Review: Coin Haus

Why the dog, you ask? The better question is why not?

Coin Haus isn't about food. In fact, it's so not about food that nearly half the menu comes from its next-door neighbor, Bo-Beau. Instead, this inventive concept from the ubiquitous Cohn Group revolves around two other staples of life: beer and arcade games.

The centerpiece of Coin Haus is a safety-orange shipping container housing fifty (yes, fifty) self-serve taps—mostly beer, but also a few wines and even cocktails. Each tap has a screen with a description of the drink and the price per ounce. Just grab a glass, place your tab-tracking card on the screen, and pour.

The system is clever and seamless—it's like small plates, but for beer. (Small glasses?) We sampled probably fifteen different drinks between the two of us. Some of the highlights, bearing in mind that I'm not necessarily a beer snob (er, connoisseur):

• Karl Strauss' peanut butter cup porter had a good peanut butter scent and wasn't as bitter as I've found a lot of porters to be.
• The chocolate coffee stout was pleasantly bittersweet with a coffee aftertaste.
• I usually enjoy the berry flavors of lambics, but their blueberry lambic was mouth-puckeringly sour and had an unpleasant aftertaste reminiscent of a barnyard.
• I tried one of their three featured cocktails, the Sabe bourbon cinnamon maple old fashioned. It was oddly carbonated and had a very sweet foretaste with the cinnamon coming on later and the maple almost an afterthought. Aggressively festive but good in small enough doses.
• Superfood Coffee Co.'s Norwegian Cold Brew was very tasty, creamy and not too strong—maybe even a little fruity.

The range of games is relatively small compared to a full arcade, but they do have a healthy selection of essentials like Frogger, Joust and Contra. They were a blast to play—sometimes literally: I tried out the legendary light gun shooter Duck Hunt for the first time ever. We played two-player Super Mario Bros—significantly harder on an arcade setup! We even snuck in a round of foosball (which, in case you're wondering, I dominated).

They're, uh... not much to look at. But good!

Since this is a food blog, I should probably mention the food at some point. (Novel, I know!) The fried chicken sliders (courtesy of Bo-Beau) were absolutely delicious—and not just delicious "for a pub." They nailed the essential crispy exterior, while the chicken itself was steamy and moist. It was all slathered in a tangy and herbaceous sauce that I wished there was even more of.

Amy's reuben on rye was just adequate, probably because it was made in-house and not next door. The sandwich was crisply thin-pressed with some good salty pastrami, but it literally came with a packet of Newman's Own thousand island dressing and a bag of Lay's. Pretty underwhelming to say the least.

If you want to eat well here, you definitely need to order off the Bo-Beau section of the menu—or maybe even just eat at Bo-Beau first and come for drinks and games after. But though the food is a bit of an afterthought, it's almost justifiable when the other attractions are this entertaining.

Score: 8 out of 10 (Superior)

Happy Hour Bite: Trade Winds Tavern

Most gastropubs are, let's face it, a little drab. Stepping into one, you can generally muddled brownish-gray tones, a few kegs, maybe some industrial design touches—and that's on a good day. Trade Winds Tavern, though, has a certain artistic flair. Driving by on Balboa in Kearny Mesa, the colorful punk mural outside catches your eye instantly, drawing you in through raw curiosity. Inside the theme continues: a wall painted with cyclops jellyfish, a giant game table, and... okay, some industrial decor.

I come after work for their food happy hour with surprising frequency. The other day I got the elote and the salt and pepper chicken wings. The corn, though a bit on the puny side, was sweet and pleasingly charred, doused in mayo, cotija and a little citrus. The cheese made it satisfyingly salty and funky. Adding some chili powder, though, would've brought an authentic spicy edge.

The wings were thickly battered and crunchy, as any good salt and pepper wing should be. The main flavor I got was most definitely salt, though the red pepper flakes and scallions occasionally asserted themselves. So while the texture was on point, I was thankful for the accompanying hot sauce to add some heat and flavor variation.

To be frank, the food at Trade Winds isn't mind-blowing. In fact, they've taken a couple of my preferred items off the happy hour menu. Yet I still find myself stopping by. I think it comes down to a combination of convenience, some interesting comfort food, and an offbeat vibe. A little creativity goes a long way.

