Whoa, McNellie's!

So we went to the pub. Specifically, we went to McNellie's, a Tulsa hot spot du jour. It's been around for a couple of years now. That's a couple of years that I've been hearing great buzz about it and wanting to go check it out. So we finally did, and I gotta say, I was disappointed. Maybe because a couple years' worth of great buzz tends to create really high expectations, which is what I had going in, and it didn't quite live up to them.

The service was good. The food was okay, but it wasn't outstanding, and we were particularly disappointed with the small portion sizes in light of how much they charge (12 bucks for a snack-size portion of fish and chips, you guys!). Matt had a cheeseburger, and though he said it was decent, this place was acclaimed to have some of the best burgers in the entire state, and we could name 5 places right here in Tulsa that serve up better burgers, without even thinking very hard. I did love their sweet potato fries, though. Tasted like fried candy.

The atmosphere also let us down a little, although I should say that we're pretty particular. It's hard to find establishments with a lot of character in this town, and once you do, it's harder still to find a place that feels genuine without any pretention. This place seemed to WANT to be unpretentious, to project the feel of an authentic, working class Irish pub, but, well, it felt pretty pretentious, like it was trying hard to provide a comfortable facsimile of a working class pub for upper-middle-class yuppies. It just felt fake. Maybe it was the $10 hamburgers.

One thing it lived up to was its beer menu. I think you'd be hard pressed to think of a brand of beer that they didn't carry. We got to try our first taste of Russian beer, which I thought was too bitter and Matt thought was too sweet, so go figure. The beer is also pretty pricey, though.

Overall, it's not a bad bar. It seems like a nice place to hang out for beer and conversation, somewhere comfortable where you don't have to shout to be heard over the music and the waitresses are friendly and easy to flag down. But it's not for the budget conscious, and I doubt we'll be going back there specifically for the food any time soon.