Cuisine: Irish-American

Hours: Open 7 days, 11 a.m. until 4 a.m.

Entertainment: "Let your hair down" sing-a-long with live entertainment

Parking: Curbside

Credit Cards: All major

For the regular patrons of the Irish Cottage Restaurant and Pub, it’s a homecoming. For the occasional diner, it’s a memorable experience. And for the owner, Kathleen McNulty, it’s been 40 years of hard work and laughter.

At the back of the Pub, diners will find a country setting with table candles, paintings of the Irish countryside, and cozy booths that "holds them in the palm of our hands," said McNulty with a lilting Irish brogue. And when the regulars get together at the neighborhood-drinking bar up front, "it’s like coming home," she chuckled.

McNulty suggested a beer ($5.50 a pint) to compliment the Yankee pot roast with baby roast potatoes and red cabbage dinner ($14.95). I ordered one pint, but she brought three varities. The most popular is the Guiness, "a hearty, man’s beer," she said. The second, the Harp, was lighter and sweeter, and then the Bass, with a medium taste.

"By the way," said McNulty, "I used to have the Yankee Pot Roast once a week, but since Sept. 11, it’s become one of my most popular dishes. It’s on the menu three times a week. I think it’s the word Yankee that gets them."

The varied menu of freshly made daily specials include other favorites, like the Sheppard’s Pie, a signature dish of ground sirloin, vegetables, browned mashed potatoes with McNulty’s own special gravy ($10.95).

Talk about potatoes . . . the hearty, well-seasoned potato-leek soup is something to write home about. As McNulty said, "The Irish know how to make anything out of potatoes."

For an alternative, try the carrot, pumpkin, and beef barley soups —also palate pleasers.

There are other traditional comfort foods like corned beef and cabbage (14.95), fish and chips ($13.95), beer-battered shrimp ($16.95), and grilled salmon garnished with dill sauce ($16.95).