The lunch crunch

There's a sort of Bermuda triangle between Trinity, D'Olier Street and Dame Street where tourists can lose all sense of direction. They end up fretfully peering into those useless little tourist maps with the Liffey one wide blue stripe, a few important-looking buildings highlighted and the rest absolute Greek.

Swing around into D'Olier Street any day of the week and there will be a couple by the side of the road, studying the map for all their worth, turning it first this way, then the other way, with one of them pointing down Townsend Street, when they really want to go to Trinity College - over that a-way.

Most days I ask if they need help and after they're reassured I'm not trying to grab their bags, and that Trinity College is over there, they sometimes ask if there is anywhere nice nearby for lunch.

Of course, there are dozens of cafes where you can get a modest lunch for around a fiver, but too many of them are dreary places where there's nothing to look at but the plates on the table, or each other - which, as we all know, isn't that interesting after a few days of holiday.

A picnic on the grass

If it's sunny, the best idea would be to buy a sandwich and take it to a patch of grass in Trinity or St Stephen's Green. That is, if they don't mind sitting on grass bristling with fag ends (surely there's a machine that can vacuum these up?). Then it's just a matter of finding a good sandwich. I've had a few horrors recently, notably in Bendini & Shaw on the Green where a smoked-salmon roll came stuffed with thick cucumber discs and very little salmon. Nude on Suffolk Street continues to churn out excellent soups and paninis but I've had a few fairly soggy wraps there recently and, despite the high prices, fillings are less than generous.

Better by far are the sandwiches from a tiny shop in the Grafton Arcade called Good Taste Gourmet Foods. This also operates as a cafe but with only two tables is permanently full. There's a small display of fillings such as roasted peppers, baked ham, chicken, salads, fresh pesto and black tapenade to choose from, but you can also buy readymade sandwiches and rolls wrapped in greaseproof paper in a big, round basket.

Their aubergine-and-roast-pepper sandwich with granary bread I had recently, at £2.60, was absolutely oozing with good things. The bread was totally fresh and came with olive oil instead of butter. You can carry sandwiches away in a stout, brown-paper bag but a napkin would have helped with the fallout of oily aubergine and peppers onto chin.

Tri D

In nearby Dawson Street the most fashionable sandwiches of the moment are those that can be ordered as Gaeilge at Tri D, the Irish-speaking cafe. This government-sponsored eaterie is far cheerier than might be expected and the room, which stretches back and back, is cool and minimalist. The staff, by contrast, are more friendly than cool - being mainly big, strapping lads wearing aprons.

Apparently this is one of the few places in town that doesn't have a chronic staff shortage, since Irish-language students from Trinity fill up the roster.

You don't have to talk Irish of course (though it's encouraged), or understand it - fearful sounding items such as Ubh Scrofa le Bagun agus Trata ar Ciabatta Tosta le Ciste Pratai and Liamhas, Tratai, Duilleoga Glasa le Mustard are translated to Scrambled Eggs with Bacon and Tomato, and Ham, Tomato and Green Leaves with Dijon Mustard.

The food is reasonably priced but bland. I took two little girls to lunch there recently and one had a home-made vegetable soup, the other a nice fresh ham sandwich, but a chicken and blue cheese melt on ciabatta was surprisingly tasteless and bad value at £4.80.

Dome Cafe

A good place to get one's bearings and have a more substantial lunch is the Dome Cafe at the top of the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre. This is a huge, glass-walled space dripping with ferns that flourish in the conservatory-like heat.

It's so bright here in the summer that you can wear sunglasses without feeling like a poseur, and with the sun directly over the dome at lunchtime, some tables have to be sheltered under big garden parasols.

About a dozen window-side tables give views over the Green, down Grafton Street and south to the Shelbourne Hotel and beyond. There's a permanent queue and it's self-service, but the time passes in trying to decide between which big, chunky main courses (aubergine bake, lasagne, chicken pies, etc) to have with which salads. All the main courses come in trencherman portions for under or around £5. Soup is the most popular item on the menu because it comes in a huge, lidded bowl with a real doorstep of brown bread. It tastes better than it looks (being a sludgy, brown-green colour). Very good value at £1.95 but hard work all the same.

There's excellent strong coffee and a fine selection of opulent Mittel European cakes, many featuring marzipan, cream and alcohol.

Top marks for the big jugs of water on the tables, and the shelves of newspapers and magazines, even books, to while away the time.

Habitat's Cafe

Habitat's cafe has the other nice view of the Green but it has been closed since the beginning of the year. It is due to open again in August, according to a sales assistant in the bedding department next door.

Arnotts Cafe

There's another fine view at the other end of Grafton Street, this time on the second floor of Arnotts, where there is a big cafe with a series of bay windows looking down on Grafton Street and over the walls of Trinity. The plus here is the lift that whizzes you up there and it's an ideal place for baby's buggy as there's lots of space.

All of this is very good but the food is absolutely terrible. Granted, the staff work out of a tiny, overheated kitchen but what they produce - sloppy lasagna, fat white chips by the plateful and ghastly-looking salads with rolled-up slices of ham served alongside an avalanche of coleslaw . . . surely they can do better than this?

Chapter House

Most tourists coming to Dublin find their way at some stage to the big Dublin Tourism Centre in Andrew's Street and here too the upstairs cafe is very disappointing. Called the Chapter House, it's a fine space with a wonderful, stained-glass window and a vaulted ceiling with plaster angels looking down at you. Apart from these features, it's a thoroughly depressing place with a grey floor and black tables and chairs. Given that it might be a visitor's first taste of Irish hospitality, it's simply dire.

Self-service again and so slow that you want to jump behind the counter and make your own ham panini or tuna melt, both of which feature on the menu alongside other Irish favourites such as Reuben Sandwich and lasagna. By 3 p.m, most of the food was gone from the shelves, and the staff were busy dragging black refuse sacks across the cafe floor.

A few tired cakes remained for tea, including a stale slice of chocolate fudge cake slumped on the plate in its own depression. It tasted almost as bad as it looked. Can someone please do something about this cafe?