Nine Fine Irishmen
 Las Vegas, Nevada        Date of Visit  12/18/12        
http://ninefineirishmen.com/ 

Our visit to Nine Fine Irishmen started out under less than auspicious circumstances. We tried once for dinner but once the house band of Sin É Rí-Ra took the stage, standing room was out of the question let alone a table. No problem…we would catch lunch later in our stay. We approached the hostess stand where we were informed there was a wait and we could spend our wait at the bar.
 



 


 
 


Interesting Pour, Ordered Under Protest
 

We said we would be back and they told us…come on in…to the restaurant full of empty tables. It gave a dirty feel to the entire stop knowing they were lying (likely under management’s orders) to try to up the tab by some percent. You could at least try to be a little clever about it.

In response, I swore off anything from the bar…and then checked out the menu to find a couple of options I had never seen before. OK. Just one. I ordered a Black Velvet which is a Guinness and Magner’s Irish Hard Cider. The cider added some sweet and acid to balance the thick toasty bitterness of the stout. The shirts for the place read “We didn’t just import Irish Whiskey. We imported the whole damn country.” Either the servers are well practiced at the accent or they were imported along with the whiskey. We started with a couple of appetizers and similar to The Public House, the apps set marks the entrees wouldn’t match.
 

 
 
Onion Rings Were Well Done
 

And Flavored With A Bloody Mary Bath
 
 

Spicy Mustard Added Nice Kick To Rings And Cheesy Bread
 

Bubbly, Beery, Cheesiness
 
  First came the Drunken Onion Rings which had been marinated in Bloody Mary before being beer battered giving them a distinctive rosy-brown hue. The beer batter was wonderfully seasoned and puffy, clinging to the onion even after being dipped in the thick spicy mustard. The beer and cheese dip was even better. Widely assorted country breads show up with a hot pan filled with a stringy dip based on Irish Cheddar and Smithwick’s Ale. The ruby beer and the seriously sharp cheese create something very different and interesting than what you would expect in a cheese dip. Both the rings and cheese were beginning to redeem the Nine.

We ordered Shepherd’s Pie, a Corned Beef Sandwich, a Sloppy Pat and a side of Mac n Cheese. The corned beef was fine, boring but fine. Both sandwiches came with “Irish Chips” which were tasty fried potato planks I grew up referring to as steak fries. The shepherd’s pie was actually very nice. Beef instead of lamb cooked with port wine and aromatic veggies get an upper crust of mashed potato and are served in a bucket. Yep. A bucket.
 

 

Yawn
 

More Interesting Sloppy Pat
 

Are We Making Sand Castles At The Beach?
 

Oh, It Is Lunch
 

The mac n cheese was obviously loaded with cheese but with the additional dairy it lost some of the cheesy punch and ended up slinking into the shadow of the beer cheese dip. The sloppy pat was interesting, an Irish take on the sloppy joe. I was hoping it would rival the insanely unique and delicious catfish sloppy joe from RM Seafood. It’s nowhere as different or as good but it was good enough. Beef (not lamb again?) diced potato and Guinness braised cabbage are cooked in a tomato sauce and then loaded on to a bun. Add a bit of tang and grain from crumbled goat cheese and it makes for an acceptable lunch. The food at Nine Fine Irishmen must be fairly solid considering how things started; we left in a much cheerier mood than we started.
 


Looks Cheesy
 

Is Cheesy. Just Tastes Less So Than Dip
 
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