Twenty Tap

My trend of reviewing burgers continues.  One of Tim's favorite places in town for a casual beer-and-burger dinner is Twenty Tap.  So, when we were pondering where to meet a couple of friends for a weeknight dinner, Twenty was his pick (yes, I do occasionally let him pick).  Luckily, our friends were up for trying it, as they had never been.  I had been there a couple of times before.

Mushrooms (top) & curds

Looking at the menu, I struggled because there were several options that sounded good to me that night.  I started out determined to be somewhat healthy and thought I'd try the beet salad on the starter menu plus maybe soup or the pimento mac-and-cheese (which I'd had before--it's my favorite thing there--but more on that later).  But I was soon convinced to do otherwise because the Onion Burger was calling my name.  And even before that, my health-kick was ruined because as a table we ordered the cheese curds ($7) and fried curried mushrooms ($6). 

The cheese curds were de-lish.  How can you go wrong with cheese?  Answer: You can't.  But you can go extra-right with them by beer battering them, as Twenty Tap does.  They came with 2 aiolis, but really, the mayo wasn't necessary.  They were excellent on their own, nice and salty and with that satisfying puffy-crunchy battered exterior.  Yum.  I also really enjoyed the mushrooms.  They had a nice curry flavor, which I'm a sucker for, and more of that beer batter.  Our friend said that they were fried way too much for his taste, and indeed they were a much darker brown than the cheese curds.  I didn't notice any of the over-fried flavor that he mentioned, though, and helped myself to way too many of them.

Onion burger

 Soon after we polished those off, our main courses arrived.  I got the aforementioned Onion Burger, which had swiss cheese, beer battered onion rings, and horseradish aioli.  Yes--more beer battering.  What with all the fried food I was having, I'm moderately proud to say that I finally made the healthy choice of a 'simple salad' for my side.  It consisted of greens (mostly arugula, from what I could tell), shallot, fennel, shaved parmesan, and a lemon vinaigrette, and was pretty good.  The salty parm and tangy vinaigrette balanced out the bitterness of the greens pretty nicely, and the shallot gave it some nice onion undertones.  I didn't notice much fennel.

Cross section

The burger itself was pretty good.  The bun was alright, nothing special.  The burger had good flavor and I enjoyed the onion rings (had to take some of them off, though, or it would have been impossible to eat).  The burger was very lightly pink--I'd say medium well, bordering on well-done, which is okay by me except that they advertise them as being cooked to medium unless you request otherwise, and it dried it out a bit.  Again, it was still pretty good, but nothing close to the delicious juicy flavorfulness of Room Four or Scratch Truck's burgers.  I resisted the urge to reach for the salt shaker each time I took a bite, so it probably could have used a touch more seasoning, too. After all of that fried food, I ate about half of my burger and then took the bun off the other half and ate what I could with a knife and fork.

Burn Burger

Tim got the Burn Burger (chilies, jalapeno, onion, pulled pork, and cheddar-$9).  I had a small bite and the pulled pork had great flavor and actually went very well on the burger.  Tim certainly loved it!  He said the jalapeno and chillies gave it a nice spicy kick, but that it wasn't overly spicy.

Pimento mac

Along with our burgers, to counteract any health benefits we may have gotten from salads, and to pile on the cheese and calories, Tim and I split a small order of the pimento mac-and-cheese ($3).  Like I said, it is by far my favorite thing on the Twenty Tap menu, so we couldn't leave without having some and making our friends try it.  If you've never had pimento cheese and only know pimentos from their place in the center of olives, then you may think this sounds gross. However, you would be wrong.  It is goooood.  The pimentos give the dish a tangy, spicy kick--not spicy heat, just spicy flavor.  Mmmm.  Just try it.

What I haven't mentioned about Twenty Tap is just that--the taps.  They have 38 craft beers on tap, many from Indiana and even more from the rest of the Midwest.  If you enjoy craft beer, you will love this place.  The food is solid, and there's a beer for everyone.

One note:  The dining room is not all that huge, and the bar area tends to be packed.  If you go during prime dining times (6:30 or later), expect a short wait most nights of the week.  I think we waited about 20-30 minutes for our 4-person party at 7pm on a Thursday--not terrible, but also not immediate seating.  Waits are much longer on the weekends.

Website:  Twenty Tap