I hadn’t been to the 99 Restaurant (or, as I like to call it, “The 9’s”) in over a year. When I worked as a recruiter, the 99 was where we went for lunch, dinner, and/or after work drinks. Nothing de-stressed me more than a “tallie” (a.k.a. extra large glass) of good beer, stale, delicious popcorn and fried ravioli from The 9’s. But since I stopped working as a recruiter, and economic times got tougher, I haven’t made it to my former favorite chain in way too long. I decided to change that, and met one of my former co-recruiters at The 9’s for some cold beer and pub-style food Thursday night. I was relieved to see that the 99 hasn’t changed their menus, besides adding a few more meal deals, and maybe one or two dishes - but, thankfully, they didn’t take anything away - including the popcorn. My friend and I settled into our booth, chatted about old times, and blissfully drank our tallies of Stella Artois and Coors Light, while gorging on over-salted, yummy popcorn. For a meal, my former colleague ordered one of the 99’s infamous burgers, while I requested the turkey panini ($8.49). The panini consisted of thick-cut roasted turkey, harvati cheese, fresh avocado, cranberry sauce, spinach, and a little honey mustard sandwiched between artisan bread that was grilled until crispy. The panini is usually served with parmesan and rosemary-dusted fries, but I asked for the plain fries - I just wasn’t in the mood to get my fingers filthy. The sandwich, however, was remarkable. The 9’s didn’t skimp on one ingredient listed, and the combination of the buttery harvati, comforting turkey (no cold cuts here) and creamy cranberry sauce made me crave Thanksgiving even more. It also made me crave another tallie.

Don’t ever go changin’, 99.

What’s your favorite local chain and why?

Tags: 99 Restaurant, local chain, Nashua, pub grub

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Highly recommended, Nashua nosh, chat 'n chew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.