When I was a child, bar snacks were a thing. I know this because my dad had a bar. It was in a separate lounge area in his restaurant, running down one side of the wall it shared with the dining room.
There was a line of booths down the opposite side, and a jukebox at the end. I played it a lot. I also played with the soda gun behind the bar, where I mixed my own concoctions, consumed maraschino cherries to my fill and yes, ate bar snacks.
Spanish peanuts were my favorite. And when I finally was old enough to drink (or old enough to look like I was old enough to drink) bar snacks were, in the right kind of bars, still a thing. A little dish of something free and salty and hopefully good.
Maybe bar snacks went away after COVID, I’m not sure. Probably. Communal bowl and all that.
But the concept of the bar snack is alive and well and elevated at Bar Kada , a sleek new sake lounge that like my dad’s bar, shares a wall with a dining room. But, instead of a neighborhood joint serving steaks, seafood and what was then billed as “continental cuisine,” this one has a Michelin star . Michelin-starred Soseki is a city splurge spectacular | Review That’s probably why Bar Kada’s bar snack, billed as the “welcome” (i.
e. free) is a small, personal-sized dish of flaky-addictive fried garbanzo beans, dusted with za’atar and sea salt. Schmancy.
And yet, it scratches that same crunchy, salty itch. And feels as unpretentious as the stuff in the plastic barrel behind my dad’s.