On paper the happy hour menu at Bonney Read looks pretty good. Walking in the place looks good, the crowd is a little older and the music is also old school. So far so good.
But, as they say, the proof is in the tasting. First up was their touted Chowder Dog - a hot dog covered in NE clam chowder. The most I could muster for this combo was a half-hearted, “Not bad.” So onto the mushroom escabesh which was a one note dish that was so boring we didn’t even finish the small plate. A plate of chorizo and clam fritter suffered from a lack of both clams and chorizo and was basically a mildly flavored hush puppy. Finally we shared a moule frite, which was the flavor highlight of the night and had a decent amount of mussels though curiously only a tiny bit of fries. Worst of all this came with not even one small piece of bread to dip in the nice sauce.
All this food and two drinks came to about $35, but we left unsatisfied and craving something else to eat as most of our meal stayed on the plates uneaten. Skip it.
I can get behind the concept. If they wanted to do it right, they should have used a spicy sausage like chorizo or andouille to balance out the sweet creaminess of the chowder. As it was the plain hot dog didn’t quite do it for me.
I was only there once, and not for happy hour, but had a chance to taste a few dishes, and the only thing that wowed all of us was the octopus w/chorizo. I’m not a big enough seafood eater (some allergies in the mix) to care too much, but I know some people who love the place.
I was super excited about the chowder dog. Something about it sounded like it should have been amazing but the chowder did nothing for the dog. Agreed on the fritters - all batter and no meat.
Remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials; “You stuck your chocolate in my peanut butter, now you got your peanut butter on my chocolate!”…“Hey you dropped your hot dog in my clam chowder, no you got your clam chowder on my hot dog!”…yeah even the commercial doesn’t seem to work together. I’ll pass.
It doesn’t seem like one of those fortuitous accidents like the legend surrounding the creation of the chimichanga. On 2nd thought, maybe what it needs is a dip in the deep fryer.
