Celebrating My Irishness

I was invited to celebrate my Irishness over the weekend with a low-key and not too overly Irish outing to some of the finest haunts of Lansdale. Ah... Lansdale... a town I'd never ever hung out in before. First stop? Huey's Grill & Tavern on Main Street. It's kind of a funny place with totally random clientele. There were cheesy St. Patty's day decorations everywhere. We were hanging in the bar and our booth had an awesome frog lamp on it. It excited me so much that I spilled my water all over the table. In the dining room, each table has unique salt & pepper shakers (no two sets are alike!). It's quite random! We had a bunch of beers (this check can't be wrong) and moved right along.

The next stop on the fantastical tour of Lansdale was the Sumney. They dub themselves as an American bistro with an Irish accent. The place is pretty damn Irish. They sat us at a table in the middle of the room, and we were a bit bummed. There was a choice booth right next to us. Then they sat the people behind us in the booth. Drat! Then an even choicer corner booth became vacant. J worked his charm and got us in there. It was fantastic!

We started with the appetizer sampler, which came with chicken fingers, wings, mini crab cakes, and cheese coins. You also get free bread and scones. These little mini scones were awesome. And the sampler was pretty good too.

They have a fairly extensive menu, but had irish lamb stew as a special. All four of us were extremely creative and all four of us got it. The stew had big hunks of lamb with potatoes and carrots and onions, and of course, tons of gravy, and the whole thing was served in an irish loaf (aka bread bowl). Damn, this was a lot of food, and damn, this was good. I ate as much as I possibly could, and even scraped out the soft bits of the bread. They did a great job with this dish. Seriously, they should serve it all the time. I'd order it.

K went crazy and got the bread pudding special. It was a giant hunk of the densest bread pudding I'd ever witnessed in my life. It also had a huge ass dollop of whipped cream. A took one bite and couldn't eat any more. K barely ate any of it and he ordered the darn thing. J took a few more bites and then made me try it. I tried it, enjoyed it, and gave up after few bites. The giant stew was sitting at the bottom of my stomach, and as much as I enjoyed it, I kinda wished I'd left a bit more room for the bread pudding.

The service was good. Our server was quite chipper and helpful. The food came out quite fast. The stew itself was surprisingly not hot, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It was still good. Right before we left, the live music for the night had started - Twirlin' Martha. They actually have a little dance floor / performance space in the middle of the main dining room, so this seems to be a regular occurrence. There is another main dining area and a big bar.

The last stop of the evening was the Astor Place Restaurant / Lounge. It's kind of a weird place, but kind of cool. Rather big and strange yet decorated well. We stopped in the lounge area for cocktails. The bar is pretty groovy, with way too many flat screens than any bar should be allowed to have. Every single bartender asked us if we had been helped. They really wanted to make us drink. I ordered a caiparoska, which apparently, they had never made before. It took the chick awhile to figure it out. It was a bit weak. K and J both got some gross gin martinis. A got a girly drink like I did, but I think hers was of regular strength. If I lived anywhere near Lansdale, I could actually see myself hanging out here a bit. It's almost tragic that it's in Lansdale!