Montclair’s terrific variety of restaurants is lost on my husband Mike; his favorite food is served in a bar & grill. Yes, fried food is king in Mike’s world. One of Mike’s favorite places to eat in Montclair is Tierney’s Tavern, the neighborhood bar & grill on Valley Road near the intersection of Van Vleck. Tierney’s is that quintessential Irish bar where the staff recognizes your face, and often knows your name, after you’ve visited a few times.

Tierney’s has really cold beer, according to Mike. And surprise! It has great fried food, particularly the burgers. For a few years now, Mike and I have listened to heated debates between friends about the goodness/freshness/juiciness of Tierney’s burgers versus burgers from the different upstart burger joints in town. The debate has even hit a couple of the local online forums. Tierney’s burgers win, hands down, in our opinion.

I figure Mike can’t be the only person in Montclair and the surrounding area who prefers a fried food-and-beer combo for his occasional dinner out; when we pull into Tierney’s spacious parking lot on a weeknight we usually get one of the last available parking spots.

We walk in the back door, grab a table and order our food. Mike, usually a cheeseburger and French fries guy, doesn’t say much as he eats; he’s too busy savoring the juicy burger and crunchy fries! And I order a grilled pastrami on rye with swiss and Russian dressing with a side of coleslaw. The pastrami is so lean and thinly sliced it can pass through the eye of a needle. Yum!

Mike orders a Pabst on tap to go with his burger combo. Not the most chichi beer, you say? Maybe not, but the bartender said Tierney’s goes through kegs of Pabst every week; it’s one of their most popular beers. Check it out if you stop in.

If you like burgers and beer, try Tierney’s (http://www.tierneystavern.com/). While you’re there, check out the performance schedule. Some of our good friends play in bands Upstairs at Tierney's. Fried food + cold beer + live band = fun