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| - "Look at this coupon," our friend Bec said, gazing at the local area calendar on our wall. "'Loco Leprechaun. an Irish Cantina?' That can't be right!"
Immediately, we determined that such a place required investigation - with a name like that, the entertainment factor alone was worth the price of dinner.
Loco Leprechaun is located in an unassuming strip mall along Center Ridge Road, just west of Walter Street and easy to miss if you're not paying attention. But it is a hidden treasure of novelty and fun. It's set up with more focus on bar than restaurant, so there are only seven booths at standard height, plus a lot of high, round tables with stools. We were there on a week night and had no trouble getting seated in a booth.
The menu arrived quickly, but had to be perused slowly. The restaurant doesn't take its Irish/Mexican theme too seriously in the menu, but it also doesn't hesitate to mix in a broad and eclectic mix of foods from assorted cultures in ways that your average Joe would never contemplate.
Take, for example, the chicken paprikash nachos.
By myself, I would never have dreamed of ordering something that sounded like such a culinary train wreck. But Ferrett, intrepid adventurer into whatever he's never had before, did. And astoundingly enough, they were absolutely delicious.
While pasta isn't food I associate with either Ireland or Mexico, the menu features a number of pasta dishes that were quite good. It also takes its "let's play with cuisines" attitude to rice bowls, and features a Reuben rice bowl and a chicken paprikash one - the next time I go I will have the paprikash rice bowl because their paprikash is some of the best I've had in town.
For dessert, we had the home made doughnuts with Bailey's Irish Cream glaze. The doughnuts were much like New Orleans beignet, fluffy and hot, but rolled in cinnamon sugar instead of powdered, and the glaze was delicious. The order comes with a generous 7 or 8 donuts - to our initial horror, since we had ordered to batches for our table of four. But somehow when it came time to pack up the leftovers, only about 5 were left between the two orders.
The beer selection is okay, but the drinks menu is nothing particularly special, being an assortment of 'tini specialties. The atmosphere is of the sports bar variety, with several large plasma TVs throughout the bar, and it is a bit noisy.
Our service was fantastic. When we expressed curiosity about a drink called Leprechaun juice, our waitress actually brought us free samples - about a half a glass per couple - for us to try.
Loco Leprechaun offers a mix of traditional comfort foods with unexpected twists in a casual atmosphere. Definitely fun for an evening when you aren't taking yourself very seriously.
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