Village Whiskey - A Gentleman's Restaurant
As I might have mentioned already, A is currently carb-less. This makes eating out quite difficult. There are a number of cuisines that are immediately off-limits, Chinese (the ubiquitous sauces often have sugar), Indian (the makeup of curry is often mysterious), Italian (duh), etc.
A's current workaround seems to be just getting a bun-less burger wherever we go, and Village Whiskey is the perfect restaurant to execute that battle plan.
Ambience inside is all dark wood with a standard library bar set-up. You can definitely tell they tried to make it feel like the sitting area of a men's social club.
The menu really consists of 2 things - an amazing number of whiskies and burgers. And even if you don't like whiskey, the burger alone is definitely worth a visit.
The patty is thick, the meat is packed at the perfect density, and the kitchen cooks it perfectly to your requested temperature (in this case, rare). The most basic model is $13 and comes with lettuce, tomato, thousand island sauce, and a pickle spear on the side, which isn't unreasonable for a very well made fancy-pants burger. But there are many tempting variations and add-ons, and this is how they get you. Adding bacon will cost you $4, a fried egg $1.5, and their duck fat fries are not included in the burger. You can see how this could escalate quickly, ending with a not so fun surprise when the bill drops. This is probably my biggest issue with Whiskey Village, which is that it feels like the waiter is trying to up-sell you during the entire interaction, which is not my favorite feeling.
On the positive side, the friend we were catching up with enlightened me on their pickle section, which I had never tried before. We got the white asparagus & shisito peppers. The pickles come on a cute wooden board along with olive tapenade, whipped ricotta, and toasted sourdough. I may or may not have an obsession with pickled foods, so this was right up my alley. Everything on the board was delicious both on it's own and combined with all it's counterparts.
I got the Cobb Salad as a main because my stomach didn't feel up to a greasy burger, and it was also surprisingly good. The chicken was cooked very well, juicy, well seasoned, not dry at all. Bacon bits and avocado were present in generous amounts. I wish there was more egg, but that might just be because I love eggs. The pickle spear on the side was a gift from A's burger plate.
Even given all these great things, Village Whiskey will never be a go-to for me for reasons I can't quite my finger on. Probably because of the aforementioned up-sell quality, but maybe also because it feels like it's trying too hard on its manly ambience/whiskey/red meat/"I'm a MAN" themes.
TL;DR - definitely worth a visit to try the burger and the pickle platters. Not in my favorites rotation, but it could be in yours!
