Best Bar Food

It's a dangerous combination, thirst and hunger, because usually you quench the former to such an extent that sating the latter becomes iffy. You are this drunk because you haven't eaten, dumbass, so you're willing to gobble up anything with salt on it. Flavor becomes secondary to filling the gut with something that'll absorb the poison -- specifically, meat and bread and grease (and maybe some sort of potato). Real food for real drinkers? We say John D. McGurk's Irish Pub, most definitely, because the Soulard standard not only offers the proper ingredients but does it with taste and class. In addition to serving up this city's best fish and chips, McGurk's offers a brilliant Gaelic steak, an eight-ounce filet mignon doused in Irish whiskey and topped with mushrooms and onions. This in addition to stews, salads, a few good vegetable-based entrées and some of the city's most consistently excellent bread pudding. Eat a full meal at McGurk's and you're safe to pound at least two more pints of Guinness. It'll taste almost as good coming up as going down.