O'Dowd's Little Dublin Irish Ale House and Pub

I really thought I had already gotten a review written for O'Dowd's last summer when we were on our tour of bread puddings around the city.  Not sure how I totally missed writing this one up!

These guys have, by far, our favorite bread pudding in town.  It's all about the butter sauce, makes it absolutely decadent.  Combined with a car bomb and the occasional Dublin Coddle they have on the specials menu, and we are in gluttonous comfort food heaven.

We've only actually had meals there a couple of times, but they have been great as well.  

The upstairs patio can get a little too crowded for comfort when it's nice out, but at night when the crowd has died down, it is great.

A couple friends and I stopped here on a Friday afternoon for a couple pints of Guinness. It was busier than you would think, but maybe that's because I am not used to being at a bar on a weekday afternoon.

It has all the signs of an Irish pub. It really does a good job trying, which is all you can ask for in Kansas City (and really anywhere outside of Ireland, for that matter). It's comfortable, well decorated, and definitely gives off the Irish pub feel.

We bellied up to the bar and grabbed two rounds of Guinness. They were poured pretty well - a bit quick for Guinness, but certainly not a full pour immediately. I would say they were mostly properly poured. The Guinness was good, but not great. The service was good, but not great.

I would return, but would not make a trip to the Plaza specifically for O'Dowd's.

We were told to trek down to the Plaza during our visit to KC, so on St. Patrick's Day we drove down to check it out for the afternoon before we moved closer to downtown for our actual St. Paddy's Day celebrating.  This was our plan.  In reality, we happened to see this place while we were eating lunch across the street (yes, CPK is a cliche chain but I haven't been to one in years.  Don't hate.)  We then decided to come here, "just for a drink" we told ourselves.  Seven hours later.....

But literally.  I'm sure there are more "authentic" Irish bars in town, but this place was fun.  They had a  DJ out front of the bar, underneath an outdoor tent complete with a "mini'bar" serving car bombs.  Unfortunately, it was raining and FREEZING, so there was no booty-shaking this St. Paddy's Day.  However, there was a GREAT Irish band on the main floor of the bar.  The bar patrons were diverse and all over the age spectrum, but absolutely everyone was having a great time.  The band was hands-down the best part, but there was also another area with a bar on the roof; this section of the bar had heat lamps, so I didn't completely freeze to death.  I will admit, if I had come here on any day other than St. Pat's, I probably wouldn't have thought it was so great.  But I did and we had an amazing time!