Grub StreetNew York

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We rarely travel to Khakistan — the area around NYU that’s mobbed with people wearing khaki — unless we’re checking out newcomers like the Half Pint, or more recently, the Irish-owned basement bar that opened there this week. As you can see, 99 Below (not to be confused with 99 Miles to Philly — there is a cheesesteak on the menu) is pretty much any other pub, but a couple things are worth mentioning.

The place pours real Irish pints (twenty ounces, not sixteen); there’s an undersung Abbey beer, Grimbergen, on tap; and the food that’s offered until 2 a.m. includes a ten-ounce strip steak, lobster ravioli, and Irish nachos, made with sauerkraut, Irish cheese and deep-fried potato skins instead of chips. “Girls love ’em,” owner Cathal O’Brien boasted to us more than once, and sure enough our perfectly sober drinking companion chopped down a mountain of them with the edge of her hand, voodoo-chile style. How did DailyCandy miss this one?

99 Below, 99 MacDougal St., nr. Bleecker St.; 212-387-8292.

99 Below menu