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Go Stir Crazy on Dame Street

If there's an uglier restaurant front in Dublin, you'll find it on Dame Street

If there’s an uglier restaurant front in Dublin, you’ll find it on Dame Street

Sometimes, you just need to eat. In such circumstances, you might find yourself getting a deli roll in a convenience store; this is the taste of disappointment. I got a Spar roll for a hike on Sunday. It was multi-grain and everything, so I managed to delude myself that it would be tasty and healthy and not at all rank.

It was particularly rank. Oh, save your pity. Deep down I knew what I was doing. I deserved it. Luckily, my mates had made hang sandwiches for everyone, so I didn’t starve.

The deli roll is an option I usually avoid. There’s better fast food options,  for when you just need to eat. They don’t have to be unhealthy. Wak Inn is one. Stir Crazy, a noodle bar on Dame Street, is another.

Stir Crazy on Dame Street competes with restaurants on the same strip for the title of Ireland’s ugliest restaurant front. The “Stir Crazy” font itself is aggressively unpleasant, yanked mercilessly from a basic template and slapped onto the bright orange shop front. It was enough to drive me away. Still, I was hungry, in town, and needed a quick bite.

It’s not so bad. I had the daily special, a chicken and veg noodle stir-fry with chilli and soy sauce, for €4.90. This was one of the cheaper items, with other meals ranging from the €6-8 mark. My food came in a takeaway box, and I ate it inside, where the design doesn’t make my eye jump out of my socket in protest. The food was tasty, filling, and packed full of vegetables. The chicken wasn’t the greatest quality – it was like that chicken you get in convenience store delis – but it was okay, and there was plenty of it.

Wak Inn, a short walk up the road, does the same kind of thing, only better and, last time I checked, cheaper. But this cheap fast food option is still a decent-ish bet if you’re passing by and need a quick fix. Hardly a ringing endorsement, but better than those manky deli rolls anyway.

 

3 Comments

  1. I ate there a couple of weeks ago. I am big fan of woky type of food (Wok 2 Walk abroad!) but I was disappointed as the food in Stir Crazy was terribly overcooked, to the point of falling apart.

    If it’s during the day, you are much better served by Mongolian Barbecue behind the Central Bank. I was told there recently that if you’re a vegetarian you can have two veg/noodle bowls for the price of one with meat (a fiver in lunch time)!

  2. if you are in Stir Crazy get the Pad Thai with peanuts, its less than a fiver and full of veg and very tasty. I go in a good bit as I work nearby some evenings and need to get something filling fast. Its cheap and cheerful and the staff are lovely. Much better than the Centra and Spar deli or the cooler than thou trendy non Free Range Fatty Fried Chicken place up the road. I never noticed the meat being bad as I generally assume if its that cheap it can’t be good quality, but if you stick with the veggie options, I think its a great spot to drop into.

  3. I had lunch here the other day and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty and wholesome it was. There’s brown rice and wholegrain noodles available, and I got my brown rice with three kinds of veg (plus the basic veg that comes with each dish) and spicy peanut sauce. It was very comforting. I do think they should look at lowering their prices though – my dish was €7.40 and it would have cost more with meat or prawns. It’s quite basic food with cheap ingredients, and they’re in a part of town where there’s lots of competition – you can get a good two course lunch for only a few quid more in Cafe Topolis or Toscana around the corner. If they made their veggie offerings something like €5.50 and their meat ones something like €6.50, it would be a regular spot for me. The daily offer for €5 is good but limited.