The
Brewmaster’s sausage pizza ($16) was also palatable with its thin chewy crust
and a host of rich meaty ingredients including beerwurt sausage, mushrooms,
smoked cheddar and caramelized onion.
Drizzled on the pizza was a reduced Tempest beer which added a smoky
savoury balsamic like taste bringing a bit of exoticness to the dish. Overall, it was an average pizza that doesn’t
blow you away but at least doesn’t disappoint.
Featured
prominently at the top of the menu is the Amsterdam pretzel ($6). Since I was hungry, I thought it’d be smart
to order this given they were likely premade and just needed to be reheated and
served. Alas, despite asking our
waitress to just bring things as they were ready (since we were sharing) our
request was not heeded and even the pretzel took 45 minutes before it
arrived. Sure it had a good chewy
texture and was topped with flakes of sea salt but lacked that yeasty smell and
slight butteriness I enjoy from the pretzels you get in New York or sporting
events. It was served with two beer
based mustards (sweet Natural Blonde red currant mustard and spicy Big Wheel
Dijon) and a wort reduction that were a nice touch.
An offering
that you don’t normally find on bar menus was the togaroshi chicken ($12),
which is a spicy zesty Japanese spice mix that you can also find at ramen
restaurants. It sure sounded good on paper
but what actually arrived were ridiculously small pieces of battered chicken. Really, I just felt like I was eating pieces
of fried batter – KFC’s popcorn chicken is probably double the size of any of
the pieces we had. Topped with wonton strips, chopped cucumber, green onions
and a side of red cabbage kimchee most of these ingredients stood out more than
the chicken. As for the togaroshi spice,
I didn’t get a hint of it.
A UK dish,
the Scotch egg ($9), was featured on Amsterdam Brewhouse’s menu. The egg’s presentation is beautiful with a
good covering of sausage against the yellow egg yolk. Alas, the egg was overcooked and the dish
arrived cold without any of the crunch you expect at all. If you want to try one of these, do yourself a
favour and go to Weslodge instead.
Without a
doubt, the most disappointing dish of the night was the crispy fish tacos
($13). Having read numerous reviews that
rave about this dish, I was astounded by how gross they tasted. Fortunately, there were three other
individuals with me that also tried it so I have some validation that I wasn’t
just being picky. The corn tortillas
were stale and hard, the pieces of fish bland and cold and the apple fennel
slaw tasting lack luster with none of the crisp sweet freshness you’d hope for. To make it worse, Amsterdam Brewhouse chooses
to pair their tacos with a bitter hot sauce which doesn’t go with the tacos at
all. Luckily, the fries that came with
the duck grilled cheese had mayo with pieces of pickle in it (almost like a
tartar sauce) that we used instead.
The only
highlight of the night, other than the company of course, was Amsterdam
Brewhouse’s beer tasting flights ($8).
Named after street locations of their previous breweries it’s a nice
homage to their business. With each
tasting flight you receive four 5oz glasses of beer to allow you to try not
only their own brews but some other Ontario microbreweries as well. They range from lighter ales at the top to
the hoppy stronger beers at the bottom of the menu. I stuck with the first half of the menu and
tried the “Richmond and John” and the “King and Portland”.
The Richmond
and John flight was the lightest tasting of the bunch including the Natural
Blonde (my favourite of the night), the 416, an adventure brew (essentially the
House’s pick; during our visit was an orange peel-like beer that could have
been skipped) and the Raspberry Wheat (has a distinctive raspberry taste
without the gross sweetness of a
Früli).
The King and
Portland flight was slightly richer but still easy drinking. Tastes of Big
Wheel, Downtown Brown, Boneshaker and adventure brew (sadly the same one in the
Richmond and John) were provided. I’ll
admit, by the second flight without food it was getting harder to really
decipher the tastes of the beer itself so there’s little I can add to this.
All in all, Amsterdam Brewhouse has the potential to become a good
microbrewery restaurant – they are situated at an ideal location, the dining
room is open and features a breathtaking look into their distilling facilities,
and their menu offers a good selection but is still small enough to be
manageable. Their downfall is its size - they simply do not have the
adequate management and trained manpower required to deal with the enormous
operations. Even after eating there once, I believe a couple of key things
need to be done to improve its operations:
More training is required to ensure staff are knowledgeable about the
menu - this will lead to less questions, wasted time finding answers and
unhappy customers. During our visit, my dinner companion ordered a
chicken salad and when it arrived couldn’t see the chicken. The waitress
questioned whether the salad was supposed to have chicken forcing my friend to
point out the description on the menu. The waitress then noted that she’d
have to check with the kitchen only to have the front house manager come by to
let us know the chicken is actually on the bottom of the plate (covered by the
lettuce). If the waitress had known what she was bringing out and the
oddity of having the chicken on the bottom this entire waiting around and
wasted effort could have been avoided.
Ensure better utilization and training of food servers to avoid
presenting cold food (or at least invest in a good set of warmers to keep food
hot). There were some men who were bringing out food but a few looked
lost and had to walk around asking tables for orders to properly serve the
dishes. Moreover, none could hold more than a dish per hand so when they
were serving a table of more than two multiple people/trips were
required. If Amsterdam Brewhouse just invests in some large serving
platters (similar to what a family chain restaurant would use), each server
could bring out more things and hopefully speed things up.
To sum up, TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN! The restaurant has been opened for
over a month now so learning pains can no longer be used as an excuse for their
inexperienced staff. A lot of reviewers complain about the poor
service. I’ll admit, we didn’t have the most happy looking waitress, but
I can imagine if I had to run around all night and have people complain to me
the whole time I wouldn’t be in a smiling mood as well. Better customer
and employee satisfaction can be achieved just by ensuring staff are
knowledgeable about their roles, the menu and the company they are working
for. Ensuring staff is happy or at least satisfied with their jobs is
important as they are who customers see (and a grumpy looking waitress doesn’t
make me want to order more beer). After all, unhappy staff can lead to
turnover which means the uninformed staff problem will perpetually continue.
In the end,
Amsterdam Brewhouse is a good place to go with friends to have drinks, maybe
eat a salad (since it’s already cold) and enjoy the outdoors (if you can score
a seat on one of its three patios). I
would advise against going there for just dinner unless you’re going during a non-peak
time or with a group of two. So, maybe Wallymagoo’s is now gone but the
replacement is still looking like a bit of a tourist trap.
