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Cheap Eats
BAR FOOD
Beyond
the beer nuts.
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Small
wonders: The delectable deviled eggs at Prune.
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Bar food means different things
to different people. The common denominator? It should go well with
a drink, be it a pint of Brooklyn Lager or a dry martini. Burgers
at bars are a dime a dozen, but few measure up to the juicy, five-napkin
whopper at Donovan's, the Irish pub with branches in Woodside
and Bayside, Queens. It's so devastatingly delicious, we'd even
send teetotalers ($4.95 at lunch, $5.75 at dinner). When the legendary
Pearson's Texas Barbecue shut its doors in Long Island City,
fans of its wood-smoked brisket and ribs -- the best in town --
were bereft until it reopened, curiously, in the back of Legends,
a sports bar in Jackson Heights, Queens, where clued-in 'cue connoisseurs
pay much more attention to the pulled pork and tender brisket sandwiches
on Portuguese rolls than to the score of the game ($5.95 to $12).
In "serious" restaurants, bar food gets short shrift. If you're
Jean-Georges Vongerichten or Daniel Boulud, do you really want your
customers filling up on Triscuits and sardines? Gabrielle Hamilton,
chef-owner of Prune,
doesn't seem to mind. Her bar menu (available at tables too) offers
delectable finger food like radishes on the stem with sweet butter
and coarse salt; unapologetically retro deviled eggs; an Iberian
arrangement of figs, fried almonds, and serrano ham; and, yes, those
aforementioned straight-out-of-the-cupboard (yet unexpectedly satisfying)
sardines with Triscuits and Dijon mustard ($3 to $7).
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