TD 1
GASTRO WORDS Conor Stevens Double Take Hakkahan L
ee’s Charming Noodles As I type from my balcony perch, overlooking the mouth of the bay, I can begin to smell the smoke of the first fishes hitting the restaurant grills below - spiny Škarpina and sleek silver Zubatac still stiff and clear-eyed from the crystalline waters of the Adriatic. There’s a wedding party singing Dalmatian songs on the parched village square (no, really) and snatches of harmony are carried on a soft breeze seasoned with brine and fragrant with wild thyme and savoury. It almost feels as if the island is trying to nourish as you go, there are branches weary under the weight of figs and pomegranates, almonds are shrugging off their rough coats, stripping down to their smoothness. Caper bushes push through every crack and crevice of every old stone wall and the olive harvest looks set fair to improve upon last year’s disappointing yield. Dublin is not like this. What better time then for a couple of dispatches from the Northside of our own fragrant river to talk about Chinese food. For the uninitiated these, Double Takes are not quite full reviews but intended as sideby-side snapshots of comparable spots. They are also intended to be a little less laborious for me. I am supposed to be on holiday. Hakkahan has been a firm favourite since Top and opposite page: Hakkahan, photo: Killian Broderick Bottom: Lee’s Charming Noodles arriving on Stoneybatter’s main drag almost a year ago. The place is painted, inside and out, in a shade of pink that used to be called millennial but which I believe has since been re-branded as ‘drunk-tank’. It’s immediately apparent that this is one of the new wave of (‘ethnic’ but mostly) Chinese restaurants catering to their adopted (or not) audiences with a ‘western’ brand awareness, design aesthetic and truncated, navigable menus. The food is not dumbed down but the ‘experience’ is made less ‘foreign’ for bashful round-eyes who need to recognise the decor and service cues that act as wallet openers. 36