In recent years, the Ormeau Road has become one of the city’s best places to eat. For those of us there in the beginning, it’s still a bit of a novelty; if you trip on the road you’ll likely fall into a cafe or restaurant. Drip is the newest kid on the block and by 10am on a Saturday morning, had a queue out its brand new door.
Stylishly designed — expect pared-back decor with slick coral-coloured tiling — the great and the good were lining up to sample what was on offer. And it was really good. Not just a pretty plateful of food.
My friend had the blueberry pancakes with mascarpone — their arrival gave me food FOMO. A trio of what looked to be perfectly freshly cooked pancakes arrives, liberally dusted with icing sugar, with a blueberry compote and significant portion of vanilla flavoured mascarpone. This is no messing about, no tiny portions for the dainty eaters.
Thank goodness for that. After quizzing the team members as to whether I should opt for the huevos rancheros or the Drip bravas, spuds won out. What landed in front of me was a plate heaving with potato cubes, Drip seasoning, diced chorizo and two fried eggs, runny enough to coat the cubes but sturdy enough to not fall apart when you’re trying to put it on a fork.
There was a hint of spice — I could have happily taken more — but it was delicious, the salty tang of chorizo cutting through the richness of the eggs. Other dishes include the Hong Kong French toast — unsurprisingly a hit on social media — the Japanese fish finger sandwich and the NYC bagel, several of which we saw coming from the kitchen. A black coffee and pink lemonade were swiftly brought to our seats.
“There’s no hiding with a black coffee,” says my caffeine-loving friend sagely, and declares the drink very tasty. My pink lemonade had the right hit of sharp sourness and really, who wouldn’t love a pink drink with a hit of fizz at 10am on a Saturday? Though we wanted to stay for dessert, the queue was quite impressive so we opted to purchase sweet treats and go. My friend had a tiramisu cruffin (I never thought I’d see the day where ‘cruffins’ were a thing on our road) and I opted for a pain au chocolat.
My friend at least had the decency to send a picture of aforementioned cruffin — I’m reliably informed it was delicious — but I ate my buttery pain au chocolat before I could think about snapping it for posterity. Having visited — mumble — all the establishments on Ormeau, Drip is definitely up there in terms of warranting return visits. And it’s not just the food, even though we did return the next day for takeaway buns.
The team is friendly, genuinely pleasant, and it’s open from 8am to 8pm, meaning there is finally somewhere to go to enjoy a post-work catch-up that doesn’t have you scurrying out at 6pm. Drip is definitely not just a drop in the Ormeau ocean..
