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On the evening of 5/14/2002, my friends and I were
trying to decide on a place to eat - some wanted
barbecue, and some wanted steak, so the general
consensus was something meaty. We couldn't come to
agreement on where to go, so we decided that a hearty
meal from one of our perennial favorite restaurants
would do. Worcester Magazine had also recently
awarded O'Connor's "best restaurant" in its best of
Worcester annual survey.
O'Connor's has been around for nearly a decade or
so; in that time, its appeal has become near
legendary. Almost any night of the week, you can
drive by and the humongous parking lot is always
at least half full of cars. When you enter,
you're immediately surrounded on all sides by
Irish paraphenalia and knick knacks. The wait
staff is friendly, and many of them are first
generation Irish Americans or right off the boat
Irish (gotta love that accent).
Having not been to the restaurant in some time, I
was very happily surprised by the menu, which
seems to have grown a great deal (the size of
typeface was much smaller than I remembered!). We
shared the "Irish potato pizza" appetizer (potato
skins) and two orders of the restaurant's
signature "shillelagh sticks" (corned beef sticks
wrapped in puff pastry)
My entree choice (and it was an agonizing decision
between it and a duck special) was a veal dinner
special; the Irish equivalent of a veal
saltimbocca. Lovely, tender medallions of veal
with cured ham and cheese, all on top of a potato
pancake (boxty). Other folks chose the old standby
Guinness beef pie (another great signature dish)
or large, meaty burgers.
In closing, I just have to say that I can't find
a finer pint of Guinness in any other restaurant in
the area; these guys know what they're doing.
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