Brass Monkey Local

Brass Monkey Local cooks like a New York dive bar that wandered onto St. Paul Street and decided to stay. Chopped cheese griddled onto a hoagie, a Nathan's footlong, crispy fries buried under seasoned chopped-cheese beef and queso — this is downtown late-night comfort food with the volume turned up, anchored to the bar culture of New York City and a rock identity the bar wears openly. And then the same kitchen turns around and offers to build nearly any of it without meat.

The food runs on bar-snack maximalism, and the apps alone could carry a table: Xtreme fries smothered in chopped-cheese beef and pico, chips and queso, spring rolls, pizza fingers in egg-roll wrappers, and Crispy Community fries with gravy on the side. Old Skool chicken wings come ten to an order with a long list of sauces, the onion rings are billed as O'rings, and the Blue Ribbon fish and chips arrives as lightly beer-battered haddock with tartar and creamy coleslaw. From there the menu sprawls in every direction a hungry table might wander — a New York chopped cheese on a hoagie, a Cheese Dog Con Carne under queso and chopped-cheese beef, a Crunch Wrap around a crisp tostada shell, Punk Rock nachos for the centre of the table, a Killer Quesadilla, a Buffalo chicken wrap, a smash burger doubled with American cheese, a Massive fish sandwich, a Crispy Club on brioche, poutine, and Nonna T's cauli-bites fried in beer batter with a curry dip. Salads hold the lighter end, and for the group order the O.G. takeout boxes bundle pizza fingers, wings, quesadillas, onion rings, and dips into one box.