Manito Tap House

The hopes have been high around these parts, lately. These parts being "the mid South Hill" (surely we can come up with a cooler neighborhood moniker than that). I'm not even talking about the Trader Joe's that will be opening, at long long last, later this month. I'm talking about the Manito Tap House, which has moved into the old and frightening Pear Tree Inn space, underneath what used to be Gottschalks and will soon be Ross Dress for Less. The early buzz seemed so promising: calling itself a gastro pub; fifty beers on tap; everything made on premises; a commitment to local ingredients and environmentally conscious materials and practices. Best of all, the location is within easy walking distance. Oh please, please let it be good!

The Tap House hasn't been open for long, and is still something of a work in progress. A few menu items are  unavailable, and the outdoor seating area is a pile of construction materials and caution tape. The new sound baffles have been ordered, but sound still bounces almost painfully off the concrete ceiling. So, take what follows with a grain of salt. It is all subject to change.

First, I'll start with things I like. The interior is comfortable, chic, and does not feel like the decor was inspired by HGTV. The lighting is a tad on the dim side, but I like both the wit of the "chandeliers" and the energy savings: they are LEDs suspended in beer bottles. The menu is highly promising, filled with tasty sounding entrees that I would like to try. And, the beer list is long and impressive, although I will echo Luke Baumgartner, there isn't that one really special beer on it. The service is friendly and knowledgeable, if lacking in polish and, at least tonight, definitely tailing off in attentiveness towards the end of the meal.

But, the real make-or-break for me is, of course, the food. The good news: the lamb burger is excellent. The yam chips are a nice twist on the ubiquitous (if yummy) sweet potato fries. The fried mozzarella was tasty, if confusingly mislabeled "bruschetta." The hot crab and asparagus dip was pleasantly crabby, although the accompanying bread was barely toasted and lacked any presence at all. Think Safeway baguette. And the pork tacos are a big success, succulent and moist without being wet or mushy, with a complex blend of flavors and a pleasant kick of spice.

Now for the bad. Their signature burger is dry. I ordered mine medium, and it came out without a hint of pink or juice. The promised Oregonzola cheese was barely present, and I'm pretty sure the promised caramelized onions were not there at all. But the real cardinal sin was the pork chop. I'm not sure how any chef would let that plate leave his kitchen. I've seen tastier, prettier food on a season opener of Hell's Kitchen. The chop was thin and cooked to shoe leather, topped with apple sauce that I'm sure was house made but could easily have come from a child's lunch box. The risotto was worse than mush. It was pasty mush. There was a large bowl of overcooked vegetables swimming in some unidentifiable liquid. The soup was just bizarre. It was like each component had been cooked separately, piled into a soup bowl, and then covered in a fairly unappealing broth. The result was not inedible, but it failed to be soup in some existential way.

There is also a very strange thing about the Tap House: the beers are small. Like stonehenge from Spinal Tap small. They arrive in pint-glass shaped glasses, but they aren't pints. I think they are twelve ounces. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't also really expensive. $4.50 for a not-pint of PBR, are you kidding me? Some of their beers are $8.50 a glass, so the very least I would expect is that the glass would be adult-sized. The thing that really bothers me is that nowhere on the menu does it acknowledge that what you are ordering is not a pint. This fact, tied with the rest of their relatively aggressive pricing, makes an evening at the Tap House cost more than it feels like it is worth. That is never a good feeling with which to leave a restaurant.

The Manito Tap House is not a disaster. At worst, it will be a comfortable neighborhood hangout, a place to get a beer and a nosh. At best, it could be what it seems so earnestly desire to be: a progressive, sustainable, local hot spot. But, for my money -- of which they seem to have more than they should at the moment -- it isn't there yet. I'm sure I'll be back. It's too close, both literally and metaphorically, not to keep trying. But I'm sticking to the lamb burger and the tacos until something convinces me to foray back out into the wilds that are the rest of their menu.