San Diego Metropolitan - Dining

OK, OK, OK. It’s corporate. I know. But who else offers a selection of nearly 100 beers by the glass? Yes, I tend to be chain-opposed, but every once in a while someone out there does a pretty good job of replicating themselves.

In late May, amid much ado and media hubbub, the Yard House opened just outside the Gaslamp Quarter at Fourth Avenue and Broadway. Already it is attracting new life and new suits to an area of Downtown that hasn’t seen much of either in quite some time.

At lunch, it’s mainly a hangout for those packing PDAs and pagers. In the evening comes a younger crowd of hipsters, those with cell phones attached to their heads.

The space is well-designed, and although it still has a corporate feel (mainly because no “indie” could or would dump that kind of money into the place), it also has a nice sense of style and is comfortably casual.

Copper columns meet dark wood floors, while a cool stainless bar accents concrete, leather booths and chocolate brown walls. The corporate contemporary art (which, let’s face it, usually looks like “corporate” art) is actually quite good here and brings a sense of sophistication to an atmosphere that separates Yard House from a lot of other beer-themed restaurants.

The first order of business, of course, was to try and select an icy brew. Would it be light or dark, American or European, hoppy or sweet? Since this was lunch, I had to limit my beer drinking to just a yard or two. (A yard, by the way refers to a Colonial measure of beer served in a 36-inch glass. How did we ever beat the Brits?)

The menu is an eclectic mix of American favorites with some Asian fusion thrown in for fun. We started with the “Chicken Wontons” ($7.95). Tidy little purse-shaped pillows, stuffed with chicken, shiitakes and goat cheese are deep-fried (hey, I didn’t say this was healthy) and served with a sweet and sour based chili sauce. The sauce has quite a kick, so keep your three feet of suds close at hand.

Two other appetizers well worth ordering are the “Jamaican Jerk Wings” ($8.95) and the “Spinach Cheese Dip” ($7.95). The wings are actually drumettes, seasoned in a spicy Caribbean rub, then dropped, if only momentarily, in the fryer. They are served with a homemade rum barbecue sauce (that reminded me of my Aunt Ruby’s breath, but that’s another story), which is a sweet complement to these fiery, featherless, meaty morsels.

I’m a sucker for spinach cheese dip; the nachos of the new millennium, I call it. First because it’s on every menu these days and second, it’s either really good or really bad. Anyway, a bubbling crock of cream cheese, feta, parmesan, jack cheese and chopped spinach is surrounded with toasted pita bread that has been heavily doused with parmesan cheese. Pita is my favorite vehicle for spinach dip and remarkably, I didn’t run out. I just hate when that happens.

The “Grilled Romaine Salad” ($7.95) is hands-down the best salad on the menu. Two good-sized hearts of romaine are lightly brushed with olive oil and rolled over on the charcoal grill just long enough to pick up the flavor of the grill and get some good lines. The salad is clad in a creamy gorgonzola dressing and finished with red onions and candied walnuts.

The menu offers a variety of pizzas, which run between $10 and $11, and entrées, which can get up to $27.95 for a 12-ounce rib-eye paired with grilled shrimp. We stuck to the sandwiches and burgers since by this time we had begun to worry about all the food we had ordered. This is not food for the slight of appetite.

We did halvsies on the “Crab Cake Hoagie” ($11.55) and the “Pepper Jack Burger” ($9.65) with the hoagie definitely outshining the burger. A French roll crunchy enough to give texture, but not so much it scrapes up the roof of your mouth, is stuffed with two hunky crab cakes and a munificent slathering of spicy tomato aioli. The hoagie is strewn with sliced avocado, red onion and tomato, and is served with French fries, which are fabulous dipped in the aioli … so ask for a side.

For dessert, we just picked at a few bites of the housemade Oreo cookie-crusted mud pie because by this time we were nearly “six-feet under” and it was time to get back to work.