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Odd Bar at Eventide, Clarendon - Bar Manager Tim Irwin on Wilson Blvd. and N. Hudson St. - Closed


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I had a great time dining in the lounge area of Eventide early Saturday evening with my daughter. Yep, that was me eating in a bar with an 18-month old girl. However odd it sounds, it was actually perfect. The lounge was empty, our table looked out the big windows in the front to provide lots of distractions, and the noise level was a bit higher than in the dining room, which is typically pretty quiet in the early hours, so even if my daughter spoke up, it wasnt likely to be disruptive.

Started with a Dark & Stormy, with the bar's homemade ginger beer. Fantastic drink, the ginger beer adds a lot of kick. Truffle fries and mixed greens salad as apps then organic chicken breast as an entree. The fries were really good. My daughter pummeled them. The salad was quite good as well. Fresh greens, baby beets, candied walnuts and lightly applied vinaigrette. And, I think I might have found a chicken dish to rival the Amish chicken at Liberty. Plump, juicy, and chicken-y, this bird was great. The chicken was served over spaetzle with fava beans. The spaetzle was fantastic, my daughter loved that too.

It might not have been the traditional place to dine with a young kid, but this turned out to be a great evening and I will certainly be back.

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So the bar has been renovated and will reopen as the "Odd Bar". The full menu from upstairs will be available from 5:30-9:30 and there will be a different bar menu.

As per ARLnow: http://www.arlnow.com/2012/01/30/eventide-lounge-to-reopen-as-odd-bar-tomorrow/

I've walked by Eventide a number of times when looking for something to eat. I like to drink there - though admittedly I haven't been there in a while - but the bar menu never made me want to eat there. It'll be interesting to see how it has changed, though the draft selections aren't exciting (they are, however, Arlington standards).

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I've walked by Eventide a number of times when looking for something to eat. I like to drink there - though admittedly I haven't been there in a while - but the bar menu never made me want to eat there. It'll be interesting to see how it has changed, though the draft selections aren't exciting (they are, however, Arlington standards).

Ditto. The food menu wasn't very interesting, but its sad they are finally putting in draft beer and Blue Moon makes the cut.

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who is running the bar now?

Tim Irwin is our Bar Manager. He's been with us for some time, and is a local veteran. Some of you may know him from Evening Star some time ago. I'm not sure he's on DR.com yet, but he will be.

The new menu is geared to make eating at the bar more appealing--more options, more variety and more alternatives to standard 'apps' & 'entrees.'

As to the beer, little excites me less than Miller Lite & Blue Moon, but they sell. A lot. They are asked for all the time, night after night. As to Jomo and 60 Minute, those are two solid, local brews that can hang in any beer geek conversation despite their popularity. We also still have 20 or so beers in the bottle that will now be funkier than ever since the workhorses are on tap.

I think you all will find the look and feel mostly the same just freshened up a bit and the layout better, but by all means let us know what you think.

Stop by through Sunday--new opening time 4PM--and get 10% off your check if you mention DR.com. Give us your feedback in person or online.

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I admit to being a bit dismayed when I read about the bar being revamped here. As evident from reading my earlier posts, I am/was a huge fan of eating in the bar early on Fri or Sat nights with my wife and kids. It was a nice atmosphere for them, we all got to eat real food, and my wife and I got to have real drinks or wine. It was a really good thing. Maybe I am nervous because I liked the target clientele of the bar's prior iteration and I am not sure how the new clientele will affect the vibe I liked here before. I wasn't only a fan of this bar when with my kids (that sounds weird) but it was my favorite bar to hang out in down there. I liked the relaxed but nice atmosphere, the great bartenders, the great liquor selection and the cocktails. I could sip a Cooper Bros. Cocktail and not have to worry about a meathead spilling his pitcher of Miller Lite on me. Hopefully that hasn't changed. We'll try it and see.

With trepidation,

Sean

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Odd Bar looks basically the same as it did before the remodel, except the walls are now blue and there are more tables. The clientele looks to be about the same too. The big change is the menu, which is considerably less weird than it used to be -- burgers, sliders, mussels, etc. I got an oyster po' boy, which was fine, with a nice fennel slaw, though very few oysters were harmed in its creation. I like that there are taps here now, even if the selection is limited, but my Jomo tasted a little off -- slightly skunky. My second, a 60 minute, was fine. The people next to me got the "wings," which are actually house-made chicken nuggets in buffalo sauce, and the pretzels, which are now deep-fried logs of dough. The nuggets looked good, though I think I'd probably prefer actual wings, and the pretzels were apparently well received by my neighbors, though I'd rather they kept the old pretzels (which, I must confess, are one of the few things I liked on the prior menu). All in all, I like the place a little more, but I think I'd give it a bit to hit its stride. Two beers and a sandwich were $25 pre tax and tip. Happy hour runs until 7 and features, among other things, half priced drafts and select appetizers, including the "wings" and pretzels.

