For those lucky enough to have avoided the chokehold of the Irish TikTok scene, the phrase “love a curry on a Saturday night” will probably go in one ear and out the other, but for those of us who are intimately familiar with the likes of @Meditationsfortheanxious and @Ciano.Mahony, this tagline elicits a visceral mental image of fried rice and spice bag remnants dripping in a thick layer of curry sauce. While the latter likely needs no introduction to the man behind this gastronomic nightmare, allow me to introduce to the charmed former group: Nasti, Ireland’s premier food TikTok-er and self-proclaimed spice bag connoisseur.

 

Spice bag sommelier, Nasti (@Nasti_2k on Instagram)

 

Hailing from North Dublin, Nasti eats and reviews a wide variety of foods outside of chips and chicken. Though after having accidentally clicked on a non-spice bag related TikTok in the course of my research and being met with a video of melted chocolate getting poured over a Peking 4-in-1, I realised his other content might be best left untouched. Either way, his spice bag content is what has skyrocketed our promising young local celebrity into the spotlight, so we might as well ignore whatever else is happening on his TikTok for the time being. Although I don’t think I’ll be able to scrub the image of the chocolate 4-in-1 from my brain anytime soon. 

 

Nasti eats his spice bags unlike anyone else I know, and in fact, if an acquaintance of mine ate their spice bag like he does in front of me, I would go to great lengths to distance myself from that individual immediately. Unlike those of us who prefer to consume our spice bags while drunkenly stumbling home after a night out, a spice bag for Nasti is a sit-down affair. Every Saturday, Nasti chooses one of Dublin’s various Chinese takeaways and orders his never-changing combination: a spice bag, fried rice, curry sauce, and sweet and sour sauce. Equipped with these items, Nasti proceeds to find a plate far too small to accommodate this sheer amount of food and documents the creation of his eponymous dish, the “Nasti Special”: a layer of spice bag, the entire container of fried rice, the rest of the bag, and both sauces, poured over the whole thing. To spare you the trauma of searching for and laying your eyes upon the real thing, I have created a small illustration of this culinary feat below:

When I first came across Nasti’s spice bag TikToks, I was straight up horrified. While I wouldn’t dare call myself a spice bag purist, I do think that there’s something slightly criminal about the mixture of the curry sauce with the sweet and sour, especially if it’s then layered directly onto the chicken and chips. However, in watching more of his videos it became evident that Nasti clearly knows a thing or two about spice bags (or maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome from continuous exposure, who knows). In fact, he has a very specific list of criteria that each element of the “Nasti Special” must meet in order for the meal to get a decent rating. First off, the consistency of the sauces has to be just right, too thick isn’t ideal but too watery is never acceptable, and they must be piping hot while also tasting good and having a nice appearance. As for the fried rice, there must be a brown tint to it. A yellow tint, which seems to be common in Irish-Chinese cuisine doesn’t quite meet the mark, and don’t even get him started on rice with no discernable colour at all. He prefers his spice bags vegetable-less, referring to onions as “toenails” and stating that he cannot enjoy his meals if they’re “covered in nail clippings”, but also wants the chips to taste like they’ve been cooked with veg. The most important factor it seems is the size of the bag itself, with Nasti stating both “the food can be as nice as you like, but if it’s a tiny portion you might as well forget it” and “the size of the spice bag is no use if the quality isn’t there”. To say Nasti demands nothing less than perfection from his weekly Saturday curries would be a massive understatement.

 

The Peking Nasti Special (@Pekingasianstreetfood on Instagram)

 

While the manner in which he consumes his spice bags is unorthodox verging on unhinged, Nasti has managed to win me over after consuming unhealthy amounts of his TikTok content throughout the course of writing this article. While the “Nasti Special” isn’t something I’m desperate to try, his opinions on food should be taken seriously. Indeed, Nasti has secured brand partnerships with the likes of AbraKebabra, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and Peking Street Food, the last of which offers its own “Nasti Special” complete with all the necessary components of the original creation. While our tastes may differ, with his quick pace and razor-sharp criticisms Nasti has cemented himself in my mind as a reliable source of information for all things spice bag, and to round off the article I’ve taken the liberty of compiling his most highly ranked spots around Dublin.

 

Nasti’s Top Picks:

• M&J (Harolds Cross): 9.5
  • Stating that the spice bag was “the weight of a newborn baby” and the sauces were blistering, Nasti was willing to overlook M&J’s less-than-ideal chips:chicken ratio.
• Peking Street Food (Rathmines, Liffey Street, Tallaght): 9.4 
  • Nasti loves Peking because they do a dirty spice bag, although in his own words he says: “Don’t bother asking me what makes it dirty, I haven’t the slightest.”
• Xian Street Food (S. Anne Street, N. Earl Street): 9.2
  • He referred to this as “real” Chinese food, which is questionable, but we all know Xian is Ole Reliable when it comes to spice bags and I’m glad Nasti has recognized this as fact. 
• Lin Kee (North Strand): 9.0
  • Noted that the spice bag was “sweaty” like it had “had a shower before getting to” him, but Nasti’s a fan of Lin Kee’s option to get your bag extra spicy and your curry sauce extra hot. 
• Asian Express (Kilbarrack): 8.9
  • Although their spice comes in box form instead of bag (unacceptable, apparently), the taste and sauces were on point and the rice had that nice brown tint Nasti loves so bad.
• Red Chilli (Tallaght): 8.8
  • Nasti gives Red Chili a slightly lower score for the rice lacking that precious brown tint but notes that the sauces are piping hot and the portions are “outrageously huge.”

WORDS: Scarlett Ferry