Carrickdale - Dundalk

I’ve been going to this hotel for family events weddings, funerals etc for over 30 years. I must have been at least 40 times. In all that time the vegetarian option has either been ‘creamy pasta’ lots of pasta with loads of cream or ‘vegetable stir fry’ usually over fried (burned) onions and peppers in a sweet sauce. The latter was the choice available again today. Grim. I left feeling very hungry.

Went to the carrick dale today for carvery lunch. I have to say the chios were black inside and very cold and the chicken nuggets were stodgy and cold i couldnt eat the chips the toom was cold also the food portion was grand but at 17 euro you wouod think the food would have been nice and hot but im afraid not very disappointing as i love the carrickdale

We stopped here on the way from Dublin to Belfast, the car park was very busy so we guessed it must be good. We were not disappointed at all, the portion sizes were huge and excellent value for the money, we had the carvery menu and both the beef and fish were recently cooked. Did not stay in the hotel only ate in the restaurant. If the hotel was as tidy as the restaurant then it must be good. Will call again on my next trip to Ireland.

It’s a always food first and foremost for me. This was a 2 course Sunday lunch €25). I had a salmon and warm water king prawn starter which was very good and a generous portion too. I felt it was so good that the main too would taste great but anticipation dropped to disappointment. I chose roast beef as the plaice was from a factory. The beef was very dry, fatty, tough and over cooked to an inch of its life. Thankfully it wasn’t a generous portion. I struggle to know how they could have made it any worse. The pepper sauce, if not from a packet, is made from the ingredients in proportion in a packet. What is most annoying is that these two unacceptable things are so absolutely avoidable. No trained chef can deny knowledge of how to properly cook beef or how to make a good if not great pepper sauce so it’s purposely made this way. The onion ring was truly grim as the batter was just awfully stodgy. The mashed roast potatoes were good so with a bit of butter and salt this was what filled me up. I took the meat for the dog. The cabbage too was properly cooked, but the portion was mean. I asked for some more to get a very small amount more and a sigh from the server. My wife got turkey and ham which was again a mean meat portion especially the ham and bulked up by a hugely disproportionate amount of bread stuffing in a lump and also wedged between turkey ham and of course the meat was sat on top of mashed potato to make the portion seem big. This too is intentional. I was tempted by the jam sponge and custard dessert but the main send a warning to me. I was so glad I didn’t as I saw someone else receive one. As they poured the presumably packet custard from the boat it was in, the ‘liquid’ moved, not in a pouring consistency but as lump that briefly sat atop the sponge only to slide into the bowl. Dodged that rubbish thankfully and at €5 it would have annoyed me as I hate being ripped off. Reviews like this give no satisfaction to either party and in my case I’ll not return to dine. The staff more generally were a friendly bunch. The chef didn’t appear at any table to ask about their culinary prowess. Just as well.

My family and I attended for my 40th birthday and it was awful. The bar staff was rude we couldn’t get a table for dinner although we did ring before we came to see if we needed to book a table for dinner and we were told NO. When asked could we have a table in the bar a particular senior member of the bar staff was extremely rude and done everything possible to be awkward. It is safe to say me or my family will never step foot in the hotel again. 408 euro for one night stay bed and breakfast and it was impossible to get a dinner in the place