It’s infrequent but not unheard of that Mr. She Ate and I disagree on our feelings about a restaurant. Generally, if we go somewhere and have a bad experience, I know that the moment we get into the car, he’s going to vocalize my exact frustrations. (“They charged $4.99 for club soda” and “Why do they even ask how you want the burger cooked if they’re going to turn it into a hockey puck?” being two of the most frequent.)
Likewise, when we have an experience that’s memorable in a good way, we’ve been married for long enough at this point to be able to identify the high points without saying them.
This month’s eatery, however, has thrown us for a loop. I’ll cut to the chase — he likes the food at SaltRock Brewing Co., while I feel no pressure to ever eat there again. I’ll concede that the food is fine. It isn’t offensive. It’s just not anything that’s going to get me to leave the confines of my house — or the immediate downtown vicinity when I’m at my office and can much more easily trot over to the New Daily Bagel and get a turkey Rueben and chocolate chip bundt cake. (If you know, you know.)
Despite that, we did leave our respective downtown offices for a recent weekday lunch together, and we started with the Brussels sprouts ($12). Admittedly, I’m a salt fiend, but I think they completely forgot to season this entire dish. Mr. She Ate argued that the bacon added enough saltiness to the sprouts, but I completely disagreed and scooped my portion onto a separate plate so I could season them properly. They weren’t crispy and didn’t do much for me.
We decided to split the Salt Rock burger ($18) and the fried chicken sandwich ($17), each of which came with a choice of side. With the burger, I asked for fries with beer cheese for dipping, and with the chicken sandwich, I requested the seasonal vegetable after learning that it was a mix of sauteed summer squash and zucchini. (Seasonal? Which season are we actually in?) The vegetable side turned out to be a hilariously small portion. I could literally eat five times that amount of zucchini. I don’t expect 40 slices of zucchini as a side, but I just want to put everyone on notice that I can absolutely throw down when it comes to vegetable-related volume eating.
The burger was the shining star of this meal. It was topped with bacon jam, smoked gouda, lettuce, tomato and aioli on a pretzel bun, and the flavors of the bacon jam and the cheese came through clear as a bell. I haven’t had an actually memorable burger in a long time, and this one is on the shortlist. The fries were crispy and well seasoned, and the breading on the fried chicken was cornmeal, which made for a much lighter and tastier piece of chicken.
A note on service: It was quick and attentive. For a weekday lunch, we were seated, fed and out the door in well under an hour, even though we spent the first 15 minutes on a Zoom call with our architect, who’s going to help us pull our house out of the 1990s discount bin at Big Lots. Lots of cheap shelving and DIY gone wrong.
After a deep dive into SaltRock’s Facebook page, I uncovered evidence of a Sunday brunch. The menu, strangely, isn’t on its website, and I only found it when looking through old photos. Undaunted, we placed an order for takeout because the return to school after winter break absolutely destroyed our children, and there was no way we could trot them out to a restaurant.
We asked for an order of pancakes ($8.50), an omelet ($16) and a scramble ($15), and that’s exactly what we got. The brunch entrees didn’t come with sides — no toast, no potatoes. While I’m sure stranger things have happened, I can’t remember the last time I ordered an egg dish and wasn’t given some kind of carb with it.
The pancakes were griddled in butter, which gave them deliciously crisp edges — the only way I’ll eat a pancake. The kids woke up from their melatonin-assisted naps and demanded that I slather the pancakes in mini holiday M&M’s and Nutella (for him) and a disgusting amount of maple syrup (for her), and since I’m a pushover, I agreed. I ate half of my omelet and wondered what was in it because the description was completely void of information, then pulled out a loaf of sourdough so I could make my own darn toast.
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