Irreplaceable...

Bainbridge St. Barrel House

625 Bainbridge Street

Philadelphia, PA 19147

bainbridgestreetbarrelhouse.com/ 

My fiancé and I have been looking for a place to replace our favorite place from college for some time now. We went to the same place almost once a week for the entire two years that we spent together at Elon that was known for its craft beer, burgers and our favorite, mozzarella sticks. We have been searching for a place in Philadelphia that has that same feel to it, but we have yet to find it. We visited a place near my fiancé's apartment called the Bainbridge Street Barrel House in hopes that it would be a place that would fill that void. 

The place is known for its craft beer selection as well, so we were hoping that the food was up to par with the beer selections that they offered. There were plenty of open tables when we walked in so we were seated immediately. I ordered a beer flight from a local brewery which was being featured and my fiancé picked something off of the huge craft list that they have. The beer selection is pretty incredible, and the choices we made were great.

We decided to order a few appetizers instead of ordering main dishes so that we could have a bit of a lighter meal. We decided on the lamb sausage, fried pickles and empanadillas special that they were offering that day. We were less than impressed with the food offerings that we chose however. The lamb sausage was very gamey and very dense, definitely not one of the better sausages I have had. The fried pickles were a pretty big miss as well. The aioli they served with it was good, but the fried pickles had a really thin tempura like batter on them and it really didn’t pair well with the fried pickles. They were pickle chips which were great, but the batter was too thin, not crispy and very lackluster. The empanadillas were the best of the three things that we ordered. The dough was nice and the filing was a touch spicy and very tasty. I wish they had more topping on them than they did. The fruit and sauce was nice, but it was not enough in my opinion. 

My fiancé also wanted to order the stout cake with ice cream for dessert, especially after it was recommended by our waitress, but after tasting it I wish we hadn’t. It was not very good. The chocolate taste was missing and the cake was a bit too tasting of beer. The ice cream was ok, but nothing to be remembered either. It wasn’t a great ending to meal that had many ups and downs.

Two pints for Bainbridge Street Barrel House. The beer selection is really the saving grace of this place and I hope that when we return in the future the food choices we make are a bit better, but for now I can recommend you head there and try the beers and maybe make some different food choices than we did! Cheers!