Nox Hotel’s "Pay for Dinner Stay for Free" Offer
Great Location For Business and Pleasure
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| Fish of the Day |
Hard to beat the modern Nox Hotel in Galway for its marvellous location. More or less at the junction of the M6/N6 (now the main road in from Dublin, Sligo, Limerick, and Cork) and the N84 (to Mayo), it is situated within a few kilometres of most of the city business parks, is within minutes of the city centre and, if you want to go west to the heart of Connemara, skip the city traffic by taking the N6 over the Quincentenary Bridge, pick up the nearby N59 and soon you’ll be in Clifden.
I paid my first visit to the hotel this week and it looked quite small on the outside. So it was with some surprise that I found out they have over 100 bedrooms. Lovely spacious well-equipped rooms too with all you, as a holiday-maker or as a business traveller, will need, including top class WiFi. The duvets are warm, very warm, and the mattresses are deep and comfortable and rooms have individual thermostat control. No bath in our room but a very efficient and easy to use shower-unit.
The hotel is neat and tidy throughout and all the main services are clustered together on the ground floor. A superb comfortable lounge area is on your right as you enter and more armchairs and nooks and crannies by the reception. To the right of the reception, you’ll find the Fork Restaurant where they serve evening meals and breakfast.
And the other thing you’ll soon notice is the warmth of the welcome. As we were waiting for check-in, one employee was on her way home. She noticed the receptionist was tied up on the phone, so removed her overcoat and booked us in. And that quality of care and courtesy continued throughout the evening meal and the breakfast.
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| Prawns starter |
Actually, I'll start with the breakfast as I think its delivery sums up the hotel, friendly, neat and tidy and efficient. The breakfast is served every morning from 7.30am-10.30am; it is all buffet so you’ll help yourself from their Georgina Campbell Award Winning continental and cooked Breakfasts. Staff are on hand to help and they keep a regular eye on the well-organised buffet so all the cooked stuff is just so and there’s no shortage of anything, right down to their specialty Nespresso coffee or the wide selection of herbal teas.
We were soon seated and had no bother helping ourselves to the juices. CL enjoyed picking from a great selection of fruit while I went for Granola Topped Yogurt. Lots of other choices too, including cereals. The hot buffet was excellent and one of the good things about buffets is that you may take just as much or as little as you like. You make your own tea (and coffee) here and that can be a good thing as in some hotels, the tea is on the table stewing before you even start!
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| Chowder |
Lots of hotels and restaurants are going on about the VAT hike and the slack period after the Christmas and New Year. Others do something about it. And Nox have a very attractive plan for you: come and dine with us and pay for it and then stay for free! How cool is that?
General Manager of Nox Hotel Galway, Victor O Brien, encourages people to avail of this exciting not to be missed offer: “January is often a month where people don’t have a lot to look forward to, so this year we decided to do something about that! For just €79, two people can enjoy a delicious three-course meal and overnight stay in one of our contemporary and comfortable duo rooms. I can’t wait to personally welcome both new and returning customers during January. With food as good as ours we don’t believe in New Year’s diets, and after visiting neither will you!”
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| Delicious sauce with the chicken! |
Read more about COME FOR DINNER, STAY FOR FREE! here. By the way, breakfast is not included.
We were there specifically to check out the menu for the offer and, even if it’s not quite as expansive as the usual A la Carte, we found plenty to choose from; it was well cooked, tidily presented and served and we enjoyed it very much indeed.
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| Apple crumble |
You’ll have a choice of four starters, including soup and a Goats Cheese Pannacotta. I picked the Seafood Chowder, a big creamy bowlful packed with salmon, mussels, prawns and vegetables and served with a very tasty brown bread. CL enjoyed her Tempura Tiger Prawns that came with Oriental Salad an Chilli oil.
And the good mood continued with the mains. Hers was the Fish of the day: Pan-fried fillet of Hake with Samphire, mussels, pea purée (and lots of peas!) and some very acceptable crispy potatoes (I had a few of those).
I went for the humble chicken but with a very interesting sauce indeed. The Grilled Fillet of good quality chicken came with Mashed potato, spiced carrot purée, kale and that lovely chorizo and black lentil jus. Happy out!
Other main courses available included Confit Duck Leg, Roasted Mediterranean Pasta, and 6 ounce Striploin steak. Dessert choices were more limited but we both enjoyed the Nox version of Apple Crumble, made with excellent real apple!
The bar is part of the restaurant so no shortage of drinks but there were no local craft beers (they are available during the season) but we enjoyed a glass of wine (6.50) each. There’s a decent gin list there including Dingle and Gunpowder. Maybe the local Micil will be added soon!
No shortage of cocktails either. Perhaps you’d like to try the vodka based Ballsy Cherry Bomb or the Corpse Reviver (another vodka based one). Think my favourite might be the Good Fellas (Tullamore DEW, Amaretto, Fresh Lemon, Sugar Syrup, Egg White and Bitters). Cheers from Nox!
