[Photographs: Nancy Huang]

The Smith, the East Village standard for rowdy group birthday parties fueled by oversized dinner plates and carafes of cheap red wine, truly knows the meaning of crowd pleaser. Though the menu may offer your typical burgers, steaks, pastas and requisite ahi tuna salad, it's the bar snacks here that unite everyone in a ravished feeding frenzy.

Nothing says addictive quite like their beloved Hot Potato Chips ($8), a bowl of house-made chips drenched in a warm and viscous Gorgonzola sauce. It's not a dish to savor so much as to devour, with diners racing against time and temperature as the crunchy chips transform into a cold mush of soggy chips and cheese. But with bowl after bowl of these famous chips leaving the kitchen every night, it's clear that no one seems to mind.

Beer-battered String Beans ($9) could have suffered the same fate as their potato chip counterparts, but the light batter and firm bean make for a scrumptious bar snack that is designed to remain delicious for at least the duration of a happy hour cocktail or two.

Like wine and cheese, or burgers and beer, fruit and bacon is one of the happy marriages of the food world. The Smith's Bacon-wrapped Apricots ($7) proves this axiom in one blessed union of salty and sweet, crispy and gooey. Hint: the spicy-sweet glaze that comes with this dish makes for a great dipping sauce for the green beans as well.

The Smith

55 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10003 (map)
212-420-9800
www.ctrnyc.com/THESMITH/index.html

About the author: Nancy Huang, who comes to New York by way of Los Angeles, writes The Wanderkind, a food and travel blog of adventures here and abroad. She loves noodles, subway maps, and word games.