Tom Doorley, Philip Nolan and our brilliant travel section

NUNKI TEA HOUSE 138-139 Lower George’s Street, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin Phone: 01 230 1660, nunkiteahouse.com

IDON’T like tea bags. So much so that I once condemned the things in a lengthy TV rant as I walked along the Grand Canal in Dublin. It was my first ever piece-tocamera and I had to get my timing synchronised with my start and finish positions on the path while talking animatedly to my distorted reflection in the camera lens.

Had it been any other subject, I would have fluffed it several times, but such is my aversion to tea bags that I managed it in just a couple of takes. It’s a subject on which I can bore for Ireland so I won’t go into the details here.

Suffice it to say that finely milled tea goes stale very rapidly and also infuses far too quickly delivering a tannic ‘stewed’ flavour. And then there’s the environmental impact of the tea bag, most of which contain plastic.

But I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, a while ago, a group of young Chinese friends in Ireland were even more nonplussed when they realised that virtually everyone in the country is a tea bag user. Coming from a tea culture in which freshness, subtlety, complexity and even medicinal qualities are cherished, they set out to open, if you like, a little temple to real tea.

And the result is Nunki Tea House in Dun Laoghaire, in the premises that used to be the Giddy Goose Café. You know how posh restaurants employ a sommelier to advise you on what wines to order? Well, everyone at Nunki Tea House will provide exactly the same service in relation to teas.

There are also splendid oriental cakes, an aspect of Asian cusine that we tend to overlook, thinking that it amounts to banana fritters with syrup.

A visit to this tea house will dispel any such notions.

However, it’s not all about tea and sugar. There’s plenty of savoury stuff too on a menu that takes a pretty broad route through Chinese cuisine; and there’s a more elaborate menu of specialities but you either need to have good Mandarin or depend on the guidance of the staff to explore these realms.

Or, of course, you could keep an eye on neighbouring tables and, to quote a certain film script, ask for what one of your neighbours is having.

We popped in for lunch on one of those wet November days when the sky is dark enough at noon to look like nightfall.

We were in need of both sustenance and some cheer.

We kicked off with gyozas, those crescent shaped dumplings the bases of which are traditionally crisped on a pan. We had five pork gyozas (€5.50) and five chicken (€5) and I have to say they were among the best I’ve tasted: delicate, thin wrappers and properly savoury fillings.

Intrigued by the idea of a vegan version of mapo tofu (€9.80) —

which normally involves minced pork or beef — we ordered accordingly and got lots of cubes of tofu in an intensely savoury Sichuanese-style sauce with plenty of spice but probably a little dialled down for the average Dublin palate. Good tofu dishes always amaze me; while the lead ingredient tastes of very little, it seems to concentrate and draw in the flavours around it.

Kung pao chicken (€9.80) was stickily, savourily, saltily good, with small nuggets of chicken and lots of toasted peanuts and the pleasing surprise of hot, crunchy cucumber fragments.

Deep-fried green beans (€9.80) were crunchy, salty and a lovely foil to the rest of this lunchtime feast.

Of the three cakes made inhouse, we shared a slice of the matcha and raspberry that balanced cleverly the elements of bitterness, sweetness and fruitiness. We drank Giong-Tin Pu-erh and Lung Ching (Dragon Well) teas at €5 each.

I suspect we’ll be regulars.