Eala Bhan — Restaurant in County Sligo

Me and my boyfriend were very lucky to get a table, as we had no reservation, and the staff couldn't do enough for us on our visit. Very friendly, helpful, efficient. We chose this place because of all the little plaques outside saying how wonderful the place is, and it was full to the brim which is always a good sign.....right? Sadly, not on this visit for us. Firstly my boyfriend's steak came with what I can only call a little sea monster. It was like a little shrimp with its little black eyes, tail, skeleton, claws. OK, he may not have read the menu properly to see it came with the steak. We were so hungry we were just glad to get served. The little sea monster had to be covered up as it upset both of us, me especially, as I'm one of your favourite guests ....... a vegetarian :) To continue I ordered the vegetable curry. I was very disappointed with the content and taste. Now I'm not the best cook in the world, but even I could have cooked something more filling, tasteful, colourful. It was bland, boring, and tasteless. At €18.99 it was very poor value for money. The wine was €32, again just average. The bill came to €83. I've no problem paying that if I'm well fed, and drink good strong wine. We even left a tip, as we always do, we take care of staff no matter where we go. We had to get a bag of chips on...

Oh my goodness what a fantastic meal!!

Probably one of the dinners I will recommend the most going forward!!

I found it the perfect balance of creativity applied to traditional recipes to bring out simple and delicious taste.

Food quantities were very generous, to the point that I struggled to finish dinner even if I usually eat a lot. We basically got the equivalent of 2 light dinners or of a very intense one.

With that level of quality, quantity and creativity, I found the prices to be more than reasonable, almost cheap in proportion.

Some touches I just found brilliant, like the soup served as amouse Bouche inside an espresso cup.

The only thing I found not up to the standard was the dessert chosen for the menu. Nice idea to see it melting when served but then not particularly interesting to eat. We saw some desserts passing by that were really beautiful and more unique.

The location is perfect, in the centre of Sligo, along its river.

I really liked the decorations of the interior: rich and curated but never looking cold or pompous.

Staff was superb throughout the entire meal, always very professional...

Quite disappointed with Eala Bhan, it was our first visit and we expected better food. The choices were quite limited if your vegetarian, staters were French onion soup, which was rather like a rich gravy or goats cheese salad, nothing was mentioned when clearing the table that we hadn’t eaten any of the soup. One of The two vegetarian main courses was coconut and aubergine curry which sounded delicious but was disappointing as it was a bowl of soft veg, mainly red onion in a creamy sauce, no rice just some garlic bread. Deserts sounded delicious but the baked Alaska wasn’t meringue as stated on the menu but that awful marshmallow fluff stuff that had been blow torched to make it look like meringue and the exact same stuff was on the banoffee tart, again nothing was said when the uneaten food was taken from the table. I think that staff should ask if they see uneaten food and ask if they can bring you something else to eat otherwise you get unhappy people leaving and writing reviews like this. The location, decor and staff...