| rev:text
| - I'll come right out with it: I love the Beer Engine. I love the food, I love the people, I love the service and servers, I love the atmosphere, I love the beer. Unfortunately, each of those loves comes with a caviat that ultimately take it down a peg here and there.
The food, is usually fantastic... unless you get a cook who doesn't much care that day, and just slops whatever they feel like on a bun. Having worked in food for the majority of my years on this rock, I know that sending food back to the kitchen is akin to saying "No, please give me whatever disease you have today." The head chef, an older, bald man with a great goatee (who's name escapes me) is always great, and his food is always the picture on the menu.
Of my menu favorites: The Andouille Sausage Bites are tremendous when done correctly (The later you're there, the odds are they won't be, often fried to a terribly untasty char with the consistency of a pretzel stick) and the Cyclops burger is a favorite. (when the egg, bacon and cheese are stacked correctly so that when you break the yolk, you don't wear it) Our favorite though is the Chipotle Blue Burger, a slightly spicy burger with bacon and blue cheese, sure to spike your cholesterol from the mere mention of the delectable treat. As an extra bonus, you can replace the beef on any burger with a black bean patty, a chicken breast or a portobello mushroom (which is never done right and has rosemary like crazy, most of the time. Beware)
The people are also fantastic... after around 10PM, when all the kiddie hipsters who feel the need to scream their converstaions at the top of their lungs decide it's time to head down to Tremont where the action is leave. When busy, every surface inside the building reflects sounds directly into my ears, making it impossible for me to hear. Yes, I'm also close to the age where I yell at kids to get off my lawn, but, c'mon. Keep it down a bit, yeah? Saturday afternoons are fairly perfect, however. Just loud enough to hear a crowd, quiet enough to hear yourself think.
The service is great... when you get a waitress who cares. There aren't many of them left who simply wander around aimlessly, while the poor, poor beer you want next calls out to you. There are a few, and they're never the beneficiary of an outstanding tip that they could have waiting for them. I'm not asking to be the focal point of your service, but I should at least be at your periphery every once in a while. That said, when you get a good waitress (and waiter) you're in like Flynn. I won't embarass by mentioning names, but, they know who they are, and we show them our utmost appreciation for their time.
And I love the beer... as long as it's not a Buckeye Beer. I like them, but, they're consistently mediocre and not very different. There's about seven IPAs that rotate into selection, each one tasting somewhat remarkably similar to the other. Again, to offer a caviat: Their non-IPA offerings are good, and their Strawberry Tart is exemplary. By far one of my favorite beers and if marketed, could be what puts Buckeye on the map with local favorites Fat Head's and Great Lakes.
All this said, and three stars (which would really be 3.5, 3.75 -- I'm not feeling generous today, though) aside, this is my local. This is my bar. It's the place I take friends from out of town, it's where I take people to initiate them into the finer points of beers beyond the Big Three. It's where I eat and laugh.
Unless something else gets in the way.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)