city tap house: beer on the patio
I first heard of the City Tap House through a Facebook ad, oddly enough. It was one of those lists of things to do in Philly, which I usually ignore. With the extra free time and sunlight that summer brings in the evenings, however, I decided to click on one of these lists. Although some of them were predictable enough (go to the Barnes, check out the Mutter Museum, etc) there were at least a couple bars that sounded intriguing. One bar/restaurant in particular was on my side of the Schuylkill (the west, of course!) and was supposed to have the most fire-pits of any restaurant in Philly. I’ve never been to any restaurant with fire-pits in Philly! So clearly, I had to see it to believe it.
The City Tap House is located on Walnut between 39th and 40th in the Radian, that brand new residential + shopping + eating complex that Penn built, which I personally feel looks like an homage to 80s tape decks. The door was a little hard to find, sandwiched next to Capogiro, and most of the parking around there costs money, although all the meters have been replaced with kiosks. The El would be the easiest option, SEPTA-wise, since the 40th street stop is only a few blocks away. Once you enter, you immediately take an elevator to the restaurant, which is two or three floors up (it was hard to tell). The look is very sleek and modern, and they have taken full advantage of being located on the second floor–the entire wall facing south is windows, and about half the place is outdoor seating. There were the fire-pits, as advertised, with cushy bench seating around them–I saw people ordering food, but many people were choosing to just lounge around them and drink. There was even a field of wildflowers next to the patio tables. I suppose this was to help with drainage and make the building more green; I liked it–it made it feel like we weren’t in the middle of the city. The view was great, too, looking out at Penn’s campus and beyond that, the city skyline.
Overall the prices seemed moderate–my Scottish Salmon BLT was $10, and most of the other “craftwiches,” salads, and appetizers were around the $10-12 range. They also have daily specials and mussels that you can get as entrees. The entrees were a little more, maybe around $15-20. The beer ranged from $4-7; there’s a wine list, but with 60 beers on tap (the most in the city) I didn’t pay it any attention.
So about that salmon BLT…first, it was the size of my head, and the size was mostly salmon. There was nothing skimpy about it. It was also cooked to order (I got rare, and it was amazing). I had to eat it with a knife and fork because I couldn’t figure out how to pick it up, and it was fantastic. I only managed half. My dining partner got the mussels in a saffron sauce, and she said they were delicious. We also got the vegetable bruschetta–you only get 4 little squares, but it was very good; however, dinner was so good that I think next time I wouldn’t bother with an appetizer. I also got fries with my BLT; they were shoestring style, crisp and tasty.
Finally: THE BEER. One great thing that the Tap House does is give you a card to take notes on your beer; you put your name at the bottom and they save the card for you so that when you come back, you can see what beers you tried already, and what you thought of them. For a place that sells itself on the amount of beer it has, this is a fabulous idea. Some people are just able to remember the names of every beer they drink; while I like beer, I am not that good. They also sorted their draft list by type of beer and gave helpful descriptions about the beer, which I also appreciate. Their beer list changes daily, so you are not guaranteed that the beer you have one day will be there the next, but included in the list they tell you what kegs are next to be tapped in case you want to come back for one. The draft list is also on the website; I’m guessing it is updated fairly regularly because when I went to look up what beer I had, it wasn’t listed there anymore (all I know is, I had a brown ale and then a Japanese coffee stout, and they were both great).
Dress code was fairly casual; I wore jeans and so did most of the servers, although there were several tables around us with dressed up folks. The beauty about a restaurant near a university is that there were also tables of people all in scrubs, or workout clothes, or business suits. They also do live acoustic music fairly regularly, although that appears to mostly happen indoors, and with this place, outdoors is where you want to be.
My summary: good food, good beer, great atmosphere–perfect for escaping the city on a summer evening, when you can’t actually get out of town. I will definitely be going back to sit by the fire pit and fill out more note cards about their beer!
