There’s the Pub

Some say that good teachers can teach anything. I happen to think that’s true, to a point. Successful teaching does depend on imparting information in a clear and logical fashion. But knowledge of (or love for) what you’re giving lessons in is not exactly incidental. The best teacher is one who values the subject as much as the profession and who has received an education in both.

The same can be said of food servers. A good waiter, I figure, can serve just about any cuisine. The key is in the training. Ask an English composition instructor to lead a chemistry class and you’ll witness a confused struggle. Set an experienced food server loose in a dining room without having her or him study the menu, and even if the fare is promising and the prices refreshing, you’re in trouble. Or, in this case, in Don Gambrinu’s Brewery House & Restaurant.

Situated behind a Miami Lakes bank and landscaped like a country club, Don Gambrinu’s is hard to find. Soon after we finally located the place, we began to wonder if it was worth the search. Though owner Juan Medinacelli also happens to be the CEO of the Bolivian National Brewing Company, and the management vigorously touts the establishment as a brewpub (general manager David Bolanos later told me the pub carries three of its own beers — a lager, a pilsner, and a stout — and twenty-four other international ones on tap alone), there were only two house beers on tap the night we dined. Worse, the waitress was unable to describe or even list them, or any of those the restaurant offers in bottles.

“Is the premium dark?” my husband asked her, seeking a full-bodied beer.
“I think so,” she replied uncertainly. “Kind of red.”
So he ordered it. What arrived was as pale as the sun and totally devoid of body.

“What do you have that’s dark?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered.
Thus began a long night of ummms, maybes, and “I think we’re out of that one, let me check.” I empathized with her up to a point. As a beer novice, I was once hired to cocktail at an English pub with 21 taps, 6 of which were house brews and all of which were unfamiliar to me. The difference: I was lectured before I started about the flavors and qualities of each beer; I took tastes of each one and read articles on the subject of brewing. I have to say, it was quite a pleasurable training period. This young woman’s training, if there was any, didn’t take. (Bolanos says the brewmaster is now directing the beer-training program, in which he will provide tastes to servers; they will take notes on each house beer. I asked him about those who were old enough to peddle alcohol — in Florida, you can be eighteen and serve — but not old enough to drink. “That’s a good question,” conceded Bolanos, who was originally hired as executive chef but was quickly promoted to general manager.)

To make matters worse, I’d brought along a bunch of hops snobs, champions of the microbrew-in-a-bottle revolution who are constantly searching for good local pubs. Though the pints were certainly cheap enough (two bucks), they found the “try it and see” method of salesmanship tiresome. And whatever hope had been instilled in them by the sight of the copper tanks in the lobby and by the place mats describing the brewing process was quickly dashed. When one of my disgruntled party finally ordered a Bud, I knew there was trouble in Beerville.

They also objected to the ritzy decor. Don Gambrinu’s is a 298-seat, triple-tier restaurant whose levels overlook an elaborately constructed first-floor bar. “This is not a pub,” my guests flatly declared, toeing the leaf-patterned carpet as they trooped up the winding stairs. I thought this rather narrow-minded of them — after all, some British pubs are quite upscale; you don’t always have to be in a yeasty dive to quaff a heady foam. But I could see their point. The place has a sterile, not-yet-broken-in feel, the brewing casks enclosed behind glass, the high-rising dining room like a scenic overlook. I attribute this atmosphere — and many of the glitches we encountered during the evening — to the fact that the place is only two months old. In time, as the carpet wears down, Don G’s should start to resemble a real watering hole.

The menu, presented in a glossy folder with a full-color logo that resembles a tattoo of made-up mythical figure Don Gambrinu, reads like a travelogue. The extensive scope of the cuisine is explained by the fable (and is it ever a tall tale) that comes in the folder: Don Gambrinu is supposed to be to beer what Bacchus is to wine. He traveled the world introducing brew to new lands and sampling the foods along the way. Unfortunately our server knew as little about the kitchen’s repertoire as she did about the brewmaster’s, so we closed our eyes, pointed, and hoped for the best.

We got slightly less than that for appetizers. Warm spinach-artichoke dip tasted like creamed spinach garnished with pieces of artichoke hearts. Slightly watery, the concoction was less a unified dip than a vegetable side dish, despite the accompaniment of small grilled toasts. A little soft cheese or sour cream blended into the mix might help thicken things up here and make the result more like a spread. Likewise, a smoked tomato fondue was disappointing. Swirls of smoked Gouda cheese melting into the hot marinaralike liquid looked promising, but the flavor conjured images of a Campbell’s tomato soup recipe contest, and the toast rounds did nothing to make the dish more palatable.

