanied by subpar thick-cut chips.  The fish was great and served as the perfect introduction to the culinary scene of Northern Ireland.  Afterwards, we made a quick stop in the Crown Liquor Saloon, which is one of Belfast’s most famous bars.  It was refurbished in the late 19th century and includes finishing like gunmetal plates from the Crimean War.  Legend has it that Patrick Flanagan argued with his wife over what to name the pub, with his wife prevailing and naming it the Crown in honor of the British monarchy.  Flanagan, however, placed a crown mosaic underfoot so that customers would step on it every day.

Once we finally got checked into our hotel around 3:00 pm, we got ready for the evening and headed out to the Titanic Quarter.  The focal point of the area is Titanic Belfast - a massive interactive museum about all things Titanic.  The building is massive and uber-modern.  Each of the four corners are the size of the front end of the Titanic itself!  The museum was incredibly well done and took you from the establishment of industry in Belfast to building the Titanic and its disastrous voyage all the way to its discovery at the bottom of the ocean decades later.  The entire museum is so well done and was more impactful that I anticipated.  For me, the highlight of the museum was the violin that Wallace Hartley played to calm the passengers while the ship sank.  It took everything I had to not bawl while standing there looking at that instrument and thinking about him standing on the deck of the Titanic playing “Nearer, my God, to thee,” as it sank, knowing he was going down with it but seeking to comfort those around him.  We also got to stand in the dry dock they used to build the Titanic and the Olympic, which are unfathomably huge before ending our jaunt through the quarter at Drawing Room Two.  That exquisitely maintained and refurbished bar and restaurant is where the Titanic and the Olympic - and many other Harland & Wolff ships - were designed.  What’s more, we got to sit there and drink one of the last cocktails they served on the Titanic - the Romaine Punch.  Tyler, Kati, and I all opted to try it, while Morgan went with the classic Pornstar Martini.  The Romaine Punch was a really interesting, lower-ABV take on a sour, made with a mix of rum, pinot grigio, lemon, orange, sugar, and an egg white, topped with prosecco.

For dinner, we ventured outside of the city center a bit to go to Shu, which is named after the ancient Egyptian god of atmosphere and set in an old Victorian house.  We ate in the cocktail bar in the basement and it was exceptional, which is a bit ironic because Shu was my third-choice for a restaurant in Belfast.  I had wanted to get into one of two Michelin-starred restaurants, but apparently all of the fancy restaurants in the country shut down and take large chunks of July off!  We started out with a Korean fried chicken appetizer that was the star of the whole show.  Our mains were also great.  Kati got the roast duck breast with shallot and beer cream, green onion, and potato rösti, while I got the pork belly, potato gratin, cider raisins, cauliflower, and black pudding.  Morgan opted for the corn-fed chicken breast with risotto, sweet corn, basil, and ricotta, while Tyler picked the rump of Irish lamb, new season peas and broad beans, bacon, and mint.  The cocktails were also really great.  The most interesting of the cocktails we got was Kati’s second - Jimmy the Bull.  It had Kadoo 8-year aged rum, byrrh, bramble liqueur, Cio Ciaro, beet, and lime.  It was unlike anything I’ve tasted before and had a dark read, almost black, color to it.

After stuffing ourselves, we decided to check out a rooftop bar I had heard was great.  It’s called The Perch, and I couldn’t find much information on it anywhere online, but it seemed really popular.  As it turns out, there was a good reason for that - we were at least 10-15 years older than 85% of the clientele, with the one exception of the 50-year-old birthday party.  The woo girls were out in force and already three sheets to the wind when we showed up at 8:30.  Our table wasn’t ready, so we grabbed seats at the bar to get a drink.  The music was so loud that you couldn’t hear the person next to you talk and the gaggle of girls behind us was rowdy.  Several times, one of them grabbed the back of Kati’s bar seat to drop it like it was hot!  We got drinks that were mediocre at best, laughed about the absurdity of the place, and watched the woo girls around us do their thing.  At one point, the birthday girl walked around the bar with her phone on a selfie stick and took pictures with just about everyone in the bar!  One of the funniest parts about the experience is that our Uber driver from Shu to The Perch knew exactly what we were walking into and didn’t say a word!  He was a funny guy and the source of a classic expression we will undoubtedly be using for the rest of the trip.  Traffic was repeatedly held up on our mile(ish) trip because people would just saunter across the street despite oncoming traffic.  Tyler asked him if pedestrians have the right of way in Ireland and he said, “Absolutely not!”  Nevertheless, they don’t seem to care.

We were all fading fast while we finished our drinks, so we left the woo girls and strolled through town back to our hotel.  It was an eye opening experience because of the juxtaposition between walking those same streets at 11:00 am and 9:30 pm.  During our initial exploration of the city, virtually everything was shuttered and much of the town looked abandoned.  In the evening, however, the streets were full, the music was blasting, and everywhere you looked was a vibrant corner of activity.  Voodoo - a hardcore Irish punk bar - was blasting heavy metal for their tattooed clientele, while White’s (est. 1630) had a more laidback atmosphere befitting the oldest pub in Belfast.Other highlights included the Feisty Goat and a neon street with a lit up sign that said, “There’s only seven types of rain in Belfast.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . .”  Had we not been shot from the trip over and captive to jet lag, we would have had an epic night exploring the bars and drinking pints with the locals.  As it was, however, we retreated to our Victorian hotel rooms and quickly passed out in our plush beds, closing the door on our visit to downtown Belfast.