Katie is a Teacher

          I cannot tell a lie; I like beer. I am going to be a 35 year old woman with a beer belly. I can predict it now. People will presume I am pregnant and I will have to constantly correct them.

          I will say, “no, this is my beer belly, and I don’t plan on birthing any children because it will cause me to lose nine good months of potential beer-intake, which just doesn’t work into my lifestyle.” It’s very exciting, I know. One of the reasons I like The District and Amsterdam Rhino is because they have great beer and it’s cheap during happy hour, which I am obviously a fan of. The other day some friends and I decided to meet up after work for a bevvy and some food. We chose Rhino because we wanted to sit on the patio and we could order off of the (better) District menu, as we’ve done in the past.

          When we arrived, the place was pretty empty, which surprised us but we didn’t mind as it meant that we got a great table on the patio. I ordered my favourite beer (Dam Rhino. The Hairy Eyeball is great if you like a lighter beer, and another of my favourites is the Black Pilsner, which is very dark and very good) and we asked if we could order off of the menu at District. Our server said no, which was surprising as we’ve done it before, it wasn’t busy, and they share a kitchen. Alas, it made the choice easier, although I really wanted the brie and cranberry burger from next door. Of our group, only two of us ordered food. I got a 1/4 serving of the pulled pork with a side of cornbread while my friend got the chili.

          The chili looked infinitely better than my pulled pork, particularly because of all of the avocado in it. Mine was actually disgusting. The pork wasn’t actually “pulled” and the fat hadn’t been cut or cooked off. I was basically served hunks of pork which were 90% fat. There were a few pieces that literally didn’t even have meat on them, it was just hunks of fat on a plate. I LOVE pulled pork (my mom’s and Pig‘s is the best I’ve found thus far), so this was a major disappointment. Their three different BBQ sauces (one cranberry, one bourbon, and one mustard) were the only redeeming part of my meal. I ate them with my cornbread (oh yes, it was good too) because I basically couldn’t eat them with anything else as I think I got five bites of meat out of the entire thing, the rest of my plate was just a pile of pork fat. So upsetting.

          Overall, Rhino beer is good, service is occasionally good (ours wasn’t on this particular visit; we had two different servers, neither of which was friendly). It’s generally best to avoid coming anywhere near Rhino on Friday and Saturday nights after 10:00pm as there’s always a line and it’s usually full of 18 year olds. If you want food, go next door to District. And avoid the pulled pork like the plague because it’s awful. If you want to check out my thoughts on District, you can here.