Grilled Cheese Heaven

Stella and I were sitting in Manifesto trying to decide if we wanted another fabulous cocktail or if we wanted to head over to The Westside Local to get a bite to eat and have a beer. The Westside Local won out.

It was about 10 O'clock on a Friday night. When we walked in there was a couple in the main dining room. We chose to sit outside in the beer garden because it was very nearly a perfect evening to be outside. All of the picnic tables in the beer garden were taken except the very last one upon which we took up residence.

Our waiter, who was very friendly, took our drink order and brought us the complimentary olive tray. He took a moment to explain the menu to us, namely the localities section which is basically an a la carte section, I'd never seen it called localities before.

Then we started to feel some raindrops and we decided to move inside. The inside of The Westside Local is very nice, but not that cozy when there is only 3 tables taken. The beer garden is much more enjoyable. Stella decided we should split a grilled cheese sandwich since I wasn't that hungry. I tried to talk her into the deviled eggs, but she wouldn't do it. For $7, her argument was, we could get a sandwich and garlic fries as opposed to spending $6 for a half dozen deviled eggs (6 halves or 3 eggs).

Our waiter, who seemed more like he wanted to sit down and join us than he was in serving us (which is fine because it was pretty slow in there) told Stella about one of the bartender's drink creations. At the drink's heart it was a ginger shandy, but the ginger part was done by infusing some cognac with ginger and mixing that with Tank 7. "Good. But dangerous" was the waiter's assessment of the drink. It does sound pretty good, but if Stella drank that well...let's just leave that to the imagination, but I think I would have to ice a part of my body in the morning.

Our grilled cheese sandwich arrived and it was huge. Certainly $7 well spent. I don't remember all 3 cheeses in the grilled cheese sandwich but brie was one of them and that's enough. Simply put, the sandwich was superb. The bread was light and airy, a great cheese delivery device. The tomato soup was served cold and once we got used to the cold aspect of it, was really enjoyable.

What I didn't like was the garlic fries. They seemed like they had been sitting around for awhile and were mostly ends and irregular pieces. They didn't have much garlic flavor or any flavor for that matter. To make up for the lack of flavor I tried dipping them in the homemade ketchup but it was awful which I didn't think ketchup could ever be. I really didn't like it at all. The aioli that came with the fries was just the opposite of the ketchup, good. Stella used the aioli exclusively, I switched between the two and was not the better person for doing so.

To our surprise, Muddy Mo showed up and sat down with us as we were about halfway done with our sandwich. He had a beer and we discussed the topics of the day. I tried to give him half of my half of the sandwich because it was just too much to eat, but he wouldn't take it. I couldn't finish it. Of course he wouldn't eat any of the fries after I talked bad about them so those went to the dogs too.

The star of the show at The Westside Local is the beer and the best supporting actors are the beer garden and the grilled cheese sandwich. I don't know of a better late night option for beer and food though I'd skip the fries if I could. I'm definitely going to go back and try more food, but I don't know how it could get better than that grilled cheese.