Eats: Irish pub dishes up diverse fare

Thornton’s Pub in Locust Point is a simple, unpretentious and comfortable corner bar where the drinks are cold and generous and the service warm and inviting. While many corner bars in gentrifying neighborhoods have chased the trends and become self-conscious “gastropubs” or power-slamming frat boy bars—or both—Thornton’s is content to be the neighborhood’s living room, the place to gather for cold beer, hot food, the most current sports on TV and the ability to catch up on the neighborhood grapevine.

Thornton’s is an Irish pub, with Guinness posters and flags scattered about, but Mr. Boh takes pride of place on the bar mirror and the food goes far beyond shepherd’s pie and corned beef and cabbage. In fact we saw neither on the menu when we visited last week. On the other hand, shepherd’s pie and CB&C are hardly summer fare.

But the summer garden soup was—it was homemade, with plenty of vegetables and cabbage floating in a steaming light vegetable broth. The other soup of the day, French onion soup, featured a very beefy broth with sliced onion, rye croutons, and the traditional cheesy top. A cup—actually a generous portion served in a crock—of soup will run you $4.95.

Thornton’s also serves a generous and fresh spinach salad ($9.95) with hard-boiled egg, bacon, and a sweet honey-mustard vinaigrette on the side. The blue-cheese dressing is perfect for this salad but comes optional—you have to ask for it.

The YUMMY (yes, that’s the name of the dish) sandwich ($7.95) is, in fact, appropriately named, a grillled, well-seasoned chicken breast with lettuce, lovely ripe tomato, crisp bacon and provolone served on a pretzel roll. The sandwich comes with chips and a pickle, or you can upgrade to fresh-cut fries or sweet-potato fries for $2.

We decided to get a basket of sweet-potato fries ($4.95) to pass around the table. They come with a sweet dipping sauce laced with nutmeg and cinnamon; it’s rather like dessert-in-a-basket.

Other dishes on the Friday specials list were chicken fettucine Alfredo ($9.95), sausage fettucine marinara ($9.95), and a sandwich called “Chicken of the Sea,” grilled chicken breast topped with a crabcake, provolone, and lettuce and served on the pretzel bun ($13.95). Or you could choose a soft-shell crab, crab fluff or fried hard crab for $15.95-$16.95, served with fries or cole slaw. You could also browse through the sandwiches, named for local merchants (including the Under Armour Chicken Wrap).

Beers flowing from the old fashioned pillar tap are Guinness, Blue Moon Lager, Grolsch, Yuengling Lager and Miller Lite.

Bottom line: You can get two people out of Thornton’s Pub well fed and happy for about $37.50 plus tip. If you want to splurge, there is a crabcake platter ($23.95), steak platter ($21.95) or steak-and-cake platter ($25.95).

—by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com