Both my Dad and a good friend of mine have been raving about a new breakfast place in Quincy called Mannions. For a couple of weeks, the GF and I have been itching to try it out. Today, we did.

Little did I know that this place was an Irish breakfast place. There were pictures of Ireland, Irish ex-pats, and Irish music. Given my Dad’s torturous love of the John Latchford Irish Hour that had developed in my youth, I was all set with the surroundings. The food, on the other hand, was supposed to be good, so we sat down at the counter and opened the menu. They had bangers, rashers, black and white pudding, and a whole bunch of crap that I had to ask what the hell it was.

The beauty of the Irish being born with a penchant for strong drink and without taste buds is that they can eat almost anything no matter how tasteless or downright foul. And they do. This was something that I had forgotten.

The girlfriend ordered some egg based skillet breakfast that sounded very good, and I figured that I was in Rome, so I’d eat like the Romans. I ordered the full Irish Breakfast, which included two rashers, two bangers, baked beans, 2 black and white puddings. What we got:

GF:
eggs and potatoes with a full stick of Velveeta melted on top of it.

Me:
“Rashers” aka “Irish Bacon,” in reality are two slices of ham, with the taste generously boiled out of them,
two “bangers” aka the thinnest, wrinkliest, funniest tasting little sausages I ever ate,
baked beans, fresh out of a can, unheated and untreated,
two “black puddings” aka 2 burned balls of pigs blood, with a taste only describable as if a fart had taste,
two “white puddings” aka 2 balls of pig’s god knows what (they wouldn’t say),
and two nicely done eggs over medium

As Fear Factor is one of my favorite shows, I ate it all. Unfortunately, unlike Fear Factor, there was no $50,000 prize waiting for me: merely a bill for $18.72. The only prize that I can hope for is that the entry for a free trip to Ireland that I put in my Dad’s name on comes through. Then, he can experience the beauty of Full Irish breakfast in all it’s glory and at full strength.

With $18.72 and 4+ trips to the toilet under our belts, the best thing that we can say is that at least we didn’t waste our weekly Sunday breakfast on Mannions.

Posted in Food