I am soon to discover that I am exhibit number one. Our dishes have just landed when Janet, of dumplings fame and winner of Takeaway Titans on RTÉ in 2022, starts talking the two diners beside us through the menu. She turns to our table and uses our food as props, pointing to the noodles and a succession of other dishes as she explains what’s what. She finishes, smiles at us and says she’ll be back. I’m not sure why.
She returns, pulls on a pair of black disposable gloves and produces kitchen scissors. The brisket in the bowl of hand-pulled noodles (€22) is on the bone and too big to tackle with chopsticks. She snips it into manageable pieces while chatting to us. Every second sentence ends with “baby”. She is irresistibly charming.
Jianan Liu opened Yibu by Janet in the Arthaus Hotel in Dublin 2 in mid-June. Known simply as Janet, she teamed up with Michael Piwnik of Smokin Bones when the opportunity arose to lease the space from the Arthaus. A daytime cafe fronts on to Mercer Street, and around the corner on York Street is the restaurant. It has a jazzier feel, with dramatic lighting, bronze mobiles hanging from the ceiling and a long bar lined with caramel leather stools. Illuminated circular shelving behind the bar adds drama.
The restaurant has proved so popular since opening that the daytime cafe now doubles as an evening diningroom. We are shown into this space, where the decor is more restrained, and the large windows are perfect for people-watching.
The Japanese-inspired cocktails, created by acclaimed mixologist Daire Smullen, are worth exploring. Fans of an old fashioned will be keen on the Shizuku (€16), which replaces bourbon with Nikka from the Barrel Japanese whiskey and is flavoured with tonka bean, black walnut and orange. The sweeter Japanese Slipper (€14) glows in an almost radioactive green, combining Midori melon liqueur, Cointreau and fresh lime, finished with a maraschino cherry.
The menu is focused, relatively short and easy to follow. It is divided into sections: hand-pulled noodle bowls, a selection of bao, Janet’s signature juicy dumplings and a handful of fried snacks and sides. Yiu is from the coastal city of Dalian, but her menu ranges across China. Her cooking is what she calls “free style”. She brings her own ideas to classic recipes, adding and changing ingredients at will. She says people joke that no one can copy her food.
As is customary in Chinese dining, all the food arrives at the same time. We, of course, have ordered her handmade dumplings (€15 plus €2 for a mix of two types), which I’ve had before at Janet’s Street Food at Eatyard in Dublin 7. The cheeseburger dumplings are an ambitious take on the Big Mac. Counterintuitively, they work with flavours of beef and melted cheddar cheese oozing out of the silky wrappers. The pork, kimchi and chive dumplings are similarly juicy, but the firmer wrappers indicate that they may have been made a bit earlier.
The battered aubergine popcorn (€13), tossed with chilli, sesame and spring onion, is glazed in a sweet and sour caramel sauce, the smaller pieces setting into small crunchy nuggets in the bowl. It would make you question ever going back to chicken popcorn. The Texas Dragon brisket bao (€8.50) in a cold bun, is filled with smoked brisket, kimchi and mayo, but would benefit from a tad more kimchi to lift it.
I try not to break the hand-pulled noodles in the bowl with the 12-hour smoked beef rib, which Janet had dismembered with kitchen scissor…