In an act of desperation, my friends and I ended up at The Hog Pit last night. All we wanted was good food, cheap drinks and a fun crowd for some World Series-watching. Out of those three qualifications, I'd say the cheap drinks were the only thing we would get.
First off, our waitress was a little bit of a space cadet with a hearing problem. Example: "Can I get a vodka sodka?" "Midori Sour? Sure!" Walks away. Ok? Forgive and forget. Next round: "Can I get another drink?" "A plate? Sure!" At this point I took the empty plate, and set my empty drink on it. When I asked again, finally she got it right.
Moving on to the food. I don't exactly expect a 4-star meal when I'm going to The Hog Pit, but I'd at least like something flavorful. The only decent part was the wings – we got buffalo and bbq. Both were pretty tasty; the bbq was sweet and smoky (albeit a bit heavy on the sauce), and the original buffalo were spicy, big and meaty. That's what she said. The entrees on the other hand were just kind of blah. I got BBQ Brisket with green beans and sweet potato fried with raspberry ketchup. My friends split the rib and fried chicken combo with corn and mac and cheese. The brisket itself was tender, but way too heavy on the sauce. Brisket is one of those meats that I like to taste and get the smokey flavor with just a thin layer of sauce – this was glopped on. The sweet potato fries were fine, but the ketchup was regular ketchup. They did NOT give that ketchup the raspberry. The green beans were actually the best part; crispy with a garlicky bite.
The chicken was not really flavorful either; it was crispy, but that's about it. My friend Lauren asked for honey mustard to dip it in. Ouch. I put salt on basically everything too. And how do you screw up mac and cheese?? It was bland. The corn was ok, it had some herbs and red peppers tossed in it to up the flavor level, but at a BBQ joint, why not just serve it on the cob with a nice slab of butter? Mmmmm butter..
We stayed for a bit after our meal to watch the game and chat, but after Spacey McDitz spilled beer on my pants and Blackberry, I had enough.
Step it up Hog Pit, I used to like you.