Smoked Gouda also appeared on a white (as in no tomato sauce) three-cheese pizza, along with mozzarella and ricotta. This “gourmet” pizza, one of several on the menu, had good garlic undertones and a crisp-edged crust and was rich enough to serve as a meal in itself, though it was fun to share as a starter. We did the same with a caesar salad, but passing around overly refrigerated romaine and diamond-hard croutons wasn’t quite as enjoyable. The dressing, though, was outstanding, delivering on the sharp side with garlic and vinegar and just a hint of pungent Parmesan.

One appetizer on the list, the most satisfying of the bunch, should be elevated to entree status: the sausage sampler, a trio of bratwurst, knockwurst, and chorizo. Surrounding a center of tangy fresh sauerkraut and partnered by those ubiquitous toasts, the sliced sausages were grilled to perfection, quite hearty and hefty for a first course. A zingy, grainy mustard was ideal for dipping and went especially well with the hot-doglike knockwurst. The chorizo, pretty spicy on its own, didn’t need the dunk.

For main courses, executive chef Javier Doboada offers chicken and pork done on the rotisserie. We didn’t order either but discovered to our delight that other chicken dishes take it from there too. One dish combined the roasted chicken with sliced butter mushrooms, broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, and wide, flat rigatoni. A light savory sauce made sweet by the bright tomatoes, along with huge boneless hunks of fragrant chicken, provided a lot of succulent substance.

A Cobb salad also utilized the moist, juicy bird, this time in strips. The platter wasn’t layered traditionally, with chopped toppings in rows, but the ingredients were as fresh and good as any Cobb I’ve had in California, birthplace of the preparation. Crisp crumbs of bacon and vibrant blue cheese were interspersed among a variety of green and red lettuces, along with a whole sliced egg and diced tomatoes. Pitted kalamata olives and pepperoncini completed the plate with a Greek touch but couldn’t hide the fact that the avocado (billed on the menu and essential to completing a Cobb) was missing. Homemade dressings, two brought on the side when I couldn’t decide between them, were a plus — a sweet tangy passion fruit competed with a roasted shallot vinaigrette for the palate’s attention.

Baby backs were a delight, a full rack of juicy, barbecued ribs. Mild cole slaw, made with colorful, julienned cabbage, and crisp fries increased the value of this plate enormously. The ribs were a bit dry, so we requested more barbecue sauce, which the waitress brought out some minutes later. “The kitchen insisted on heating it up,” she said. “I don’t know why.” I did know why: The cooks must have been using the sauce as a marinade and needed to kill any microorganisms in it. I was pleased with the regard the kitchen shows for its customers even as I grew increasingly irritated with a server who was not communicating very well with that nerve center; if our waitress were a synapse, she’d be misfired.

Other main courses weren’t as successful, owing largely to oversalting. The entrecete (“The what?” our server asked), grilled to a sunset-red medium rare, was a sirloin of tender beef that left the mouth parched despite its juiciness. Snapper Veracruz, a big, meaty yellowtail fillet topped with tomatoes and capers, had a good key lime flavor but was also too briny. Both were served with a pretty rice pilaf dotted with vegetables, and an unimaginative side of sauteed yellow squash, zucchini, and carrots. The Creole seafood, a casserole dish like paella, was better, if blander. A tomato sauce that dressed plentiful shrimp, scallops, squid, chunks of grouper, and rice tasted more like bell pepper than chili pepper; despite chunks of chorizo, this stuff had no kick whatsoever.

The dessert course continued with foodstuffs gleaned from Don Gambrinu’s mythical journey — though it oversteps the Mexican/Caribbean limits Bolanos says he wants to set. Cake Marrakesh, described as coffee-flavored cake laced with caramel, was endorsed heartily by the waitress and the busboy. Funny how nobody mentioned the fact that it was actually made with ice cream, a pertinent piece of information.

Don Gambrinu’s promises to become a welcome addition to our brewery-starved city. The fare — downright inexpensive and of decent quality — has potential. But the management has a way to go to deliver on that promise: To judge from my visit, not much is running smoothly, from a bumbling waitstaff to a broken phone system that won’t route incoming calls. And all that confusion can wind up costing the customer more than just misspent hours. My husband wound up walking out of the place with the receipt of our meal in his wallet but not the plastic he used to pay for it. The credit card company says it’ll take a month to straighten out our account, which for the moment is as frozen as cake Marrakesh.

Maybe that time frame will suffice for Don Gambrinu’s as well.

Don Gambrinu’s Brewery House & Restaurant
6685 Eagle Nest Ln, Miami Lakes; 556-0502. Open Sunday — Thursday from 11:00 a.m to 11:00 p.m.; Friday until 2:00 a.m. Open Saturday from 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

Sausage sampler
$3.95
Rigatoni
$8.95
Baby back ribs
$11.95
Cake Marrakesh
$3.95