Right away, the restaurant itself is themed like a speakeasy mixed with a hunting lodge. Crazy cool…read moreplace. It's been here a long time. My wife and I used to come here for brunch when we were students at Auburn 10 years ago, despite living here just as long, we haven't been in a very long time.
We started with the pork rinds and bacon flight. Presentation-wise they nailed the rinds: they came out hot and fresh and still crackling, but my god, they were too spicy. There was no enjoyment in them for me, the menu says spicy but it was way hotter than I anticipated, and that's okay. The bacon flight was incredible. The three flavors were black and blue (I think), buffalo, and classic crispy bacon (a lazy third in an otherwise stellar lineup). Again, fantastic presentation. You get "12" slices, but it's really about 6 slices of bacon that have been halved.
For dinner, my wife went with the Caesar salad with grilled chicken. It looked great and tasted incredible. The dressing has that small-batch taste you get from tableside Caesar. The chicken was steaming hot, a great sign of freshness, and it came on the side of the salad, which is the sign of an experienced kitchen. The heat didn't take away from the crispness of the salad. All around an amazing dish.
I chose the chicken fried steak, which is made with beef cheek, with whipped Yukon potatoes and I had baked mac and cheese. I'll be honest, the breading and fry really took away from the meat and dish as a whole. The flavor of the bark on the beef cheek was ten times that of the breading. I would have preferred braised/smoked beef cheek over potatoes with the mushroom velouté. The breading just took away from the meat. Presentation was bland too: light fry, over white potatoes, with a white velouté. The dish normally comes with green beans, but I swapped for mac and cheese because I am 12 and don't like green beans. Still, the dark bark of the beef cheek, the white potatoes, and the green of the beans would have been amazing to look at. But I'm not a chef, and maybe I have a minority opinion on the fry. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn't fried bricks of beef braised beef. Delicious nonetheless, but the fry took away from the dish overall, and I can't stress that enough.
For dessert we had the bread pudding, and my god, it was the best bread pudding I've ever had. The sauce, the toffee cracker on top, the ice cream. If I've ever had a perfect dessert, it was that. It looked incredible and tasted even better.
Price-wise it's what you'd expect for downtown Auburn, so no shock there. I feel the experience was priced appropriately. We'll keep coming back as the menu changes.