Bar Louie

continued

Except for those Tuesday burgers, you won’t find appealing food deals to accompany your happy-hour plonk. The two-for-one appetizer specials are limited to just seven choices, and those I tried ranged from a sophomoric hummus with pita

as squishy as Wonder bread to one of the worst foods I’ve recently encountered. The “loaded fries” are a huge plate of industrial-cut frozen potatoes dunked in the fry basket, topped with runny process cheese (“queso” on the menu), crumbled bacon, pickled carrots and such from a jar (“giardiniera”), and canned jalapeño slices. I’ll admit there was a certain initial junk-food appeal when it was hot, but as it cooled down and the grease began congealing in the bottom of the bowl and the pastel-colored “queso” began to gel, we were begging the server to remove it. By comparison, chicken quesadillas with cubes of grilled breast meat and a whopping side of fresh guacamole were pretty good, although they may have been buoyed by the contrast.