Knotty Barrel, 13211 Black Mountain Road, San Diego, California 92129
By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO — I went to meet a friend the other day, and by accident, we stumbled into Knotty Barrel for what turned out to be their first lunch after their soft opening the week before. While the Rancho Penasquitos location is new, they’ve been around in the downtown area for a while.
It’s a cute gastropub/ brewery with minimalist decor and lots of wood. The menu reads the way you would expect a gastro pub menu to read, with burgers, wings and other fried delights. There was a good salad selection as well.
We ordered the fried pickles to start. They were actually really good. Fried in some sort of a light batter, they were tangy and crunchy- a pretty addictive combination actually.
I ordered the steak sandwich with the sweet potato fries, and my friend got a burger. We were very surprised to find that there wasn’t any salt or pepper on the table and it had to be requested. Both the steak sandwich and the burger were a little bland. The steak sandwich came with spicy siracha sauce, which I asked for on the side, and that probably is what would have given the sandwich all the flavor. The meat was perfectly cooked though, points for that. I asked for some A-1 to add to the sandwich, and that did the trick, but I think it would have benefitted from some chimicurri or pesto sauce.
My friend took my unused spicy siracha sauce and put it on her bland burger, and that added all the flavor she needed, so she was happy after that. She didn’t love the fries, which were super thin shoestring fries, but I actually really liked them. I’m not a big potato person, so it was the texture of the thin fries that I liked. The sweet potato fries came waffle-cut, which was also interesting.
The service was good, and I was really happy that they were open to substitutions. They had a special deal of a burger and a beer for $13, and they were gracious enough to let us take advantage of that deal even though we were drinking ice tea and diet coke. The burger on its own was $13.50, so it was still a good deal and a savings.
All-in-all it was a nice find, and fun to discover a restaurant in their first week. The food was good, but not something that I would dream about. Since I’m not much of a drinker I don’t know if their brew would have been something to write home about or not.
Final score…. 8. Nothing especially wrong, but also nothing that was surprising, different, or above and beyond.
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Sandi Masori is the food and restaurant reviewer for San Diego Jewish World. When she’s not trying new restaurants or hanging with her family, Sandi helps people self-publish their business authority or legacy books. If you want to reach Sandi either about a review, or for help writing or publishing your book, email her at sandimasori@gmail.com