| rev:text
| - A group of us had dinner at Wallace's Tap Room on a weeknight. The place was absolutely deserted, and it didn't take us long to learn why. In fact, there was only one other table in the restaurant during our entire visit.
Even so. Even so. It took an interminable amount of time for us to order drinks and an even longer time for us to receive the drinks. We were actually able to see our drinks sitting on the bar, and half of our table voted to just go retrieve them ourselves, but eventually they did appear at our table. Unfortunately, not a single drink was delivered to the person who ordered it, and one of the drinks was not actually ordered by anyone at the table. When questioned, the waiter incorrectly identified ALL of the cocktails and stated that their placement was correct. I mean. It was actually sort of a feat of mathematics to get them all wrong.
Our waiter was courteous, pleasant, and clearly meant well. We were his first table. Ever. He appeared to have had no training and no other staff member appeared to assist him, oversee what he was doing, or to check on our table. This lead to some really interesting moments. Like when he filled our wine glasses with water and then left the empty water glasses on the table for the duration of the meal. When we ordered items from the very abbreviated menu and he needed us to point each of them out so he could read them from the menu in order to write them down. When someone in our party ordered a Caesar side salad and what arrived at the table was a garden salad with a side of Caesar dressing.
Appetizers were uninspired in every way. Deviled eggs sounded creative (spicy bacon, mustard, & pickled beet) but came to the table looking and tasting pretty unimpressive, sitting on a limp bed of microgreens. The pierogies were a pretty deep embarrassment, because, you know, this is the kind of city where you ought to be able to produce a decent pirogi if you really want to. Or get lessons from a church lady, or something. These were cold, tough, swimming in too much sour cream, and tasteless.
With our crew, it's pretty rare when nobody wants to taste their neighbor's dish, but nobody tried to snag any of the meatloaf, roasted half chicken, corned beef, or burger. The burger was probably the best choice, with lots of lettuce/tomato/onion and blue cheese. While the corned beef (not what was actually ordered, but, oh well, at this point, I just ate it) itself was clearly of good quality, the temperature was erratic (warm on the outside, cold in the middle) and the sandwich was served on a weirdly doughy rye, with a grainy, tasteless "pub cheese sauce" floating over the whole endeavor. The meatloaf was ok. The only other table in the entire restaurant during our visit recommended it. The problem was that the general approach didn't much distinguish itself from the pre-prepared version of the same down at Trader Joe's. The roasted chicken was reported as overcooked, dry, and tasteless.
The one item on the menu that we all agreed was pretty good? French fries. There were thick & just a little salty, a great balance between crispy and toothsome.
In general, the "quality" of the ingredients seemed good, fresh, and obviously there's a strong attempt to locally source ingredients. The problem is that the concept of each dish is pretty uninspired, and issues with implementation, temperature, and service just make it all worse. Overall, it just didn't seem that anyone gave a hoot about the place or its customers. Won't be back. East Liberty has a lot to offer diners these days, and it seems unlikely that Wallace's can make a go of it with this much indifference to quality & service. At this price-point, walk across the street to the Whitfield for better cocktails, better food, better service, and a better environment. That's what we did.
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