Triangle's Anti-Flash Bar Menu Is So Old It's New School

What: Artichoke and jalapeño dip with toasted flatbread

Where: Triangle Lounge, 3507 Fremont Place N., 632-0880

Cost: $5 happy hour, $7 regular menu

Official tasting notes: I'm sure many food freaks were waiting for Thomas Hurley, chef-owner of beloved Hurley's in Portland and Coupage in Madrona, to unveil his new menu at the Triangle in Fremont. Expectations of Hurley jumping on the bandwagon of duck's eggs, bone marrow, and offal were high. Instead, the well-regarded chef gave the Triangle, and Fremont, something else entirely—an anti-flash bar menu, so old it's new school. With hoagie rolls, copious amounts of cheese (much of it fried), and nachos, Hurley's menu is a happy romp through the long list of my Midwestern longings.

The artichoke dip is a goat-cheese béchamel chock full of artichoke bits and topped with a little bread-crumb-and-cheese crust; the jalapeño adds a background note of smoke and spice. It's served not in a cup but in a bowl, and the waiters give you at least 12 triangles of flatbread with which to sop. Guilt led me to also order an apple-walnut salad. The $8 salad was shy on walnuts but had approximately three house salads' worth (by downtown standards) of baby greens.

Verdict: This whole small-plates trend tends to chafe me. When small plates begin to mean "same prices you used to pay, but less stuff," I long for things like a big, social pile of nachos or a hearty dip with tons of bread. Most times, when I'm out with friends, I want something abundant to mindlessly snack on, not a fey little composition that requires some sort of collective-bargaining eating agreement. You should not be made anxious over who gets the last piece of bread—especially when there are only three—or the last tiny scoop with your one tiny spoon out of the wee little ramekin. Because at this time of the day, you're starved.

So the Triangle's artichoke dip is not just a refreshing throwback to the Stuff Mom Used to Make in the '80s but a welcome way to pig out over drinks like the bar's Scuttlebutt 10 Below. Bar food like this is an endangered species. But if growing up means it should be beneath my dignity to eat 12 ounces of cheesy dip in one sitting, I won't grow up. Not me.