Our train back to Hartford wasn’t leaving until 4:30PM, so we had lots of time to waste after sweeping through the exhibits one more time at Book Expo this morning. We had to leave our luggage with the hotel and I wasn’t about to leave my laptop with them, so we were stuck toting it around. That meant no museums, as they won’t let you bring in anything larger than a hand bag. We decided to walk around and see if we could find an interesting place to eat. We ended up looping around and coming back to 57th St where we started. As it was getting late and we were pretty warm, we ducked into an inviting Irish pub called D. J. Reynolds. 

Sometimes dumb luck works in your favor. D.J. Reynolds is a neighborhood hangout for the local retirees. It was loud and friendly and quite the show. Talk about some characters. One gentleman was telling stories from the 40′s and interweaving songs from the era played on a kazoo, much to the delight of his audience. As I’ve said before, you can’t fake or buy atmosphere like this. (Excuse the lousy pic. Best I could do with a cell phone camera.)

There were so many classic pub items on the menu, I had a hard time deciding, but I settled on Fish and Chips. Sarah went with the Chicken Pot Pie. I also ordered a black and tan, figuring if anyone could do it right, it would be this place. I was right. It was perfect. We also had a large basket of excellent breads, one of which was cinnamon-raisin. Very tasty.

My fish and chips were classic pub grub. Nothing too noteworthy, but good stuff. Sarah’s chicken pot pie, on the other hand, was excellent. The crust was several inches high and light as air. The chicken pieces were large and the gravy was delicious. She was quite happy with it. And as we were in no hurry, we just sat there for a bit and soaked up more atmosphere. Glad we stopped in.