Beer bread let down

So I went back to my favorite work lunch place, Schlafly Bottleworks, specifically to eat the yummy beer bread. I know, right? It doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. But this bread is fresh, it’s a wonderful texture, nice and heavy, and has a really good bread flavor. It’s brown, so you think you’re eating whole grains, which makes a body happy. (I don’t know if you are or not.) The accompanying butters are no joke, either: chive butter and some sort of white cheese. Wow! I first experienced this a couple of months ago with a pal visiting from New York (this was another meal I ate consisting completely of sides).

Suffice it to say we were wowed. I mean, we were wowed enough that when she returned months later, our phone conversation went something like this:

Friend: “Meg, beer bread.”

Me: “Yeah. Wednesday.”

So we go and before we order we’re like, “Listen, Tim; whatever about your specials. Can we get some beer bread?”

It was so good! Warm, crumbly, heavy yet light, and oh so flavorful. Can’t wait! Yay yay yayayayayay beeeeeeeeer bread!

But, uh, this was not the same. First, it was greasy. It seemed deep-fat-fried. I doubt it was (that’s just weird), but maybe they used a lot of oil? Then the butters. Oh the butters. If I’m going to violate my no-butter clause, then it had better be for a good reason. These butters were not good reasons. The chive butter looked the same, but the flavor was very blah. And the white one they said was a blue cheese cream cheese, which I KNOW can’t be the same, because I’m allergic to blue. We asked, they said for sure it was the same, no way, they hadn’t changed recipes in all the years the waiter’d been working there, but maybe a different sous-chef cooked it? Eh, whatevs.

So we let Tim tell us the specials. He says they have a salad special with locally grown mushrooms and some other stuff, and I cut him off and say, “OK I”ll take that.” I figure, I heart the vanilla vinaigrette salad, I’ve ordered it millions of times, it’s always good, so I trust Schalfly’s salads. And I figure, if they have the produce to create a salad on special, it’s got to be good!

But no again! Jeez! Bad day for the Bottleworks. The salad was greens, mushrooms (albeit locally grown shitakes), cheddar cheese (?!?!), lots of red onion, and what they said was a honey mustard dressing (but which tasted like Ireland’s version of “salad dressing” which is mayonnaise). It was so very so. Not even a so, actually, just an s, in my ranking system (so so/so/s). Boo.

Conversation: check

Iced tea: pretty good

Ambiance: like it.

But food today:_________________

I’ll leave that blank. So sad. I guess you shouldn’t knock a solid goat/green salad; at least you know what you’re getting.

Anyway, I'm not out for blood. Everyone gets a free pass for mediocrity. Just one, though...!