Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Steingarten: New Beers & Brats Bar in the Westside

Steingarten is the latest of many beer bars cropping up around town. It's located on the Westside at the old Kay & Dave's location, on Pico Blvd where parking is ample. I love the decor. The dark wooden bar with chalkboard menu feels rustic. The long communal tables gives the place a fun and casual feel. There's a lovely outdoor garden area which is the perfect location on a sunny day. The menu is also quite intriguing. They offer exotic sausages, but also other interesting plates such as deer salami and chicken schnitzel.

Happy hr is from 4-7pm and for $10, you get a choice of 2 beers and any sausage from the entire menu except the game section. The happy hour sausage selection is excellent, however, we only had a choice between the Firestone Velvet Merlin (an oatmeal stout) or the Stone Belgo-barley (a sweet barley wine). I think our waitress was new because she wasn't sure if they had a happy hour special. She also mentioned the choice of two beers, whereas it seems (on Yelp and Steingarten's facebook page) that you can choose from five house taps.

Sausages range from $6.50-$7.50 outside of happy hour. Besides the traditional bratwurst and bockwurst, they also offer exotic sausages such as alligator & pork, bison, and venison & blueberry.

The sweet potato fries was served in a huge cone. I really enjoyed the curry tomato dipping sauce. Unfortunately, I thought the fries were a bit inconsistent - some were cut too thick and felt really dense. We also ordered regular fries, which I preferred over the sweet potato fries. The regular fries were skinny with an adequate sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

Trio of sliders included turkey sliders, smoked BBQ pulled pork and beef sliders. They three sliders were all unique in flavor, texture and toppings. The spicy pulled pork was the most flavorful with a zing. It was topped with pickled carrots and jalapeno. The turkey sliders felt lighter and was served with sweet caramelized onions and roasted garlic. I really appreciated the fresh toasted buns.

For the happy hour combo, I ordered the duck and bacon sausage. The sausage had really rich flavors but I didn't get much taste of the bacon. I was blown away by the caramelized onions which were sweet and cooked down really well. The bread was nicely toasted and fresh. Definitely home made and not from the grocery store. My friend got the Wild Boar & berry which was also a good choice. The sausage was quite lean and flavorful.

Steingarten is a nice addition to the area. I think the sausages are generally about 50 cents more expensive than competitor Wurstkuche, but I prefer Steingarten's wider food offerings. However I do think Wurstkuche has tastier fries and a better selection of dipping sauces. It'd be interesting to see the competition between the two when Wurstkuche opens up shop in the Westside this year.

Hits: sausages, ambiance
Misses: fries, HH beer selection, server not knowledgeable
Rating: ***

Steingarten
10543 W Pico Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90064
(310) 441-0441
http://www.steingartenla.com/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cept Wurstkuche never has discounts..

And after you finish off at Steingarten, you can go down the block to test out mattresses at the bed store. That's gotta be some kinda restaurant feature, no?