O'Leary's

Pulling a muscle is a very valid excuse for not working out. It's beautiful outside and I haven't been to DeKalb or Sycamore for a while so with no particular place to go I meandered out west.
  Saw O'Leary's and parked. Nice high cieling room with raised seating areas on either side of the door. The area to the left of the door has an old barrel and whiskey jugs for decoration. It used to be a J.C. Penny's at one time which explains the way it's structured including the original copper cielings.
  Lots of cherry wood in the bar, high tables and chairs, and wainscoting with walls painted dark red, very light green, or maize yellow. Pay close attention to the beer can collection behind three glass display cases on the east wall with 350 or more cans. There are also a half dozen large model airplanes (and an obsevation or plain ol' hot air balloon model) from a Mustang to a German Fokker biplane.
  Talked with owner Mel at length and his lovely wife Debbie. They have several aged Irish whiskeys, thank you, so I had three. It was nice to see the Red Breast 12 year, a really smooth and mellow whiskey. Also had the Middleton that definitely gives the Red Breast a run for it's money. Note the Cosentino "The Cab" on the brief wine list. I am crazy about the full flavor and rich mouthfeel of Cosentino's wines.
   Was eating later but in my (newly) constant striving for complete reviews, I ordered the jerked boneless chicken bites. They were batter fried, not greasy, and extremely moist. The jerk sauce was sweeter than I'd personally make it but the allspice shone through which is characteristic of Jamaican jerk and weirdly missing in a lot of other restaurant's versions.
   Nice clean restaurant with attention to detail from the entry way to the men's room, a friendly pair of owners, and some good bar food. I hope I can get back here for the Baconpalooza pig roast Saturday, the 27th of July.

An OK place to hang out with friends and have a drink. Service is usually good, but I would say the food is only average and definitely NOT healthy. Every seafood item they have here is deep-fried, even the fish tacos, which traditionally use grilled fish.

My bride and I've been to O'Leary's several times and I wish I could give O'Leary's at least an 'A-OK' as I like the ambience of wood though it's light wood, I'm a man and real men love dark wood) but when it comes to their menu, portions and the food's pizzaz I've experienced much better.

Maybe it's just me but I find the menu boring. A good menu to me is where I'm in great stress because there are so many things. Not so at O'Leary's it is the opposite, I'm stressing as to what to settle for. My most recent visit I had the A1 peppercorn burger and was reminded I'm not a fan of O'Leary's. It was about an 1/8" think on a ho-hum bun. The side of fries probably smaller than a medium size fry at the place named after a clown. Truth is I felt like it was a meal from Mac's and if not for the meat being somewhat more tastier I would think they ran to Macs.

My bride had the salmon and though she enjoyed it was average at best.

Considering the small portions and the lack of pizazz to the overall prep, I've had much better burgers for the price and those burgers had larger sides.

Then when it comes to desert, talk about boring! There is only four items and one of them is bread pudding. OK the Irish are big on bread pudding but it was boring enough to skip and I'm a kid when it comes to desert.

The ambience is very nice, nice big square bar, booths, TVs. It' clean and he staff is friendly and most of the times attentive but all those pluses don't add up to overcoming the blah of the boring menu, little baby bear portions and the food's lack of being yum yum 4da tum tum and ho-hum food and it is those items that make a Scottie Bear place a 3 - 4 star place.

The going out the door on O'Leary's if your out walking and it's raining and your hungry I'd say it be worth going in the door.