After our successful mini bar crawl of the UES, my boyfriend and I decided to stroll through our favorite neighborhood – the East Village – and try a few spots. Unfortunately the rain made us go home earlier than planned, but we did make it to Hop Devil Grill and The Belgian Room.
He’d been to Hop Devil Grill before and I’ve heard lots of awesome things about it (like Tuesday’s $1 tacos), but I had only been once a few years ago for lunch. We got there before 8 so we were able to snag beers at the reduced happy hour price and enjoyed some delicious craft beer. I won’t go into any detail since Laura already reviewed the bar, but if you’re into beer you should definitely check it out since it’s a top-ranked beer bar in the city, and with good reason. They have an impressive selection of draft and bottled beer that seems to keep rotating so you rarely get the same selection twice. And I must make a note about the nachos. We didn’t try them, but we saw them at other tables and they looked absolutely enormous – they could easily feed 6-8 people. That’s another reason entirely to return.
Our second stop, and last (after a pit stop to the dog park, obviously), was right next door at The Belgian Room. I hadn’t really noticed it in the many times I’ve walked down the street, but this time we did see the happy hour sign and sneaked in minutes before 8 to order 1/2 priced beer (it’s 1/2 off all drafts, well spirits, and wine 4-8 pm, Monday-Friday). The bartender was really friendly and we liked the inside of the bar, but our only complaint (and fairly significant given the heat wave), was the lack of air conditioning. It was too much with the heat and humidity so we only stayed for one delicious Belgian beer.
We want to return to both spots, but I particularly have my eye on The Belgian Room because of its daily deals:
- Sunday: 2 for 1 everything 4-8 pm
- Monday: Free pommes frites 8-11 pm
- Tuesday: 1/2 price wine all night long
- Wednesday: 1/2 price martinis 8-close
- Thursday: Free pommes frites 8-10:30 pm
I definitely want to return for some free pommes frites! The patrons in the bar tried to convince us to get the pommes frites because apparently they’re “out of this world” good. I thought they were delivered from Pommes Frites in the neighborhood, but they’re homemade and reportedly even better. They didn’t have the same dipping sauce selection as Pommes Frites, but they had enough to entice us to return (unfortunately we weren’t hungry at the time). All in all it was a good night!
