Culinary Dropout, Mabel's on Main, and Mad Chef Keep You Moving on a Gastropub Crawl

What ever you do, DO NOT listen to what The New Times has to say about Culinary Dropout.This place was almost as good as sex!! My girlfriend & I had the anti pasta where you mix and match what you would like. And I am here to say,we picked 3 things from the meat list,2 from the cheese and and a couple from the veggie list .A little wine ,I had a really good iced tea with some rather exotic flavor.So good! My girlfriend started looking at me with this crazy passionate"I want you now"look! I'm telling you its the food. And this was lunch time. Deserts ,(we chose 3) were out of this world!Once again The New Times food critic is suffering from the"anal-cranial inversion .GO! You will love it. And you will probably grt laid.

Totally agree with the comments about Mabel's. I saw a brief pre-opening write up on the place in 944 a few moons ago. That it earned any print space in that mag should have been a tip off. Still, the idea of a dimly lit place to have a great cocktail and disappear for a few hours was the hook for me after a few days away.

My twist and I visited on a Friday night. I'd made a reservation, which they called a "VIP" table. To the good: the service was friendly and timely--not too pushy, not to reserved. The booth itself was very comfortable. I ordered "The" Old Fashioned, and it was well made and the ingredients were all there. Pleasant, but hardly ground breaking. My girl had a sparkling wine with elderflower. It, too, was nice but not breathtakingly delicious.

To the bad: We ordered deviled eggs with caviar, filet bites, and tuna tartare. The deviled eggs were under seasoned and the caviar portion so puny that it's hardly worth listing it on the menu. The filet bites were cooked to a medium well and the horseradish accompanyment was again underseasoned and lacked the real punch you expect from fresh horseradish. The tuna was the best of the three, but again I felt that they could have included a few more blood orange slices and one more dash of salt. And you there, the guy on the line that's in love with chive snips...back off dude.

To the ugly: the crowd seriously bites. It's my fault, and I don't know what I was thinking. But if you want to watch the bro's do the knuckle shake over a few bottles of Corona then this is the place. Hey guys, only the television makes a 4 top full of dudes look cool.

Skip it, go to Noca.