Article: 74th Street Ale House; Much Ado about Standards

HERE ARE the dirty words: "standard pub fare."

So we deemed the food at the 74th Street Ale House in our restaurant capsule reviews. Several Ale House loyalists protested, including daytime manager Rick Thamert, who took offense at the word "standard" and presumed that our working definition of "standard pub fare" was "French fries, hot wings, fish and chips, hamburger buns, pre-made salad dressings, soup-in-a-bag, [and] pickle spears."

Now, to me, "standard pub fare" are hardly fighting words: At best "standard" means something worthy of being a benchmark for other things, and at worst it means normal and perhaps ordinary. What it doesn't mean is substandard, which could be seen as ...

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