Open daily, dinner 5-10 pm, breakfast 11 am-4 pm.

It's rare that I go out for breakfast anymore; years ago I gave up on that whole culty breakfast thing, with the enormous gooey cinnamon rolls and the downing of three cups of coffee while you wait and wait for a table. The breakfast was almost never good enough to justify the buildup, or the sugar shock and the crash. In any case, I'd rather have dim sum.

Molly Maguire's presents an interesting compromise with a low-key Irish breakfast that is not exactly what you might make for yourself, but is modest and satisfying without being showy. You may end up eating at the bar, facing a row of tequila bottles while a group of musicians tune their perplexing traditional Irish instruments. This is all to the good, dispelling, as it does, the preciousness of the whole breakfast experience.

The Irish breakfast ($8.95) is a paradise for meat lovers, with thick slices of bacon, seasoned porky sausages, and a slice each of black and white pudding. The former is a kind of blood sausage, and the latter a sausage enriched with oatmeal or some other grain; both are utterly soft and meaty and delicious, like a rustic pâté. You also get eggs, baked beans, grilled tomatoes, rosemary potatoes, and a giant slice of toasted Irish soda bread, which has a nice tang, and is generously buttered. The vegetarian plate ($7.95) has the eggs and tomatoes and beans and potatoes and bread plus a handful of buttery, slightly chewy sautéed mushrooms. I was particularly charmed by the tomatoes and the sweet, ketchupy beans; applied to the top of the soda bread alternately, these have a kind of boarding-school-lunch feel, counteracting any lingering indulgence/guilt you might be suffering.

Everything on the plate could have been a lot warmer, and the potatoes were underseasoned and undercooked, but you know? It didn't matter. It didn't matter one bit.