Federal Taphouse Review

Roy and I went to the Federal Taphouse for my belated birthday dinner. It's fairly new and it replaced the ghetto-fabulous Dragonfly nightclub in downtown Harrisburg. They have 100 beers on tap and they had one of Roy's favorites as of late, Back in Black by 21st Amendment (SF, CA).   They sat us at a table and one chair was on the dining room floor and the other was in this cubbyhole, kind of like a closet.  I sat there and I felt like I was hiding from everyone.  It would be a perfect seat for your mistress or manstress if you took them out in public.

I got a glass of wine, per usual. Beer shmeer, I want wine! We perused the appeteasers and our first choice was wings but they only had BBQ sauce for them (Roy no likey), so we got the meat and cheese platter.  We also ordered our entrees and we both got the Caesar salad.  Roy added steak for $9. I declined meat on my salad because we got the meat platter.  But when the appetizer came out, it looked like something you would get as a prize for winning a challenge on Survivor.  It was like two pieces of sliced roast beef, a slice of what looked like Spam but I think it was a pâté of some sort, one bite-size each of swiss, bleu cheese, and cheddar, couple thin slices of apples, 5 pickled green beans, and some other condiments that looked like bird droppings.  Oh, and some dates and toasted bread. It came out on a wood block and I felt like we were camping.  $14 for this meat and cheese platter?!  I get that they are trying to be hoity-toity gourmet or whatever, but it was kind of ridiculous. They should call it something else,  like "Twig & Berry Sampler D'Appalachian."

By this time Roy and I are starving.  We pecked at the bird droppings and then our "salad" came out which was two halves of Romaine heart - grilled -with Caesar dressing drizzled on it. I was expecting something different, um, like a SALAD.  We both had to cut up the lettuce and I don't really mind the grilled romaine hearts but I knew Roy is NOT a fan (I made them for him before at home and he wouldn't touch it). The lettuce was warm and soggy. His $9 steak amounted to 4 tiny pieces on the side.  At least his lettuce had some green in it, mine was all yellow.  It was pretty bad.  I guess we were just expecting something different - like crisp, cold chopped romaine lettuce, pre-cut, pre-tossed and ready to eat. If the menu had described what we got, we probably wouldn't have ordered it.  The best part was the croutons.  We ended up going next door to Zembie's and ordered wings to-go because we were still hungry.

We went back the next night but only to drink with friends since they wanted to see what it was like there. Their pizzas look good but I'm not sure I'll ever eat there again.