Last night I went with one of my neighbors to the new Irish Pub that opened up in town yesterday. We’ve been looking at the renovations to the building for the last 6 months or so, looking forward to the day when it would open. I’m not a bar person, in fact bars depress me, but a good Irish pub with reasonable seating and good Irish Pub food like Bangers and Mash or Irish Stew (not to mention some Celtic music) really appeals to me. So, needless to say, I was quite psyched to see an “authentic” Irish Pub opening up within walking distance of my house. Irish Stew here I come!

Instead what I found was a night-club atmosphere, jammed with wall to wall people (which my friend and I both believe were imported from over the bridge). The music was good, but it was just a well-produced bar-band, which added to the night-club feel. The food wasn’t Irish pub food, it was bar food. The selection was pretty wide-ranging for such a small place, but there was more salt on the food then I’ve ever had in my life. Who dumps salt on garlic wings? I mean, honestly! My friend and I speculated (when we could hear each other) that the salt was there to make you want to drink more. I just thought it tasted bad.

I was looking for an Irish Pub, I got and wanna-be trendy bar with far too many people beyond their 20’s acting like they were still in college. That wasn’t even my thing when I was in college, it’s certainly not my thing at 37. My neighbor, the noted snow archeologist Mongo Gutman, says that Currans has a great entertainment circuit – that’s great. It’s probably good for the town to get a trendy place like this going because it can start the momentum of downtown renewal, but I probably won’t be frequenting it. My wife and I will hit it for lunch soon, and if they over-salt the food then I won’t be back.