Critic's Review
Another Sunday, another Giant's game not on TV. Good grief. I didn't feel like Duffys, and I wanted to stay relatively close as I had some work to do after the game. I hadn't been to Stout Irish Pub since just after they opened.
It started very badly. They don't have a "plan" for showing the games here; there are no labels on the TVs and they just put whatever on that people want who are sitting in the area. At 1:02, the Giants/Eagles game wasn't on anywhere. I found a manager, who walked through the bar and then pointed at a TV in the back room. "I'll put it on there for you", he said. Great, so I'd be sitting at a big pub table by myself in the back. The game came on and I started thinking about ordered something, when a Sasquatch-like waitress shrieked at me "This table is reserved for 5 or more". Of course the entire back room was empty. "Well he just put the game on here for me. I guess I'll stand and order from the bar". At this point I'm trying to think of other places nearby that would have the game on. Luckily a couple at a table also asked for same game, and they put it on behind the bar, and there was a barstool available.
Another guy sat down at an empty booth and was shooed away by the same server, who was clearly more interested in her big table than customers actually enjoying themselves. When I left at halftime, the booth was still completely empty. There's no sitting at Stout if you're not in a big group and the bar is full.
The bar had the Dolphins on 3 sets even though nobody around me was watching (or cared about) the Dolphins. Another Bar that doesn't know their clientele.
The bar is a lot more interesting. I had to sit backwards to see my game, but at least I could see it. I looked at a menu; they have a bunch of "of the days"; soup, fish or pasta, it would be useful if they used their blackboard for something useful rather than promoting a Wednesday drink special.
It was difficult to get the bartender's attention, so I didn't ask about the specials. The couple next to me ordered a grilled chicken breast which looked good (except for the guacamole), and another guy ordered spinach dip, which was served with multicolor chips. It looked a bit stiff for me. I went with the wings, which they describe as "Jerk Baked" and "kissed on the grill".
A pretty good load of wings. From earlier pictures I've seen, they've cut back on the amount of blue cheese they give you; another annoying restaurant trick; like we wouldn't notice that it isn't enough? I wasn't going to eat all of them, so it worked out for me. The wings are good; they have a slight jerk taste which is fine; when they're crazy hot or dripping with thyme they can be nasty. The BBQ sauce was a waste; they should give Blue Cheese and Ranch instead; ranch goes well with Jerk Wings. Their online menu says $11 but they only charged me 9. I don't recall the price on the actual menu. They're a good deal for $9.
One good thing about the menu is that its a pub menu for a pub without trying to be too fancy like the Royal Pig. I can't recommend it for watching football however, because of the layout and the nasty server you can't count on watching your game in a comfortable manner.
Review 4/3/12
This place used to be Biddy Early's, and the folks who own McSorley's have taken it over and built a pretty nice Irish Pub. Located in a part of town where you wouldn't expect to find anything halfway decent, Stout is a pretty big place. Luckily all of the other buildings nearby appear to be abandoned, so there's plenty of parking. Inside, there's a big long bar and lot of big, roomy booths. TVs are everywhere. I landed a booth with a personal 24" TV; unfortunately you can't change the channel yourself, you have to ask them to change it, which eliminates any chance of channel surfing.
I ordered a saratoga ($3.50 for a 12oz bottle) and took a look at the menu.
The menu has a lot of pub grub on it; some standard Irish dishes, cheeseburger, wings, salads and Steak and Baked potato. The specials didn't catch my interest, so I went for the pastrami sandwich which is made with onions and swiss cheese. I don't usually take onions on my pastrami, but I'm adventurous.
There seems to be a lot of things not quite working at Stout. There are no place mats. It took quite a while to change the TV. Music was not to my liking, with Josh Kelly following Sean Kingston. Not irish pub / sports bar music to me. The food came out pretty quickly.
The sandwiches are served with waffle fries and some sort of cold pickled mixed vegetables. The vegetables were awful. The waffle fries were very good, the only caveat being that they were too big to dip into the thimble of ketchup; a squeeze bottle would have been better. Or I could have spooned some out, if I had a spoon. I opted to break them in half. The sandwich was sloppy to eat, with the slippery onions fighting me all the way. It would have been pretty good, except that the pastrami was very fatty, and it ruins the experience when you have to constantly fish stuff out of your mouth.
While ordering the pastrami may have been too adventurous, the place itself has potential. They plan on having all of the sports packages (MLB, NBA and NHL) and the menu is suitable for watching sports. The big issue is the area; not so much the physical appearance, but the fact that demographically there aren't a lot of high class neighborhoods nearby. So I'd have to be apprehensive about the mix of patrons they may get in this neck of the woods. Time will tell.