Restaurant Review: Herkimer Pub & Brewery

Birthday girl with her birthday dessert
of carrot cake

I'm a little ashamed to say, that at the ripe age of 24, I can count on my hands the amount of times I've been to a bar. This past Friday, I fell asleep at 9:30 pm watching The Boondock Saints. Yep, that's me. So to say I'm a little excited to write this review is a bit of an understatement.

One night over the summer I (we) did the unthinkable and went to a bar to celebrate a friends birthday. Not only that but the bar of choice was actually my idea. Had I ever been there? Nope. Thank goodness for Google.

Mark's makeshift "24" birthday card

The place in question is Herkimer Pub & Brewery located in Uptown. Inside its hip and interesting, exactly what I was expecting. There was shuffleboard behind our table and a handful of board games to the left. After dinner, the birthday girl, KT, wanted to play Apples to Apples, which we did and Jessica ended up winning. But now to the drink and food.

Yes, I said drink, as in singular. Given you can't go to a brewery and not order a beer, we ordered one and shared. We decided on the Schwartz Beer because it was marketed as one of their darker beers. When we drink we don't do light. However, we didn't find it to be very dark at all (maybe the truly dark beers are saved for the winter months), but it was good enough to order two. I don't know if that is a testament to the beer or us knowing we probably wouldn't have another one for quite awhile. Either way, both were thoroughly enjoyed.

I ordered the Greek Falafel Salad which came with both black bean falafels and chickpea falafels, toast, and a huge chunk of red pepper hummus. The dressing was obviously greek and knowing how flavorful they usually are I got it on the side. My inclination about the dressing turned out to be correct, but the flavor was oh-so-good. *Side note about my meal: even though I was the only one to order a meal that need not be cooked, my salad was brought out a good 10-15 minutes AFTER everyone else's. Don't know what was up with that.* Underestimating the filling nature of beans, when I first saw my salad I thought it was going to be way too small. In the end I needed Mark's help to finish. As for the taste? Anyone who thinks salads are boring or flavorless needs to try this one. The falafels were delicious, as was the hummus. My only complaint was not being able to taste an red pepper in the "red pepper" hummus. Other than that everything was delicious, and exceed my expectations, especially for bar food.

It might look small, but was very filling

Mark went with the Mini Puerco Burgers with Tater Tots. The sliders were filled with Cuban braised pork, pepperjack cheese, and chipotle mayo. Overall, Mark enjoyed the meal. He commented that the pork was nice and flavorful, but the cheese reminded him more of American (which he loathes) than pepperjack. Mark is quite the tater tots man and luckily these ones lived up to his expectations. Perfectly crisp and came with great tasting mayo for dipping. His tater tots Utopia.

Sweet bag the tater tots came in

So did we go buck wild, take shots, and dance the night away? No, but we went out with friends and enjoyed ourselves. Baby steps y'all.

8.24.12