The Pint Room

The Pint Room is a new venture in Carmel following in the growing trend of restaurants having extensive beer lists. I can take or leave the whole giant beer thing, because I’m really just not a beer girl, but when I hear there is a potential for good food, you know I have to check it out. And I know a lot of you guys are really into the whole massive beer list thing—so if you are, you should check it out.

I met my friend Suzanne there and we ordered a couple of things to share. When a restaurant calls itself a “Burger Bar,” you have to order a burger right? And as soon as we read the description of the “Hangover” burger, ($12) we knew that’s what we wanted. Pint Room uses a blend of Kobe beef and US Prime chuck and I like that they cook it to order. The blend of beef they’re using makes for a very tender burger—it’s a fairly thick style, but because of the tenderness, it’s really good. The Hangover is topped with a slight runny fried egg (you can see how it lured me in), smoked cheddar, double smoked bacon, hash browns and tomato. The beef and the egg were great—the egg was just runny enough without being hugely messy. The bacon is pretty thick cut-tasty but a tad chewy. I’m not sure how I feel about the hash browns—just kind of filler I think. It’s a brioche bun and I liked it—soft but hearty enough to stand up to a lot of stuff. All in all, a very good burger. I also liked the seasoned fresh-cut fries—very flavorful and crisp.  We liked the regular ones better than the sweet potato fries that we ordered with our other sandwich.

The other sandwich we shared was the grilled chicken club ($11.50). This was also  good. The very buttery toasted bread was good and I liked the way the chicken was thin and not a giant hunk of breast meat the way many chicken sandwiches are. The chicken was tender and well-seasoned and there was melted white cheddar and Swiss as well as bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion stacked on top. Again, bacon is good tasting, but thick and a bit chewy. The tomato was a tad pasty, but I really enjoyed the sundried tomato mayo on it. I could have eaten even more of that. Again, not as big a fan of the sweet potato fries with the sweet dipping sauce (I’m not usually a fan of sweet stuff with my savory). It was good, but the burger was better.

This is a place with a huge beer list and solid food—I’d be curious to try some of the starters—if they are as good as the sandwiches, I bet they’re pretty tasty. The entrance is sort of weird, it almost doesn’t feel like an entrance and the booth we were seated in felt like it was built for a much larger person than me (table was very far away). Otherwise, the interior is

pretty much what you might imagine for a burger/beer place. It’s casual, with lots of wood. The service was friendly and efficient. On the whole, I think this is a good addition to downtown Carmel.

The Pint Room

110 West Main Street

Carmel, IN 46032

317/571-8400

www.pintroomcarmel.com