Peggy’s puddin’ surprise

Jim and Nancy do not disclose the fact that they will review a restaurant before they attend, ensuring their reviews are unbiased and uninfluenced by their position with the Sun Day.

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. It’s that “magical” fun-filled holiday that fills the void between Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day. This year we celebrated at Peggy Kinnane’s Irish Restaurant and Pub in Arlington Heights.

This establishment is situated on a corner in downtown Arlington Heights, so parking can be a little tricky. When you enter, you will feel like you were whisked away to a pub in the Emerald Isle. Their heavy wood furniture and wrought iron accents are done in the “old world style”, but items such as shelves filled with books and stained glass accents makes it feel homey.

As the “luck of the Irish” would have it, we found the Reuben Rolls ($10.95) for an appetizer. This turned out to be two huge egg rolls that were overstuffed with some of the leanest and best corn beef around, and rolled up with a touch of cheese and sauerkraut. The cost may sound a bit pricey, but when you see the amount of meat stuffed inside of them, you’ll see that they are worth it.

Nancy wanted something that spoke “Irish” to her, so of course, she went with a pasta dish. She decided on the Irish Whiskey Chicken Pesto Pasta ($14.95). This was a blackened chicken breast and penne pasta tossed in an Irish whiskey pesto cream sauce with a hint of garlic and sun dried tomatoes. At least the pesto was green.

Jim wanted to be an authentic Irishman this evening, so he chose to have the All Day Irish Fry Breakfast ($16.95). This is a traditional Irish breakfast consisting of two of each of the following: eggs cooked to your liking, Irish bacon, Irish sausage, imported Irish Bachelor Baked Beans, potato pancakes, and finally black and white pudding. If you know Jim, he loves breakfast and always likes to have something sweet afterwards. When his dish arrived, to our surprise we didn’t see the black and white pudding. We summoned our waiter and told him the chef forgot the pudding. He looked at us strangely, smiled, and pointed to the white sausage and the black sausage and said, “there it is”. We told him we expected chocolate and vanilla pudding. It was then that he explained exactly what the Irish consider to be “Black and White Pudding”. White pudding is a sausage made from pork meat and fat, suet, bread, and oatmeal. Black pudding contains all of these luscious ingredients with the addition of pig’s blood. Because Jim is a true professional, he tasted them and said, “it’s not magically delicious”…

The “pot of gold” at the end of our dinner proved to be the Gourmet Brownie Dessert ($6.95). This was a salted caramel-filled brownie drizzled with dark chocolate and still more salted caramel. It had a pretzel crust and was served with ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. This was Jim’s lifesaver; he ate the majority of dessert this evening.

The appetizer and dessert were awesome and Nancy’s entree was definitely the winner this evening. This is a great Irish Pub that serves authentic Irish fare (perhaps too authentic for Jim).

FYI: Handicap accessible.

The price for our St. Paddy’s Day celebration was $61.96, slainté!

Jim’s take: The black and white pudding is an acquired taste, one I haven’t yet acquired, and probably never will in this lifetime.

Nancy’s take: Everything I ate was delicious, and Jim says I’m the fussy food critic!!! I should not have let Jim have any dessert until he cleaned off his plate!

Have comments or restaurant suggestions for the Dining Duo? Send them an email at thediningduo@gmail.com

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