Spicy Bite, Dublin, Ireland
Dublin is expensive. Curry is painfully expensive. So Spicy Bite, tucked away downstairs in the Moor Mall is the place to head when you want curry without a hole in your pocket. For just €6.50 (not short of the price of starter in a restaurant) you get a buffet of (at my count) eight non-veg dishes, six veg dishes, six sambals, three types of rice dishes, nan, plus chips and prawn crackers for some reason. Tuck in.
You can see the skewers of meat being dropped into the tandoor oven just behind the counter so my tastebuds were raging for tandoori only to discover the super-red meat was disappointingly sweet. But, hey, after plates and plates of great food, hey, who’s complaining? Vegetable kofta (also sweet) topped the dishes on offer along with the Mixed Vegetable Curry.
Spicy Bite is next to similar places offering good value – the Taste of Africa, plus a Mauritian place and another similar Asian buffet. The decor is basic canteen-like but there is a great buzz in the place thanks to the mostly immigrant crowd who know good food and value when they find it, plus you get to see Bollywood movies as you eat or the clothes shops in the mall should you get bored with the food (unlikely). It gives window shopping a new meaning.
• Spicy Bite, Moor Mall, Moor St, Downstairs Lidl City Centre, Dublin 1, Ireland. Tel: 086 197 1423 (in Ireland). Open: daily 10am–8pm.
Spicy Bite snapshot
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Atmosphere (Thursday afternoon) ① ② ③ ④
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Royal Greenwich Curry Club 