Porn Star martini anyone? I’m guessing it tastes of despair and is guaranteed not to put hairs on your chest, or anywhere else. It’s one of the cocktail options in Opium on Dublin’s Camden Street. The drinks list has been left pointedly on the table after we’ve ordered. “They’re barking up the wrong tree here,” my pregnant friend says tartly sipping her virgin mango mojito which has come in an ice-filled Del Boy glass the length of her arm. This time next year we’ll be millionaires, she says by way of a cheers.
Taking someone in their third trimester to a cocktail bar might seem unfair to both the friend and the venue. But Opium has an ambitious approach to food. The Thai and Vietnamese menu sounds like it could stand up to scrutiny without the benefit of beer goggles or cocktail pince-nez. It reads like a list of proper dishes rather than soakage.
The place, which opened late last year, is a cavernous building. You walk through a fire station-style area at the front to the main bar area. Back here it’s so dark you almost need to ignore the paper version and call a menu up on your phone so you can avail of a backlit screen. The faces of people at the bar are occasionally bathed in cold phone light, like deep sea jellyfish in the gloom. Ambient light comes from candles and those compulsory filament bulbs in cages, a virus spawned in a 1990s New York bistro and marching across the restaurant world ever since. They’ve ticked those other design boxes comprehensively with the bare brick walls, the bentwood chairs and the bare tables here too. The music (played loud) also hails from a 1990s playlist.
The first two plates to the table look better than they taste. My scallop and halibut ceviche sounds mouthwatering but is in fact mouth-puckering. Small chunks of fish and scallop meat are nicely served in lettuce leaf bowls. But they have been so vigorously marinated in lime juice they taste only of citrus. Nothing of the sea has survived in what should be a delicate balance between zing and brine. It’s a fish dish for people who don’t like fish, which might be the idea.
Two vegetarian imperial rolls are fine but too oily, having been “twice fried” according to the menu. They’re also a bit teeny for €7.50.
The next set of plates are much better. I’d be very happy to get the egg net roll as a bar snack again. It’s scrambled egg fried in the shape of an open weave shopping bag. Inside they’ve stuffed lots of flavours and textures: slices of pork, whole prawns, crispy shallots, beansprouts and coriander. The side salad has thick leaves of fresh mint. A fish dipping sauce with just the right amount of sweet and heat blends the whole thing together. I also get the baby back ribs, which come with “house rub” a description that has overtones of ointment about it. But the pork has been slowly cooked so that it falls in juicy threads off the bones. The honey and hoisin baste is on the jammy side of sweet but the meat is good enough to carry it off.
Helen’s Vietnamese chicken salad is a good rendition of this classic. The ingredients are finely shredded and drawn together into a mound with a grainy lemongrass and coconut dressing clinging to every mouthful. A side of good Asian greens has spent a little too long in the house sauce to retain its bite.
We finish with an Opium trifle and a good coffee. The trifle is said to come with coconut custard which just tastes like regular custard. It has swirl of piped cream on top. I’ve never been able to eat piped cream since it was my job as a waitress to squirt it on the pre-made desserts, served to the cocktail-drinking customers in a terrible chain restaurant on an English high street.
Opium is slap bang in the middle of a Dublin drinking street that is slowly becoming more food-oriented and you can see the effort they’ve put into the kitchen as well as the bar end of things. There is better (and cheaper) Asian food to be had in Dublin but if you’re looking for a bar snack with your cocktail, you could do a lot worse.
Dinner for two with a glass of wine and a non-alcoholic cocktail came to €69.05.
THE VERDICT: 6.5/10. Some good Asian staples as a tasty backdrop to a cocktail bar. Opium, 26 Wexford Street, Dublin 2, tel: 01-5267711
Facilities: Fine
Music: Loud 1990s tunes
Food provenance: None
Wheelchair access: Yes
