Pub menus: Drinking, and yes, we mean the alcoholic kind! (3)
There’s a line in one of Lawrence Block‘s Matt Scudder novels that I never forgot. It goes something like: “It’s a fake Irish pub. You know how you can tell it’s fake? They serve food.”
In Ireland people go to the pub to drink. (Usually Guinness.) In Canada they go to the pub to drink and to eat. Going down to the pub after work means eating dinner. Canadian pubs (which are more commonly fake English than fake Irish) have large menus with lots of options, while at Irish pubs you’re lucky if you can get a bag of chips (“packet of crisps”) or some peanuts to let you take on some ballast.
As evidence we offer an Irish pub menu and a Canadian pub menu. The Irish pub is Gaynor’s in Leenane in Co. Galway in the west. Leenane is a very small town, but if you’ve see The Field (1990, with Richard Harris and Sean Bean) then you’ve seen Leenane and Gaynor’s. It’s now also called The Field Bar. The menu offers homemade vegetable soup, “ham, cheese, tomato, onion” sandwiches (I’m not sure if that’s four different kinds, one kind, or you can pick and choose) which you can have plain or toasted, scones, and tea, coffee, and Irish coffee to drink. Just enough to keep you going through an evening of enjoyable drinking and talking.
The Canadian pub is The Duke of York in Toronto. It’s just north of the University of Toronto and used to be my favourite pub, but has gotten larger and more corporate over the years. (My favourite pub now is Harbord House.) The menu is oversized and encased in plastic. A few of the many options: curried chicken rolls, nachos, calamari, several kinds of burgers, a club sandwich, Portuguese sausage, linguine, beef bourgignon, chicken wings, and the usual bangers and mash or fish and chips. Notice the menu also offers you a Cosmo or a “Cinnamon Toast” as special drinks to try. Why? I was there last week and all I wanted was a cheese and onion sandwich, but no.
The large, unwieldy menu at The Duke of York. This is a pretty standard menu at corporate fake English pubs in Canada.
The simple menu at Gaynor's. For Irish pubs this is a big menu.