Dublin: Worth its salt?

SEAPOINT Fish & Grill is known to us. One of several eateries secreted under the shadow of Monkstown’s Moorish gothic protestant church, it’s well-reviewed. When I ask for recommendations in the area, it’s invariably named.
The strip here is grandly titled The Crescent, and it makes for a lovely mosey. On one side, an elegant line of villas from the oh-so-salubrious school of Dublin suburbs; on the other, a string of boutiques, restaurants, wine merchants and a small-but-perfectly formed avoca — with its snazzy new James Whelan butcher shop — look like the recession never happened.