Loading ...Early Looks At Varga Bar
Posted by Foobooz on May 29th, 2009
We get a trio of early reports from Varga Bar with talk of food, heavenly bodies and a “battleship row” of beers.
CE Phood was there opening night and enjoyed the crab and cheese fries. [CE Phood]
Femme Fermental details the beer list and enjoys a pint of Damnation. [Femme Fermental]
Phoodie is excited for the “honest” food of Varga’s clam bake. [Phoodie.info]
Varga Bar [Official Site]
941 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA
Related Tags: Center-City-East, gastropub, Varga Bar, Washington-Square-West
May 29th, 2009 at 10:52 am
went last night and was a little luke warm on a couple of things.
The music was way too loud and too much GnR. The chicken was boring and the soft shells were too expensive $28??
Overall, a little disappointed.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Dear Varga Bar:
1. lose the couch upholstery
2. lose the cheese
3. get new container for mustard
4. add vegetarian options
5. remove at least 2 ingredients from each item on menu
will check progress in a bit.
Sincerely,
2 jerks who are often right.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I had a positive experience there that I wrote about here.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Tried it tonight — it’s two blocks from my apartment and I walk by it nearly every day.
Beer list is good, but one major problem: I’m no scientist, but the “pint” glasses were not the standard 16 oz. I picked my first pint up when it was brought to me and immediately realized it was too small. Now, maybe they don’t say on the menu that the pours are 16 ounces, but at $6 and up per draft, you expect your pint-looking glass to be pint sized.
My oyster sandwich was good, not great. It took until the second bite to taste that I was eating a fried oyster sandwich rather than a fried anything else sandwich.
Now the second big problem: salads and sandwiches are in the same spot on the menu (under “sandwiches/salads”), but the salads (at least my wife’s salad) was tiny. Granted, at $9 per salad I didn’t expect a huge salad, but I did not expect it to fit onto a six-inch diameter plate (no exaggeration). By fit, I mean it had plenty of room on that little plate. Fine, if your salads are small, put it in the appetizer section — don’t mislead people into thinking you could actually eat it and feel slightly sated.
The cheese was fine, but not noteworthy.
Also, the music is entirely too loud. I expect Varga will be popular (for a bit) with the same crowd that frequented Azul — we know how long that lasted.
At 10th & Spruce, Varga is only 2 blocks from Tria, which is hands-down better. Maybe Varga is not trying to be Tria, but it’s not a good sign that I’d rather EAT at a place known for beer, wine, and cheese than Varga. I was initially drawn to Varga’s beer list, but I will not be back. Next time I want a good beer list and something to eat, it will not be at Varga.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Went on the Fri the week of opening for Happy Hour. While we found the food was pretty good, the wine & beer list good, I must say the “Month Girl” drinks (Miss Mays in particular) were lacking any alcoholic punch at all. After 7 drinks each, and $200 for 4 people, we wanted to walk out of there with a buzz. Next time, we’ll stick with the beer and wine. And agreed that the music was too loud.