Restaurant review: Townhouse Kitchen + Bar in Dallas

by Ashli Michelle of Almost Veggie

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The vibe, food, and fluff are all great, but the service was super disappointing.

Townhouse Kitchen + Bar has a vibe worthy of a customer come back. With an exciting menu, sometimes 80's music, and a perfectly fun atmosphere, there's only one fault causing fright: The Service.

Who says this over & over & over: "Is everything amazingly fantastic?" Who? Please do not ever let these letters form words to complete this particular sentence if the service sucks. There's simply no way you don't know that things are far from amazingly fantastic. An 8 year old at the table knew the service sucked when she felt repeated feelings of a throat choke due to lack of liquid for almost one hour.

As he stood having a random table conversation across the room, for what felt like 14 minutes, one couldn't help but ponder thoughts of his need to master the walk by. The waiter walk by is not rocket science. No one can trap a service industry worker without a lack of waiter walk by knowledge. To wear the title of superstar server, the walk by must be perfected. Never stop. There is the slow-by, walk-by, scamper-I'm-busy-by, and the check-presenter-mid- air-ready-to-place-on-the-table-by.

It's a massive service industry shame to have a total of six tables in an entire restaurant, with four servers, one bartender, and a manager. Pain. Trumping the horrible service is plain and simple: everything else.

Wow. Just wow. Deviled eggs come & go without smashing long lasting memories, but Townhouse made our day. After checking out John's write up on Delicious Mischief, we knew the deviled eggs app was first to taste and it did not disappoint. The shared plates section is filled with interesting choices, minus the bbq duck quesadilla and pulled bbq pork sliders.

Deciding it was once again time to lengthen existing pig product vocabulary, Google was the only option. Common knowledge it is not while determining the definition of pulled pork. What changes the status of a pork product to pulled?

Internet Interpretation of Pulled Pork: Google maintains that this form of barbecue, which we call pulled pork, is at times referred to as none other than... Boston Butt. Low temperature removes all pig aspirations immediately, as connective tissue is drastically weakened. Suddenly, the pig's meat can be pulled from its being, only to be placed on a plate, alone, without the rest of its ... body.

Ahh, macaroni & cheese. While having an option to add apple wood bacon or shrimp, the fourth grader at our table just wanted to live. Having another Sprite delivered is what one might consider her pipe dream. Don't even think about asking for a Shirley Temple. Double Pipe Dream.

Next up was the red pepper roasted hummus. So many suitable dishes for non meat eaters. Also exciting is the yellowfin tuna stack served with crisp tortillas, as well as calamari, flatbread, loaded blue cheese chips, and wild mushroom bruschetta.

Shrimp Kung Pao tacos with red chiles & toasted peanuts will make all heart's skip a beat. Holy cow this is spicy hot and delicious. Tacos are served four to an order, with several options such as chipotle carnitas with green onion rajas and avocado salsa, spiced tuna tacos with tomatillo salsa and napa cabbage, or pollo picado with pickled jalapeno and jack cheese.

We opted on the green goddess chicken salad sandwich, but oh how the most excitingly joyous menu moment occurred realizing Townhouse has shrimp & grits. This dream was shot down faster than our server repeated the words amazingly fantastic 42 times during lunch.

Dream turned into nightmare while listening to our server describe the shrimp & grits. Visions of dried up mashed potatoes with dried up shrimp sitting on another plate were forced into every possible plate prediction. He said potatoes. This frightened me. It hurt. There was no turning back after witnessing this spectacle of dish description. Geez.

The vibe, food, and fluff at Townhouse Kitchen + Bar is all great, but the service was super disappointing. Sadly seeing the table beside us getting their check comped, with added apologies from the manager, was just weird. Once they figure out this mini glitch, this place will be solid.

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