Fibber Magee's Irish Restaurant and Pub

 Sometimes St. Patty's Day doesn't come often enough.  There needs to be a time and a place when you can let loose with your silver tongue after you kiss the Blarney stone.  Here at Fibber Magee's you will find such a place.  Located in Chandler off of Dobson and Elliot, this quiet little pub is a great place to relax.  But if you come on St. Patrick's day be prepared for standing room only.  Luckily for Patti and I, we arrived early enough to be able to get a table.  I ordered my usual Coke and Patti ordered a glass of water with lemon.  However after taking one sip of the water, she asked for a diet Coke to get the weird taste of the water out of her mouth.  This is a pub!  Who goes to a pub and orders water?  After contemplating the menu, we ordered two appetizers and two entrees at the same time.  Big mistake!  When I order appetizers, I expect them to come out first.  In this case our entrees and appetizers arrived at our table simultaneously.  Our waitress apologized for the untimely arrival but wasn't able to correct the matter.  So I set my entree to the side so that I would be able to enjoy my appetizer first.   Our first one to try was the "Dirty Nellies".  These are fresh cut, deep fried chips covered with bacon, bleu cheese, carmelized onions and a roasted red pepper crema.  The sweetness of the carmelized onions totally made this dish!  I'm not a big bleu cheese fan but when put with the bacon and the onions, the flavor of the cheese was tolerable. 
Our other appetizer was the "Bowl of Mussels".
 It starts off with a heaping helping of mussels in a bowl, covered in broth consisting of leeks, garlic, bacon and red pepper.  This is served with a side of toasted garlic bread.  The mussels were incredibly tender and delicious.  I considered the broth to be like a light soup that in itself was surprisingly well done.  When you dipped the garlic bread in the broth, it tasted like heaven.




With a name like "Patti McGee" she had to go with the traditional Irish meal of "Corned Beef and Cabbage".  Especially since she only gets it once a year and has never actually tried it in a restaurant before.  The plate consisted of corned beef with a dark mustard onion demi over it, a side of cooked marinated cabbage and a scoop of "champ".   For those of you who don't know what "champ" might be, it is actually mashed potatoes and scallions with butter and milk.  The corned beef was very delicious and could have been served without the demi.  Although the demi gave it a strong flavor which was in contrast to the very bland "champ".  When you mixed the two together you end up with a very tasty bite indeed.  Patti was also impressed with the cabbage, as hers never comes out looking this green and crisp but without the bitterness of undercooked cabbage. 


Frank opted for the traditional Irish comfort food "Real Lamb Shepherd's Pie".  This dish is a brown gravy base with ground lamb, carrots, peas which are typically found in most pot pies.  This meat mixture is decoratively topped with mashed potatoes and cooked to golden brown and served with two slices of toasted brown bread.  I was expecting my entree would be on the cool side since it had been sitting on the sidelines waiting for me to finish my appetizer.  But to my surprise the pie was still piping hot.  Although the lamb may have a strong flavor it was tempered by the mashed potatoes. 
So if you would like a taste of Old Irish tradition and come on down to Fibber Magee's.  And if you haven't tried dirty nellies, try it now.