Score: 6.5 out of 10 (Good)

Happy Hour Bite: Dirty Birds

Chicken wings are the pinnacle of bar food: You can eat them with your hands, they're shareable and they're great with a beer. But there's one place in San Diego that has taken that pinnacle and airlifted some extra soil on top to create (*gasp*) an even higher pinnacle. That place is Dirty Birds.

Thirty-seven flavors. Take that in for a minute. Dirty Birds has thirty-seven discrete flavors of wings. I've been here many times, and I still haven't even tried half of them. (The ones I have tried, I've catalogued in a spreadsheet like the insufferable nerd that I am.) They're also half off during happy hour (weekdays 3–6pm), meaning you can get 10 wings for a very reasonable $7.50.

Dirty Blue and Seoul Wing, plus token veggies.

I paid a visit the other day and got two of my favorites. First was the Dirty Blue, a mix of a classic buffalo sauce and house-made blue cheese dressing. This is the most brilliant innovation in wing technology since the airfoil. Blue cheese already goes great with wings, so why not bake it in (literally) from the get-go? The result has both the spicy vinegar kick of the buffalo and the creamy pungency of the blue cheese. Every bite makes you crave the next.

I should note that they've also come up with a couple of other wonderfully balanced sauce blends. The Dirty Ranch uses ranch dressing for something a little less sharp and more creamy. The Flaming Honey Mustard's combination is a bit sweeter and also slightly spicier, probably due to a slight bite from the mustard.

My other choice, the Seoul Wing, is one of the more interesting flavors on the menu. It's a distinctly Asian-influenced sauce with notes of garlic, soy sauce, teriyaki and sesame, plus a firm but tempered dose of chile. It all comes together in an awesome amalgam of sweet, savory and spicy.

There aren't many restaurants that do one thing as thoroughly and as successfully as Dirty Birds does wings. While not every sauce is a winner, most of them are—and the absurd number of options ensures that just about anyone can find several that suit their taste.

Score: 9 out of 10 (Fantastic)

Quick Bite: Garlic Shack

[Insert vampire joke here]

The restaurant business is tough—and arguably the toughest part to nail is consistency. To maintain a fully stocked inventory, professional customer service and top-notch food quality is an incredible feat of logistics, one that most diners seldom stop to think about.

That's because when a restaurant is run well, they shouldn't have to. Unfortunately Garlic Shack, unfortunately, broke that cardinal rule on the two occasions I tried it.

I walk though the door of the Shack for the first time. It has a funky, grungy aesthetic that matches its name: Wooden picnic-table style seating, corrugated metal sheeting as an accent wall. The words "GARLIC SHACK" are stenciled everywhere. I can kinda dig it.

When I go to order the spicy belly banh mi (#sorrynotsorry), the friendly teen behind the counter informs me they just ran out—like, the minute before I came in. Oops. I reluctantly scan the menu and order the chimichurri steak fries.

They're delicious. The fries themselves are crunchy, greasy and wonderful, topped with a great chimichurri packed full of herbs and vinegar tang. The cheese has that satisfyingly gooey, stretchy consistency. Oh, and of course, there are eleven metric tons of garlic—almost enough to counteract the negative health effects I'm sustaining by consuming a pile of cheese, meat and fried potato. The steak is well-seasoned—even the thyme comes through—but it's cooked nearly well done rather than medium as I asked for. Still, I depart from the Shack contented, with garlic on my breath and optimism in my heart.

I return the next week for another banh mi attempt. Incredibly, it's the same story: They're still out of the pork belly. I ask if there's a specific time this item is available, but the chef apologetically explains through the ticket window that no, this is "just the way it goes," because "everything is made to order." Since this is true of any decent restaurant, I find this rationale... confusing. And anyway, shouldn't you be sure to have enough of any ingredient that's key to three of your menu items?

It's not as good as it looks. Curse my photography skills.

Halfheartedly, I ask for Korean beef noodle bowl. It's... well, it's not great. The tiny spoon I'm given is comically insufficient for the enormous bowl of soup. The noodles are clumped together. The broth is okay, meaty and spicy but quite salty. The bowl feels like it's missing something, and looking back over the menu I realize why: The enoki mushrooms, bamboo shoots and garlic chips are all mysteriously absent.

I don't bother asking about them. I know what the answer will be.

Believe or not, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a good time at Garlic Shack if I ever returned—it's just that the experience is just too hit and miss to know for sure. Their problem isn't that they're incapable of making good food. It's that they haven't learned how to be a restaurant.

Score: 4 out of 10 (Mediocre)