Apparently, though, everyone else decided to pack it in early, because when I got to Mullanes Bar and Grill in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, most of the crowd seemed to have cleared out. That's not to say that the place was empty, but most of the people at the bar seemed to be ending their night rather than beginning it. The weird thing was that, even though there weren't a lot of people in the place, it seemed that every seat at the bar was taken. That was fine by me, though, because I walked into the back dining room, where only a couple of the tables were occupied, grabbed a table directly in front of the big screen, ordered some Buffalo wings from their (limited, but fairly bar standard) menu, and settled in to watch the Steelers do their thing against the Chargers, in prime time no less.
First off, let me say that you have to give these guys credit just for opening up a sports bar/restaurant in Fort Greene. Over the years, more and more people have moved into the area, and more and more businesses have opened to serve them, but there was no place to hang out and catch the game until Mullanes opened. If you wanted a wine bar, or a late night lounge, or an eco-friendly Cuban street food restaurant serving food from a truck, you were covered. If what you wanted, however,was some wings and a place to watch a football game, you were basically out of luck. Unfortunately, although Mullanes has you covered if you want to watch the game, if what you're looking are qualtity wings at a good price, then you're still basically out of luck.
I didn't even look at the menu before I ordered, I just went straight ahead with my standard order of hotwings. To keep the results of my search for great wings and great football as pure as possible, I generally avoid making any special requests when I order my wings. Frankly, the way I see it is, a place with really great wings should just serve you really great wings without any further clarification. After I ordered my wings, I opened up a menu to take a look, basically just to kill some time during a commercial break. I was kind of surprised to see that an order of wings costs about nine dollars at Mullanes, but I assumed that I would get a dozen wings for the price. Maybe even a few more? Certainly no less than ten, though.
Needless to say, I was disappointed when the waitress brought my plate of eight tiny wings. I'm not the type of chicken wing fan who thinks that a big wing is always a better wing. It's more of a holistic thing. But really, these things were seriously small and there were so few of them. Doing the math, I paid more than a dollar for each of these sad little chicken wings. As for the sauce, even though I ordered Buffalo style wings, they cam covered in some vaguely spicey, but altogether bland, oily substance. And, putting aside all ideas about the ideal crispy texture of a great chicken wing, the skin on these guys had the consistency of gelatin.
My point of writing these articles isn't to find places that I can put down. I want to find places that I generally like, with great wings and good access to the Steelers game, so that I can enjoy myself while i'm there and then, hopefully, pass the information on to a fellow fan looking for a good spot to catch the Black and Gold. I've been to Mullanes a couple of times before, and both times were fine. once, we were in the neighborhood after a party and were just there to grab a beer and some snacks, which were all good. The other time, I had an honestly excellent chicken ceasar salad for lunch. So it's not that I'm prejudiced against Mullanes, or else I wouldn't have gone in the first place. To be fair, they had a whole section on their menu dedicated to specialty burgers, and of the few people in the dining room, I'd say that at least half were eating them. So maybe I just missed the boat. I don't know.
Now, the bright side of all this was that I was sitting in the dining room, directly facing the big screen TV that they have back there. It was a perfect vantage point for the Steelers action, just like being at home, if I had a TV that nice and woden chairs instead of a sofa. The TV's in the bar area were all very high quality, too, and the back room isn't so big that anyone should really have a hard time seeing the one TV that they have back there, although people at some of the tables would definitely need to turn around to see it. Like I said, there weren't a ton of people in there, and most of them were clearly finishing off their evenings, but I definitely saw some Black and Gold jerseys when I walked in. Still, at least in prime time that night, the Steelers fans weren't really out in force at Mullanes.
There's something about being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan that changes the way that I look at football around the league. As it happens, the San Diego Chargers are probably one of my least favorite teams. There's nothing rivalry-specific to make me feel that way, but I just really don't like them as team. Philip Rivers reminds me of someone who forgot where he came from before he even left home, and Norv Turner sure isn't the one who's going to bring Prince Philip back down to Earth. I'd bet you that Rivers has some really demeaning nickname for old Norv, and the old guy just pretends to laugh whenever he hears it, trying to be buddies with his big psuedo-stud. We all know about the great draft class of 2004, with Ben, Eli Manning, and Phil. Really though, until he stops throwing up huge stats in the regular season and then disappearing in the playoffs, I'm tired having Phil in the conversation. It's like that old game, "One of these things doesn't belong." I know that every quarterback isn't going to be like a Roethlisberger, or an Eli, or even a Tom Brady (it tastes bad to say that), and have great playoff success early in his career. So much goes into it. It took Peyton a while to get there, it took Elway a long while to get there, and Marino never really did get there. But I still don't like Phil (you can't say "Philly" without "Phil," see, he's evil) Rivers, or the Chargers. I am, however, willing to give LaDainian Tomlinson the benefit of the doubt. He's no Rashard Mendenhall, though.
So I was psyched to see the Steelers up so big early in the game. One of the highlights, of course, was seeing that Rashard "The Professor" Mendenhall was definitely on his details this week. He was durable, dependable, and aggressive. Basically, he was everything that you hope to see in a first round running back, which happens to be everything that Steeler fans hadn't yet seen from him. For the first time, I feel that we all really got a look at the promise that this kid holds, and it is impressive. You also have to like the way that Big Ben Roethlisberger has been running the offense this year. He's spreading the ball around like the veteran that he is, and everyone has to be happy to see Heath Miller go out there and get a couple of scores (not to mention the one that got waya). For years, everyone has been wanting to see the coaches get him more involved in the passing attack, and he is making the most of every opportunity that comes his way this year. I'm also starting to get used to the idea that Hines Ward is having an absolutely monster year. Everyone knows that it couldn't happen to a better guy, so it's great to see him in top form.
The defense was really on fire, too, all the way into the second half. It seemed like the Chargers just didn't have any answers for what the Steelers were doing out there. I got a text from my friend Lawyer Abbie that said something like, "I think the Steelers are safe this week." Can't blame the girl, it was 21-0 at that point, soon to be 28-0. I wrote back, mostly kidding, saying that with the way that this season is going, all we could do was hope for the best. And then everything went wrong. Spectacularly wrong. Wrong in so many ways that it would be both tedious and abusive to recount it in detail here. Suffice it to say, that Antonio Gates seems to be the whole of the Chargers passing attack, and I have to admit that he was an absolute beast, as they say, out there. He absolutely punished the Steelers, and suddenly there was nothing that they could do to stop him.
On the plus side, Bruce Arians didn't take his foot off the gas, slam on the brakes, downshift, pull the emergency brake, and jump out of the car this week. I was thinking that Arians must have thought to himself, "Well, what do I have to lose? If we blow this lead, nobody's going to say that I was too conservative this time." And with Mewelde Moore continuing to prove his case as a ridiculously versatile offensive weapon and Mensenhall doing some good old fashioned hard running in the fourth quarter, it all turned out alright. That's not to say that the defensive and special teams collapses were excusable, because they weren't (although that fumble on the punt return was truly bizarre, what ever happend to the rule about forward momentum?). But with Detroit and Cleveland coming up, the Steelers should have a chance to regroup, get some of these question marks resolved and get on their details before the real tests start coming. So with that in mind, let's review:
- Steelers win (2-2)
- Very good passing offense, great rushing offense, one half plus of a great defensive football game mixed with a quarter and a half of a terrible defensive game
- Wings from Mullanes Bar & Grill
- Bad wings, not much of a crowd this night, very good tv's, very good tv placement and general viewing ability
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