Blue Night at Bull McCabe's

I had a blue night this night at Bull McCabe's in Union Square Somerville. Bull McCabe's is at the corner of Somerville Avenue and Bow Street, just at the corner where you enter Union Square coming from Porter or Davis.

This spot was known as Tir Na nOg until it closed in April 2007 and reopened that June as Union Square, much to the dismay and boycott of the old nOg fans. Long before that it was called the 11th Chapter Saloon. Live music has been the one constant.

The new owner, Brian, who got his legs at Spirit in Porter Square Cambridge, has made friends with the old nOg owners and they've introduced him to some of the old music groups that used to play here (not as old as the groups I remember from the 11th Chapter days).

My blue night consisted of a blue cheese burger with fries, chased with a Blue Moon followed by a Pabst Blue Ribbon. The burger was respectable, the fries were good, and the pickle was excellent.

I give points to Brian, who came up while I was eating and asked of his own initiative how I had wanted my burger cooked. When I said medium rare he remarked that my half-eaten burger looked medium well, and took half off the price (half off is my favorite price). Medium well is how my grandmother always cooked burgers, so I quite enjoyed it all the same.

We hung out for a while, and caught the opening set of The Cherry Orchard. Their rendition of Eleanor Rigby made it an especially blue night.

Bull McCabe's (named after the character in The Field) wants to be the west end of the Union Square Irish pub crawl. You can start a Bull McCabe's, make your way to Sallie O'Brien's, then Precinct, and the Independent. Or crawl back from there to Bull McCabe's.

You can now crawl the new streets and new sidewalks of Union Square, nearly complete after a couple of years of construction. They've got some trees to plant and just a few other things left on the punch list.