photo taken from:http://www.likeme.net/places/dive-bar-new-york
I had dinner tonight in a restaurant far off my path of travel on the upper west side of Manhattan. It was filled with neighborhood locals but the food had a distinctly Southern twist. Dive Bar managed to be one of the few (if not the only) bar I can recall eating in that offered me food I had never tried before. Fried pickles anyone? I can’t take the credit for dinner at this location for myself. It was a meal that I shared with Hagan, who is fearlessly plowing through his project 93 Plates on The Wandering Foodie website.
When we first spoke, Hagan mentioned that he heard that this place had a muffuletta sandwich on the menu. I’ve only had a muffuletta once before in New Orleans, where it is one of the city’s well-known sandwiches, along with po’boys. Although po’boys are found on menus at many Southern food restaurants around NYC, the muffuletta never made it up North. I’m pretty sure that most NYer’s, despite their love for Italian heros have no idea what it is. You can read more about the history of this sandwich here. If you can’t make a trip to Nolo any time soon, the next best thing would be to check out Dive Bar’s interpretation. It wasn’t exactly a classic version, but it was tasty and very, very filling in its own right. It had a tangy olive spread of some sort along with layers of Italian meats. It also had some spicy argula for green and very thick bread. Unfortunately this sandwich was a little too much to chew, literally. It fell apart in our hands as we tried to eat it. Nonetheless, we braved through (not that hard really) and polished off most of it. But, be forewarned, it’s definitely a sandwich for two at least.
Enough about the sandwich, there was plenty more…fried pickles. What can I say? They were very pickle-y, probably because they were made with sour pickles. Hagan mentioned he might have liked them with a half-sour pickle (check out his photo of the dish here). I thought they were fun, and a great idea for people drinking who needed a good fried bar snack. They came with a ranch dressing which upped the good bar food factor for me. Again, this is another dish that would be best shared, cause really you can just eat one fried pickle and be satiated on that craving. The beer that we sampled with this was Dive Bar’s own light amber ale, brewed for them by the Chatham brewery. It was a great light ale. Any place that has their own beer on tap obviously takes beer seriously. We also tried the Dick’s IPA, which may have been my least favorite of the four we sampled, but that’s just not really my favorite kind of brew.
The last dish we ordered with dinner was a mac n’cheese. I take mac n’cheese very seriously. I’ve ordered it at almost every restaurant worth their salt in NYC. Basically if it’s on the menu, I’m going to try it. Dive Bar’s mac n’cheese was made with fusilli, which to be shows an extra level of effort, as opposed to elbow pasta (preferrable in boxed versions). The sauce was creamy with a nice cripsy melted cheese crust. It could have been a bit cheesier in my opinion though. The flavor was a bit mild for my tastes. No worries! Dive Bar also makes their own hot sauce, which spiced this dish up nicely. To wash this down we had a pumpkin ale. Although the sound of it maybe off-putting to most, it actually was my favorite beer of the night. If you like hard cider, you would love this type of ale.
Dessert came and despite being stuffed, we had to try the cupcakes, we were told. ”Ugh, more freakin’ cupcakes. Really?” Don’t most people in a city with more cupcake bakeries than I can count feel like, “I can’t take another cupcake”? Well, maybe, but in all fairness I was a bit too negative too soon. A bar that offers cupcakes should have a good reason, and they did. The cupcakes are bourbon flavored. And by bourbon flavored, I mean at least a shot glass worth of bourbon in each cupcake (at least that’s the way they tasted). Seriously folks, you could get a nice buzz off this thing. If that’s what you want from your desserts. We also had a brownie made with Guiness in the batter, and a blondie with Dive Bar’s ale in the batter. Those were a bit more subtle and probably easier to handle.
Another round of beers? Of course, you want more. The last two we tried were Delerium Tremens, a Belgian ale and a Goosehead Island, seasonal beer. Both of these can be found in other bars with extensive beer menus. They were both very good. I had never had the Delerium beer before. It reminded me more of something I’d drink in the summer, but at this point in the night I was only a few sips away from being a bit delirium myself. This place really was a fun spot that doesn’t take itself too serious, except in the beer selection, which is exactly how you want your neighborhood watering hole to be. Don’t be afraid, jump in.
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