HorseshoeSandwich.com

The Dublin Pub, also called the Publin, is a restaurant who stands on the shoulders of a giant.  A few years ago when D’Arcy’s Pint decided to relocate to a bigger location to accomodate their success they left a storefront location dressed up like an Irish pub.  The owner’s of the Dublin Pub capitalized on the D’Arcy’s move and opened a new Irish Pub/horseshewery in the same location.  To be honest, the interior looks almost exactly the same and so do the horseshoes. 

The Dublin Pub has a large horseshoe menu and offers the choice of a white cheese sauce similar to D’Arcy’s or a yellow cheese sauce. 

Dublin Pub Horseshoe Menu

 Their shoes come on Texas toast and feature crinkle fries.  Their two-cheese approach can lead to some interesting shoes.  I dined here recently and had a hamburger horseshoe with half-white cheese and half-yellow cheese.  You can see the yellow cheese on the right side of the picture and the white on the left.

This is a hamburger horseshoe from the Dublin Pub in Springfield, Illinois featuring half white cheese sauce and half yellow cheese sauce.

Fortunately for this blog, two of my friends who were along also had hamburger shoes, one had all yellow

Here is a Yellow Cheese Hamburger Horseshoe from the Dublin Pub in Springfield, Illinois.

and one had all white.

A Hamburger Horseshoe with White Cheese from the Dublin Pub in Springfield, Illinois

I had a horseshoe at the Maid-Rite today.  A little history is probably in order.  The Maid-Rite claims to be the world’s first drive through restaurant.  It is a tiny little restaurant just west of downtown Springfield.  The place has been around forever.  You can still get frosty mug root beer that they make themselves.  The Maid-Rite sandwich is a loose meat sandwich on a bun wrapped in wax paper.  Abe Lincoln himself may have eaten at the Maid-Rite.

You may have noticed that I didn’t specify the type of horseshoe I had.  That’s because there are no choices.  They have a single horseshoe on the menu.  It is not a typical horseshoe in any way however.  Instead of toast, they use a hamburger bun.  Directly on top of the bun are the steak fries.  The cheese sauce is poured on top of the fries and the Maid-Rite loose meat is spread on top of it all.  Just like the Maid-Rite itself, the horseshoe is one of a kind.

The horseshoe itself was good but not great.  Honestly, I think if you are going to the Maid-Rite you’d be better off sticking with their special – 2 maid-rite sandwiches, fries and a frosty home-made rootbeer.

For many locals, the question of where to find the very best horseshoe has only one answer – D’Arcy’s Pint. As you can judge by the name, D’Arcy’s is an Irish eatery that just happens to serve top notch horseshoes. Their regular menu is pretty good too, as if anyone orders that stuff anyway. D’arcy’s uses a white cheese sauce that is delicious. The shoes feature crinkle cut fries, which are just perfect for delivering more cheese sauce per dip than standard fries.

D’Arcy’s specialty is the buffalo chicken horseshoe which is server with a cup of bleu cheese dressing and a cup of buffalo sauce on the side for dipping or pouring over your horseshoe.

D’Arcy’s Pint Website

We went to West Woods on Friday for lunch and decided to have an Italian Beef horseshoe. 

West Woods is a hunting themed grill so they call their shoes “Snow shoes”.  West Woods has a pretty huge menu and their horsehoe menu is very extensive. 

West Woods "Snowshoe Menu"

It is a customizer’s dream, not only can you choose what meat you want, you can also choose your potato product as well.  You can choose fries, tots, homemade chips or even deep fried round potatoes.  But wait there is more…you can also deviate from their standard white cheese sauce and choose a bleu cheese sauce or a spicy sauce.  I’ve yet to try anything other than the standard sauce here so far though but will try in the future to review their other sauces.  As far as their standard sauce, it is a white cheese variety and is very thick in consistency.  It actually reminds me of breakfast gravy in texture.  As far as flavor, its a really subdued cheese flavor and I am struggling to describe it.  It’s not great, it’s not bad, just sort of average as cheese sauces go.  It isn’t your run of the mill yellow sauce though so it is a nice change.

The West Woods Website