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My wife and I paid a visit to the bar at Eventide on Saturday evening and found, thankfully, that not much has changed after the name change and re-concepting. Similar crowd, same comfortable vibe, and excellent cocktails. I ordered a Martinez with Plymouth gin and was convinced after tasting it that my fears of Eventide changing into a frat house were overblown. We ordered a couple of the mushroom sliders and the roasted olives to munch on and were pleased with both selections. The mushroom sliders were especially fantastic - buttery roll, earthy mushrooms, caramelized onions and a blue cheese topping. The olives were good though I expected roasted olives to be served warm. Overall, I was pleased to learn that not much had changed at Eventide and that it would remain my favorite bar.

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So I hit Odd Bar last night (BTW, I *love* the pint glasses - doesn't hurt that my little league team back in WV was sponsored by the IOOF) and got to meet Tim. Great guy. We joked about the fact that both Steve and Matt went to Columbia Firehouse, and evidently that's where Tim came from...ah, life in a small town.

FOOD: Started with the "wings" ($9) (in quotation marks on the menu) and bar nuts ($5), then had the flash fried-still soft pretzels ($8).

The wings, to me, looked like buffalo chicken tater tots. Tim explained that they went through sort of a confit process, if I remember correctly, followed by tubularization (my word, not his) and deep frying. They were tasty, though it took some time to wrap my mind around what I was eating. I liked 'em well enough but I don't know if enough to order repeatedly. That may just be my tiredness at the idea of buffalo wings however (I want DIFFERENT flavors than tired ole buffalo). The sauce is described as "south of Buffalo" but tasted like buffalo sauce to me.

The bar nuts were salty sweet delicious.

The pretzels...complete flashback to elementary school for me. Back at Second Ward Elementary School in Morgantown, WV, if you ate a school breakfast (as I often did) you'd usually get something called "fried dough" - a rectangular block of fried, well, dough, rolled in sugar.

The pretzels had the consistency and the taste of the dough itself. I was in a nostalgic heaven.

Obviously, being "pretzels" they were salted, but there was very little salt on them. To be honest, I could've used a LOT more salt. They're pretzels! They should be salty! But I was so busy thinking about fried dough that I was also thinking about knocking the salt off and asking for sugar.

They came with a cheddar ale sauce and a jalapeno honey mustard. Both were fine. I could nitpick (I'd prefer the cheddar ale sauce to be thicker, for instance) but those are just that, nits to be picked. They were tasty.

DRINKS: I had a Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale from the bottle ($6, my usual choice back in the day here), then a 60 Minute and a Jomo (both also $6 if I remember correctly). Tim also made me a Bronx with bitters (aka the Income Tax cocktail - gratis, courtesy of Tim) and a Martinez (inspired by Sean's post above). Both were quite tasty.

There's no real cocktail list, per se, other than the bartender's choice for the month (I think - this month was the Bronx). They still have a good-looking bar (especially well stocked with bitters) which was good to see.

All in all had a good time last night and can't wait to dig into some of the charcurterie on the menu.

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I ate in the bar here this past weekend with my wife and kids and had a wonderful meal.

Since they have re-arranged the deck chairs here, there is really only one table really conducive to our party of two adults and two young kids. We entered on Saturday to find that very table (the round one by the door) available and settled in for a nice time. I started with a Dark & Stormy (have I mentioned that I love their housemade ginger beer here?) and my wife had a nice Sidecar.

To eat, we ordered the pretzel bites for the kids, though I ate some too as I can't resist dipping in that seriously potent mustard. The kids love the other dipping sauce though I can never quite place what it tastes like. I started with the Grilled Gulf Shrimp appetizer, which is served over quinoa with cilantro and avocado. The shrimp were nicely cooked and the quinoa was really tasty. Overall it worked well together. My wife had the Salt Baked Beets and loved them too.

For entrees, my kids split the steak frites and pretty much devoured it. The fries were so good and the steak was well seasoned and perfectly cooked. My wife and I both had the Carolina Flounder that was served over grits (I think) with bok choy. The flounder was cooked nicely and the cornmeal crust gave it nice texture. A really nice dish.

Service was, as usual, friendly, personable, and efficient.

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Adding my vote to the positive reviews above on the flash fried pretzel sticks. I had them for the second time last night. They're thick, soft, bready rods that come with two dipping sauces - a cheese sauce and a mustard-that-goes-up-your-nose. Plus there were some pickled jalapeno slices on the side. The pretzels are best with dipping sauce for each bite. To avoid the social faux pas of double dipping, I broke off small pieces and dipped them each individually in the sauces.

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