I'd been living in Dartmouth for a couple months before I finally made my first visit (cut me some…read moreslack, unpacking takes time!), with my wife and I stopping by after work on a Friday. I'd call it happy hour, but Dear Friend is too popular and upscale to bother offering a happy hour, so let's go with the Quebecois term, cinq à sept.
I began my weekend wind-down with one of their house creations, All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down). It seemed fitting giving my age demographic, and it was one of the few specialty cocktails with whisk(e)y in it.
With an ingredient list even longer than its irreverent title, it combines Jim Beam rye, Hennessey VS cognac, beef tallow (!!), cedar and bayberry leaf. After an impressive rundown from the bartender on the work that went into creating this drink, I thoroughly appreciated it's warmth and depth of flavour on a cool fall evening. The beef tallow made for a velvety smooth mouthfeel, without having globs of fat floating in the drink, and the cedar and bayberry added herbal undertones that contributed without overpowering.
For some solid sustenance, we stuck to the bar bites section of the menu, although they do have bigger apps and full-size entrees.
Marinated olives were an easy choice, while the falafels beckoned with their deep-fried crispness. To round out our trio, we had to go with the house Party Mix.
The Party Mix came out first, and deviates from the classic chip mix by combining sweet and savoury, with caramel popcorn, spiced cashews and mini chocolate truffles. It was endlessly snackable, and great for having a drink at the bar over great conversation with your significant other.
I'm not one for the standard black or green olives that come out of ungodly large food service containers, but I've been slowly warming up to higher tier olives, and Dear Friend's very generous bowl was a great bar snack, bordering on small meal.
The dish that disappeared the quickest was the falafels. This was partially because they were so damn good and there waere four pieces, as opposed to the other two dishes. They came in finger-form, as opposed to the small pucks/balls that are more commonly seen, and the extra surface area allowed for an even crispier bite, while a delicious cashew tahini cream that lent to the familiar falafel flavour, but with a certain je ne sais quoi. That's right, French twice in one review - I'm fancy AF! Small bits of pickled cauliflower and a delicate layer of microgreens brought brighter flavours to play off the richer note of the falafel and tahini.
It's now a local cliché to talk about how much downtown Dartmouth has changed over the past decade or so, and Dear Friend has been one of the standard bearers of that continued change these past few years with their thoughtfully crafted beverages and shareable bites.
