You've got to hurry if you're going to make it to Kettlebar's Happy Hour. It starts at 3 p.m., ends promptly at 6 p.m., and only offered on weekdays. But you want in on these discounts. They're significant. Some items on the Happy Hour list are marked down to half off. And they're things you'd actually want to eat with alcohol. You know, crunchy deep fried food, especially the greaseless soft shell crab with a chipotle aioli dip and the hot wings dusted with dry rub. It's easy to do the bar math and skip Kettlebar's full-on pan roasts, which isn't discounted, because that's at least five more draft beers you could be drinking instead.
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If you're going to splurge, let it be on more alcohol, such as the signature cocktail of the house: The Kettle Cup. Nevermind that it has more components than Mardi Gras has beads. The list of things they pour into it goes like this: Capano Antica, Aperol, Brooklyn Gin, Reagan's Orange Bitters, Peychaud's Bitter, and finally, Ginger Beer. What matters is that it's served in a tall, sweaty glass with perfect cubes of ice, and a taste that's reminiscent of a Hawaiian passionfruit-ladened tiki drink with the bitterness of lime zest at the end. It's refreshing, and yes, goes well with crunchy deep fried food.
Kettlebar Steam Cooking, 2493 Park Ave, Tustin, (714) 258-8162; www.kettlebar.com.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.