Friendly skies

I’ve been visiting a lot of bad bars lately. Not bad, I guess, just boring. They all look the same,and they all serve the same fried food, so I wasn’t real excited about going to Spitfire Pub and Grille, an English style pub and restaurant that took over the space once occupied by a Sparky’s. Walking in, I was amazed that Spitfire somehow transformed the cavernous space into something more intimate, with a large bar in the middle, booths and tables off to one side, and a gaming area—shuffleboard!—on the other. Spitfire is a type of airplane that the owner’s dad flew, so the place is decorated in lots of airplane and military paraphernalia with even a real World War II-era airplane wing up near the ceiling.

My friend Tim was waiting for me at the bar and had some chicken wings ($10) waiting. Oh great, more boring bar food, I thought—but, instead, the wings were crispy, and the sauce had a thick texture that clung to the wings. We ordered them with an Ace Pilot sauce, which is only a mid level of spicy, but the ever-helpful bartender, Terrance, brought a side of the Spitfire sauce that had a light tomato taste and a creeping spice.

I ordered a Lagunitas IPA ($5) and Tim went with a Maker’s Mark and Coke ($6). Spitfire has a lot of wine, beer and liquor so I can’t imagine not finding something you’d like here. The food menu at Spitfire is just as diverse and surprisingly so. Choices range from bangers and mash to pork belly. Tim and I were having a hard time choosing, so we enlisted the help of the bartender and a waitress to assist us. They were terrible at helping us pick, but only because they kept naming items we hadn’t even considered and now wanted. We finally settled on the lamb curry ($13) and the Wagyu burger ($12).

The burger came with bacon and choice of cheese. I went with cheddar and was happy to see it was white cheddar. So what the heck is Wagyu, right? Basically, it’s American Kobe: a cow fed certain things and killed young, but not like, “Oh no, I’m eating a baby cow” young. Also, it’s frigging amazing. This burger was so moist and flavorful that to add something like ketchup or mustard would be a sin. It’s served with lettuce, tomato and onion, which is all it needs, besides the crisp bacon and cheese. I had a hard time choosing between sweet potato fries or steak cut, so the bartender, in keeping with the military theme of Spitfire, acted as an officer and a gentleman when he came back from the kitchen, and told me he had them split the fries so I could have both. The sweet potato fries were my favorite because they were so crispy and sweet with a light salting, but I’m not going to lie—I ate the hell out of the regular ones, too.

The lamb curry was another success. A large portion of tender lamb and savory curry was piled over rice and potatoes and was more like a stew, a delicious baby sheep stew. The curry wasn’t spicy at all, just flavorful. Alongside the lamb was mango chutney that had a sweet spicy taste. There was also a cucumber mint yogurt that tasted great combined with the chutney.

I really enjoyed my time at Spitfire. The staff was friendly, the place was cool, and the food was good. If you’re sick of the same old bar, check out Spitfire.