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Now I'm no NASCAR sympathizer.
In fact some rednecks may call me a hater. But regardless of my lack
of affinity for cars noisily speeding in circles for hours on end,
I can't help but conjure auto racing when hearing the name of this
joint. I feared the worst. But, alas, there were no pictures of old
#3 on the walls or Danica Patrick hawking hot wings, but rather a
tastefully designed, new brick-lined pub with little touches of class
that made it a cut above as a bar, but casual enough to not be a place
you would feel weird drinking beer in. We were there on the early
side, so the people were sparse (despite it seeming like a remarkably
good place for an after work meet up) and we were ushered back to
the back room for dinner where we were joined by no one. The back
room was kind of like that cute secretary that was always manning
the office desk in high school whose top half completely belied what
was below the deskline. Like as if some mad scientist Frankensteined
some other woman's lower half to this dainty flower's torso. This
wasn't as big of a disaster as that, but the back room, in comparison
to the lovely front of the bar, was claustrophobic and somewhat sterile
and characterless in a West Elm sort of way. That didn't bode well.
But then the cool beer menu, especially with their list of local beers,
brought back the love. The server also seemed very knowledgeable about
their food, extremely psyched to be having us try it and we pretty
much had her all to ourselves. And, I gotta say, I'm very rarely surprised
by a restaurant, but because this place had all the earmarks of a
mediocre dining experience (alcohol, and not food the seeming focus),
I had low expectations. I started with Prince Edward Island Mussels
with white wine, fennel and shallots. How could that be bad? It wasn't--it
was rockin'. And I followed that up with a glazed flank steak and
tomatillos. Now the word "glazed" carries all sorts of iffy
connotations, but in this case it stood for damn tasty. That shit
was actually really good--cooked perfectly, sweet, salty and tomatoey
in all the right places. There were a couple sides, fingerling potatoes
and summer squash, that were total cast-offs, but they had made a
believer out of me. Meanwhile I kept trying new beers and we all kept
commenting on how delicious everything was, as if I wasn't the only
one shocked that this oddball Midtown gastropub could serve us good
beers and decent food to boot. Well, if this is how NASCAR truly is,
they now have a fan in me. [MF]
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