Topping off Boojum for value (but maybe not for taste and definitely not for healthiness) is a Chinese restaurant with no English name, English menu or English-speaking staff! I spotted the sign a few weeks back and recognised some foody words and a big €6 and figured there must be a restaurant up there above the hair salon. Thursday night I had to figure out my own dinner so decided to check it out.
Up 4 flights of steps I went and on the last one was met by a woman who was clearly confused by my presence. I sat down in the small, bright and clean restaurant she hurried off to get someone. She came back with a younger woman from the kitchen who had a few words of English and between that and my Chinese (which is getting almost unusable these days) she set off to bring me lots of small things to eat.
A while later she came back with battered fish, you tiao ("oil sticks" - deep fried bread things). A few minutes later another plate with some battered squishy sugary thing with peanuts in it and some turnip pancakes (had them for the first time ever a few weeks ago and they are not as bad as they sound at all). I also ordered some soup dumplings which came with some kind of long straight sea-food that I have never had before. Finally I ordered some dou fu nao (a kind of gloopy soup with tofu, vegetables and maybe pork).
All very tasty and at the end of it I was nicely full and actually left a few bits behind (turnip pancake is not exactly awesome). Add a pot of Chinese tea which I think was free and the whole thing came to €5, yes five quid.
There are about 20 things on the menu, all €1-5, so my plan is to go back with more people and and just order 1 of everything and see what we get! Who's on for it? It's on Parnell St, just past Sichuan House (still awesome BTW, I had hotpot there recently and it was super-tasty)
