City Works - Shoutout from the Suburbs
Occasionally we will be having guest contributors on this blog -- lovely friends of ours who we've brought in to bring you more content from more places! Today our good friend M, who lives the suburban life out in Doylestown, is reviewing a new spot in King of Prussia.
-C
The pleasant Sunday evening breeze on the patio of City Works in the new King of Prussia Town Center was a great way to end the weekend. Easy parking and a quick walk through the fake grass brought us to an expansive upscale pub (opened December 2016) with outdoor seating and an impressive bar. Televisions stretch along every wall, keeping all customers content with their Sunday sporting needs. My husband and I arrived before our friends, so we got our hands on the lengthy draft list - they report to have 90 craft beers on draft. Let’s just say the evening peaked at this point: enjoying a cold beer from a brewery new to my repertoire. When our friends arrived, we got a table on the very crowded patio. Side note – a reservation is recommended, even on a Sunday evening. We had a 6:30pm reservation like the good ol’ suburbanites we somehow have become, and didn’t have to wait for our table.
An overly chatty, but pleasant waiter got us started immediately with another round of beers and encouraged us to order an appetizer. Fried pickles. Who can say no to that? I certainly can’t. However, the lackluster presentation of the pickles began the downward spiral of my feelings towards City Works. The pickles were pretty standard fried pickles with the added bonus of being way too hot on the inside and not quite crunchy enough anywhere. However, the beers and setting sun were enough to keep me curious about the next course. (I write this as though I’m reviewing a Michelin starred restaurant – don’t worry, I am very aware that this is American bar food; however, this type of cuisine can and should be delicious!).
Our friends dined at City Works before and recommended the fish tacos. Instead of listening to my good friends (big mistake), I heeded the advice of this chatty waiter of ours. He was insistent that the shrimp tacos were WAY better than the fish tacos. Not just a little better, but WAY better. I had to take his advice and lucky for me – I got to eat a mayonnaise mess that actually looks palatable in my photo. I wish I had ordered the fish tacos.
My husband ordered the Carolina Fried Chicken. His lackluster review: “Meh.” Maybe I am biased – I recently travelled to Nashville and ate delicious hot chicken sandwiches that I still dream about. The crunch of the pickle and the fried batter should blend perfectly. This sandwich sadly lacked that satisfying crunch. The fries were good, though!
Our friends decided to go healthy on us and ordered salads – the Ahi Tuna Chopped Salad and the Steak Salad. Though colorful, they were not especially flavorful, or with a “twist,” like the City Works website promises of its food. Our friends were satisfied with their choices, though agreed it wasn’t $36 worth of salads.
As a former Center City dweller and a current suburbanite, I felt as though the fake neighborhood feel of KoP’s new and continuously expanding Town Center felt too forced. The grass turfs and Adirondack chairs are nice and all, but at the end of the day, you’re really sitting in the middle of a parking lot. I am pro the expansion of King of Prussia, however, I will not go out of my way to eat in King of Prussia, especially not at City Works. If I want a pub with American fare, I’ll go to Wegman’s Pub just down the street for better priced and tastier food.
TL;DR - if you want to watch a game at the bar with a beer or sit on a patio with friends, City Works works, just don’t expect anything more than mediocre.
