The seven-page menu at Peach & the Porkchop is written in the dialect of the man cave.
Of a burger loaded with jalapenos, mushrooms, onions, bacon and wing sauce, the gastropub’s owner, Chuck “the Porkchop” Staley, says: “This bad boy is for Daddy O & Hutchy!”
About the BLT: “There’s even enough bacon for ‘Jerky.’ RAAAA!”
Sometimes, the bluster is purely culinary. A $16 sandwich called the Coma is packed with four different kinds of cold cuts, hot Italian sausage, provolone and a fried egg.
But I asked our server to help us navigate the massive list of “Northern-style” sandwiches, burgers, entrees and wings (one of which, the Incinerator, comes with a safety waiver), and you can imagine our surprise when he started talking about the delicate water bath used to cook the bone-in Duroc pork chop.
Dude, bros don’t sous vide.
Then, again, neither do they decorate their restaurants to look like an Aspen chalet — all beautiful stacked stone walls, rustic timbers and tasteful bronze light fixtures.
They also don’t serve their seared scallops with cauliflower puree and duck fat haricot vert, and they don’t stuff their corndogs with jumbo Gulf shrimp.
In other words, this is a place that doesn’t know if it wants to be Horseradish Grill, Taco Mac or a Pittsburgh deli.
But, who cares if the food’s delicious, right?
That’s a big if.
Let’s start with the goods that were good.
Given the name of this Roswell spot, that sous vide-coddled pork chop with bourbon-peach chutney might seem like a must. It’s not, but it was decent — juicy, but a little tough and a lot underseasoned. The peach topping was crisp and acidic, a refreshing change from the jam some folks heap on meat and call chutney. The chop’s sautéed spinach nest was garlic-laced in a very good way.
A watercress salad was elegant, the greens so fresh and crisp they practically stood on end. Roasted pearl onions, shaved peppers and slivers of aromatic preserved lemon made up for the (again) underseasoned salmon that accompanied them.
And yet, it was the BCB burger that convinced me that Peach & the Porkchop is a brawny bar at heart. It was a delicious, well-melded package — a juicy patty that pleasantly soaked its brioche bun, perfectly crisped bacon, two cheeses and a thick onion ring. It didn’t need a single condiment.
However, when the bar food gets fancy, it goes astray. The Zimbo Dip, a gamy roast beef-and-swiss sandwich, was topped, incongruously, with avocado. It did need a topping to punch it up, but it didn’t get any help from its barely detectable horseradish cream.
The wings, too, would have been better had they been more basic. They got the sous-vide treatment, too. It may have tenderized the meat (not usually an issue with fatty wings) but it also made the skin flabby. On top of that, the peach barbecue sauce recommended by our server was unpleasantly sweet and sour. It weighed the wings down instead of lifting them up.
It seems petty to urge Peach & the Porkchop to nail down its identity — beery bar or fine dining den — when there are hits and misses on both sides of that fence. (The prices, it should be noted, are all fancy. That Zimbo Dip, with a side of potato chips, is loaded with Angus beef, but it’s also $15.)
So, here’s another option: Cut a few of Staley’s buddies from the menu, whittling the massive spread down to fewer, brighter and better dishes.
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