Nashville Hot Chicken and Steel & Oak Brewery
I was meeting up a friend in New Westminster and he suggested one of his favourite stomping ground: Steel & Oak Brewery, with their own tasting lounge.
A nice casual spot to pull up a high top and grab a pint at. The room is warm with golden lights, cozy nooks, and plenty of greenery. You order at the bar and your drinks are brought to your table. They start you a tab, which you will need to reconcile before you leave.
We would each grab a flight to be able to try as many as possible. My guest went for Steel & Oak’s Red Pilsner, Simple things, Radiant things, and Shiny things.
I went for Blush, Blancs, Phonograph, and Anvil. I know you are suppose to drink one at a time from the lightest to the darkest, but I take in my flights in evenly, jumping back and forth. As a whole they were all easy drinking and enjoyable. Not too much hoppiness, which I prefer.
Looking to pair food with our drink, we had to order out. Steel & Oak has a limited food menu which includes a modest cheese board, salted pretzel, jerky, and chips. None of which I wanted with my beer. I was looking for something more dense and greasy, and Uber Eats came to the rescue. We confirmed that we were allowed to bring inside food in to eat, then placed our order for at the door delivery.
Our immediate choice was a nearby fried chicken shop called Nashville Hot Chicken. Even my guest who lives in the area has never heard of it. So I decided to order more than we needed to be able to give a good shake of the place.
We went with combo #3 which was two sliders, fries, and two sauces. However the order came with only one sauce, the extra one that I paid extra for. And this is a shame cause there were plenty of house made fries that needed a dip. As crispy as these waffle cut potatoes were, they were not salted enough and lacked seasoning, a regular ketchup would have been ideal. The one sauce we did get was hardly enough. It was cream based and zesty, but I wanted tangy and to not have to ration. Much of our fries were left uneaten as a result.
I was impressed by the sliders. They were the size of burger, one and I was done. Plenty of thick coated crispy chicken, which were so tender and juicy at its centre. The burger bun was light and fluffy, great at soaking up all the melty cheese and cream mayo. The best bites included their pickles that wished I added more of.
I don’t know why I was expecting a different chicken for the tenders. The chicken tender was the exact same chicken in the burger and the exact same criss cross side of fries, but with no sauce. The chicken were in strips, sitting on a slice of white bread with some pickles. I would expect a dip for the tenders, which is common place, and a different one for the fries. Had none of the above.
For dessert they had deep fried Oreos, not having had any in a long while, we indulged. Four to an order, wrapped in wax paper and stuffed in the same box as the chicken above. They were pretty standard: salty, chewy batter coating sweet softened cookie.
In closing, I appreciated being able to enjoy great local beer in a setting that also allows me to eat whatever I want. We got the best of both worlds with this one.
