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Cheap and healthy eating out for January?

Our reader Mary asked us the following question this week:

As it is the New Year and I am carrying a bit more body weight than before, I am on the hunt for restaurants in Dublin that have healthy food options and are cheap. For example I am looking for somewhere that would do omelettes etc for dinner, but I can’t seem to find anywhere except places that do them for breakfast. As funds are low cheap is also important. I’d appreciate your help!

This is my own personal lifetime quest so Mary’s question struck a chord with me. I am too disorganised to bring a homemade lunch to work every day, but it’s also important to me to eat well, and I hate stodgy lunchtime fare.  Now that it’s January and nearly everyone is fat and broke, I think a few more people might feel the same.


January: soup and salad and that.

January: soup and salad and that.


I personally think salads and Asian food are the best options for eating well and cheaply.  Great salads can be had in Honest To Goodness on Dame Court or in Umi Falafel on Dame St.  Soup and salad in Cornucopia (pictured) is always a winner.

For Asian food, there are loads of great affordable sushi places in Dublin now, and if you go for the sashimi and edamame end of the menu, rather than for lots of white rice, it can be a healthy option.  Kokoro on Liffey St and its next-door neighbour Ten Thousand do good value sushi, and Zakura on Wexford St is great for dinner.  Stir Crazy on Dame St offers brown rice or wholewheat noodles with its stir fries, and they have daily specials for around a fiver.

Niall Harbison of Lovin’ Dublin recently wrote about this exact topic, and had some good tips including burritos in bowls.  I’m not sure I agree that ramen noodles are a healthy option though, as noodles are basically a huge pile of starchy carbs. But some places will give you the option of brown noodles, and ramen certainly is great winter food.

What do you think?  Where would you go for healthy cheap eats in Dublin?  And do you know anywhere that does omelettes at dinner time? I’m stumped on that one…

7 Comments

  1. With lots of burritos bar around, just have it in a bowel . Go for veggie option brown rice.black beans .veg and salsas . For €6 its healthy and very tasty

  2. I asked the Twitter machine about omelettes for dinner, and there’s a surprising number of places that do them, apparently:

    Elephant & Castle
    Tribeca in Ranelagh
    Canal Bank Cafe
    “Mes Amis on Abbey Street – perhaps not a restaurant stricto sensu but a lovely little place with good food!” – from https://twitter.com/eccireland

  3. Rustic Stone is a great option for healthy eating. Some of the menu options can be expensive but they have a wide range of prices. With voucher cloud you can have 2 x raw tasting platter and 2 sides for €15 http://www.vouchercloud.ie/rustic-stone-restaurant-vouchers/163246/raw-tasting-platter-for-2-people-with-2-x-sides-for-just-15-mobile-voucher . Agree that Honest to Goodness is great, they even do a healthy option of their daily special – instead of a sloppie joe on bread, you can have it with cubed sweet potato and garlic yoghurt mmm.

  4. Delhi O’Deli Moore Street–great vegetarian food for nothing. Get the family dosa.

  5. Foam cafe do omelettes in the evening.

  6. Buswells Hotel on Molesworth/Kildare st do evening omelettes. Especially if you’d like a cheeky drink but want something to eat too! Think they are about 11€ which isn’t cheap, but a healthy option!

  7. Love the Tribeca omelettes, delicious selection of fillings and they’re huge! You can substitute the side of fries with extra salad and it’s the perfect low carb dinner. The only difficult thing is to resist ordering the wings after you get a whiff of them once inside.