Review: The Tiedhouse

Which is unfortunate, as the menu tops out at $15—perfect for these tight times—and the beer list is a thoughtful collection of locally crafted and more exotic brews that are both seasonally appropriate and work well with the menu items. The rich General Lafayette Novemberfest, for example, was equally charming on its own as it was alongside the sliced pork loin. And Lafayette’s Sunset Red Ale possessed enough of a hoppy bite to cut right through the crisp fried crust of the risotto fritters.

 

But the dishes themselves too often didn’t quite live up to the beer. Those fritters, for example, though one of the highlights—perfectly crunchy exterior with an unctuous, curry-redolent, vegetable-rooted interior—came with a sweet and sour sauce that, Linda Richmond-style, was neither all that sweet nor terribly sour (discuss…) but, rather, searingly hot and flecked with so many pepper flakes that I actually feared for the health of my gums. On their own, the fritters were quite nice; dipped into their intended accompaniment, their own flavor vanished into a blaze of spice-heat.

 

Duck confit tostada was just disjointed, and didn’t do justice to the exquisitely tender meat itself. In essence, what arrived at the table was a crispy tortilla topped with a layer of duck, which itself was crowned by a flurry of shredded cheese that, perhaps because it was neither melted nor integrated in any meaningful way into the rest of the dish, came off as a chalky garnish rather than as the integral part of the combination it should have been. Duck and cheese should border on the sinful; here they seemed to just barely acknowledge each other. Green chili sauce helped, but it wasn’t quite enough to rescue the preparation from its under-conception.

 

Roasted turkey breast on its namesake sandwich was moist enough, but the roasted apples that should have brought a sense of lift to the meat and the Brie were devoid of the flavor and acid necessary to do their job. The blonde ale mustard was a nice touch, but only as far as it went; the sandwich needed a sense of sweetness and more moisture, and I couldn’t help but pine away, with each bite, for some sort of berry spread to liven the proceedings up.

 

That sliced pork loin, though, hit the mark, and it was there that Tiedhouse’s kitchen showed its potential. Cooked to a lovely pale pink, smartly seasoned and enrobed in a pan juice given smoky depth with toothy little pieces of chorizo, this was thoughtful, well-executed comfort food of the first order. Even the maple-glazed sweet potatoes sang, providing a soft, sweet counterpoint to the meat and its ringing notes of pepper.

 

It’s the kind of dish I would also have liked to enjoy with a glass of wine, but the list here is almost absurdly pedestrian. It’s chock-full of workaday standards that, much like the kids who sat at the cool table in the high-school cafeteria, are familiar to all but not terribly interesting once you look a little deeper.

 

Under Pinot Noir, you’ll find Smoking Loon and Kenwood; Cabernet is limited to Yellow Tail, Smoking Loon and Franciscan. The Technicolor kangaroo also makes an appearance in the Chardonnay category, alongside its equally uninspiring brethren Kendall Jackson, Louis Jadot and Sonoma Cutrer.

 

Now, I’m not trying to suggest that a place like Tiedhouse should have a more expensive list. What I am saying is that infinitely more interesting wines, at lower prices, could have been found very easily. Cheap is good—I rarely spend more than $15 retail for my everyday wines. But boring is not, especially these days, and it shows a lack of creativity and effort.

 

Perhaps ironically the best part of the meal came during dessert. A particularly aromatic pecan spice cake tasted like wintertime on a plate, and would have been lovely washed down by any number of the beers. But in general, Tiedhouse still feels under conceived. It seems to know exactly what it wants to be; it just has to find a way to get there.

 

More attention to more of the details is needed. And in these trying times, I fear that the neighborhood won’t give it a terribly long honeymoon. I hope they do, though, and my fingers are crossed.