It’s really hard to say enough good things about pub food, but I’m about to say some more. Because for my last meal in Salem, I made my way to the Olde Main Street Pub in the hopes that this Irish place would have food fit for an unvegan. After a bunch of seafood, beef and pork, it was time to taste the what Salem had to offer from the poultry realm.

Thus, I ordered The Chicken O’Brady under the assumption that it was named for Tom Brady, the New England and Michigan Wolverine hero. This sandwich began with a grilled chicken breast and was topped with bacon, cheddar and honey mustard. It also came with fries. Unfortunately, even though I asked the waitress to keep any vegetables away not named in the menu, the sandwich still arrived with a bunch of veggies on one half of the bun. These were easily removed, but a total waste of precious vegetable life.

And really, this was one of the better chicken sandwiches I have ever had. The bacon was placed with such care that it was evenly dispersed across the sandwich instead of lackadaisically criss-crossed atop the chicken. The cheese was melted into delicious gooey oblivion and the fries were seasoned to perfection and fried in all the right ways. The only thing I could have asked more was more chicken, as the breast was kinda small.

This sandwich was a great way to close out the visit to Salem, and while it wasn’t anything groundbreaking, it was beyond what you should reasonably expect from an Irish Pub in a old New England touristy town.

Sometimes when I go to a restaurant I get pretty torn on what to order. In times like these I lean on the professionals (aka waitstaff) to help me out. Such was the case at the Olde Blind Dog Irish Pub in Brookhaven, a suburb of Atlanta. The pub serves much of what you would expect from pub food, and I love that stuff so much that I’m inclined to eat it all up.

When the waiter recommended the spicy fried chicken I was all about it. It came with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, but I subbed the veggies out for onion strings and the result was something beautiful.

As for the actual taste, I found the whole getup to be just okay. Certainly they did not mess up the onion strings or mashed potatoes, but the fried chicken just wasn’t anything special. There was nothing bad about it, but there wasn’t anything that screamed “good” either.

Alas, perhaps it is not always best to trust the experts. I’d go back again, but would hope for something more than just okay.

Just when I thought I knew everything about old school Pittsburgh food pots, Monterey Pub in the North Side was thrust in my face by multiple sources. As an Irish Pub, the place is famed for its Guinness Shredded Beef, which it manages to drop into dishes at every level – nachos, burgers, shepherd’s pie and whatnot. I like Guinness and I like beef, so I was hoping Monterey Pub would satisfy my hunger.

We started out with chips, salsa and guac, which was a huge mistake. After all, despite being in the Mexican War Streets, this was not a Mexican place and I’m pretty sure all three things came from Costco. Nonetheless, my main course more than made up for that.

Per my waitress’s suggestion, I ordered the Guinness Shredded Beef Boxty. This delight was composed of potato pancakes in Big Mac formation layered with the shredded beef, English Double Gloucester Cheese and something called signature pub sauce. Little did I know that this would be served in a ring of lettuce, which was a poor choice, but what I ordered certainly was not. Despite looking like a sandwich, this required a fork and knife and each bite was better than the next. The shredded beef had a touch of sweetness from the Guinness malts, yet was plenty savory. The cheese was just strong enough and the special sauce was reminiscent of a certain mixture of ketchup and mayo, but better. Finally, the potato pancakes were nothing like the Jewish variety and added a great hit of crispy texture and flavor to the mix.

Monterey Pub is definitely worth a visit for anyone looking for awesome Irish Pub food. The Guinness Shredded Beef Boxty is one of the most uniquely delicious meals I have had in a long time, and that’s a pretty strong statement for an Irish Pub. Just make sure to stick with the Irish food as opposed to random menu offerings like chips and salsa.

Pop quiz: What are the only five-letter sovereign nations that contain two Is? If you and five of your best trivia-playing friends can’t come up with India and Haiti, you probably don’t want to be at The Irish Times in Palms on Tuesday nights. You see, every Tuesday is Trivia Night and begins sometime between 9 and 9:30, but were it simply a bar with trivia it would not be worthy of meat-blogging. Fortunately that is not the case, because every Tuesday also means $5 buffalo wings. And while they have a full kitchen and a decent bar food selection, there is really no other option in my mind.

Ordering must be done at the bar and The Irish Times is notoriously slow to take bar orders. I’ve never seen more than one bartender, yet that is almost part of the charm of the place. Yet, while it might take some time to order, the food comes out pretty fast and I quickly found myself staring down a plate of sexy, glistening wings. They were accompanied by those nasty wing-groupies known as carrots and celery, which are like the ugly girls that pretty women keep around to feel better about themselves. They’re harmless in that they don’t impact the flavor of the wings and there is always a friend willing to take them down, but they are wholly unnecessary.

Vegetables aside, the wings were quite good. The sauce was exactly what I expect from bar wings. Nothing fancy, nothing creative and nothing disappointing. It matched up nicely with the blue cheese dressing and my pint of Fat Tire. There was, however, one minor hitch. A few of the wings had spent a bit too long in the fryer and were chewier than necessary. Luckily, this hadn’t dried out the wings, but it definitely prevented them from toppling the Backstage as my favorite LA bar wings.

Yet while they may not be the best, I will certainly be returning to The Irish Times and ordering them again as I pit my trivia brains against the rest of the bar in a battle for eternal glory (and $30 off my bar tab).