I spotted this place a few weeks back when wandering down Moore Street. It’s nothing much to look at from outside. And it’s pretty plain inside too, but we weren’t there to look at the décor.

I had two places in mind for lunch and I gave the young lad the choice of streets. He chose Moore Street.

Delhi O’Deli is about half way along Moore Street and it was reasonably full when we got there. Full mostly of people who looked as if they came from the Indian sub-continent.

Delhi O’Deli is a vegetarian restaurant and you’d be hard pressed to find anything on the menu that costs over a fiver, so we’ll be back to try out some other goodies in the future.

Delhi O'Deli, 12 Moore Street, Dublin 1

We went for the Daily Fiver dishes. Each day the restaurant prepares a different set of dishes and, for a fiver, you can fill your plate with rice (a choice of plain basmati or pilau) and choose one or more of the dishes on offer. There is also a basket of poppadoms, some raita and jugs of water.

Reasonably, there are notices up saying that you can have only one serving (meaning that you can’t keep loading up your plate) and that you can’t share.

The young lad chose tarka dhal and a pasta-based curry.

The young lad's choice

I had a moong dhal and mutter paneer.

My lunch

I don’t want to go overboard here but the food was very tasty, and not over-spiced in the way that some places go heavy on the chilli powder just to create heat. It was much tastier and far better cooked than a meal the spouse and I had in a much pricier Indian restaurant on Baggot Street a few evenings ago.

It’s not a place to linger. It was very busy (we got there just after 1pm) and there were people queuing for tables, so we ate and left.

I have to admit that it is an extraordinary and gratifying feeling to go to a till and hand over a tenner for lunch for two, and feel satisfied. Highly recommended.

Very light damage

If you are looking for cheap, good value food, Moore Street seems to be well worth exploring. After lunch we went for a wander. A few doors up from Delhi O’Deli, we came across a Chinese fast food buffet place where you can pile your plate high for €4.99 (noted for a future post).

A little further towards Parnell Street, a food sign caught my attention. We went in the door and down an escalator into the Moore Street Mall. Various mobile phone unlocking stalls, hair salons, eastern European grocery shops and THEN, a food court. While only one place will fulfil my current eatforafiver criterion, there was a line of buffet restaurants with ‘all you can eat’ offers from €5.99 to about €8. The eatforafiver contender is Balkan and I’ll visit it later in the summer.