The Lo-Cal Kitchen, Phoenix Park Racecourse

This morning I was just about to set off to the towncentre, for a coffee and a read of the newspapers in Starbucks, when mam rang me and said she was meeting her friend in the Lo-Cal Kitchen at 12 and would I like to come along.  

Because I have just started my LCHF lifestyle I nipped on to their website while I had mam on the phone (more on that below!).  I identified something that I could adapt to LCHF so I said I'd love to come along.

It's a very clever and cute decorated cafe/restaurant.  I don't know if it was the sunny weather today or if it is just the combination of their paint colours plus their fun signs on the wall but it has a very beachy feel to it.  A very relaxed and comfortable atmosphere.

They serve their tea in lovely china.  Myself and Frances liked the knitted teapot cosies, whereas mam said she'd prefer the old fashioned flowery padded material kind.  We agreed to disagree.  That is mam's spinach, ginger and kale smoothie in the picture too.

As you can probably guess from their name they serve good, healthy low calorie food.  They detail the calories beside each item, plus also detail the vitamins and nutrients.  Big thumbs up.

Frances ordered the Healthy Hangover which is essentially a Full Irish but with turkey rashers and sausages.  Mam had previously had the rashers and she said she thought there was no difference between them and pork rashers.  Whereas Frances said she thought there was a difference in the rashers, but that she liked the turkey sausages a lot and didn't taste a difference in them.

I ordered the chicken parmesan sub - without the bread and without the marinara sauce.  And with the spinach on the side.  Mam took my spinach so essentially what I was left with was chicken and cheese which is part of my LCHF food.  I brought full fat mayo with me and added it on the plate.  I also had a coffee - I brought full fat cream with me also.

Oops!  Completely forgot to take  a photo of it until I was halfway through it.  If it looks a bit black and speckled that is because I put a big load of pepper on it.

All in all very very nice food, good service, lovely surroundings and a nice time had.  

In fact the only criticism I have is about their website...

In the About section they describe themselves "at the heart of Castleknock, in the Phoenix Park Racecourse"  To me "at the heart of Castleknock" would be Castleknock Village i.e. beside Myos.  Lo-Cal is in the Phoenix Park Racecourse, much closer to Ashtown than Castleknock village.  I find it pretentious when people grasp on to Castleknock when they are nearer to other places.

Hmm.  Maybe they mean it figuratively rather than physically, anyway it still irks me.

The other thing is that when you click on "Menu" at the top, nothing happens.  It neither moves down to the menu, nor loads a menu.  After sitting there for an age while I was on the phone to mam, and giving out that their website was sooo slow I finally figured out that you can locate the menus by just scrolling right down through the website.  But I think it still might be glitch - when you click on all of the other options it brings you to the correct place.

But these things above don't take away from the great food they serve and the nice morning I had there.

Click here to see more information - The Lo-Cal kitchen's website.