The Forbes Tavern, located on Forbes Avenue, is a right turn past the University Center, in the opposite direction of Market Square and just past the French bakery La Gourmandine. The entrance, labeled with a large sign, leads a customer inside to a room with three sports TVs and a bar littered with men and women in business clothing. Probably letting a load off after work around 6 p.m.
After looking at the varieties of options on the menu, I and a friend who accompanied me ordered the Pittsburgher for $16, tavern dip for $17 and five smoked-garlic parm wings for $7.50.
Although it was clearly labeled on the menu as a flatbread, for some reason, I was still surprised when the Pittsburgher came out looking like a pizza. The sauce was a mixture of ranch and barbeque, topped with grilled chicken, bacon, fries, red onion, cheddar and mozzarella.
Out of the three dishes ordered this was the tastiest. Although, after switching through all three dishes and returning to try the flatbread, I thought that the sauce was a bit overpowering. My friend thought otherwise.
The fries weren’t crispy, but instead soft, and the crust was crispy. Overall, it was just an excellent take on a Pittsburgh-themed dish.
The tavern dip on the other hand was disappointing and left quite a bit to the imagination. To my surprise it came with a side of either French onion soup, chili or mac n cheese. We ordered the Mac n Cheese, at the time, without regretting it.
The mac was rich, the cheese pulled nicely, the noodles were tender and it was topped with green onions as a garnish. When asked, our waitress said that customers either really liked the richness of the mac or just disliked it altogether.
In retrospect, I realize that my waitress duped me. She said that the dip came with a side when, really, the tavern mac was a $3 up-charge. When the whole meal came to $49.07 without tip, I wondered why it had shot so close to my $50 budget; because, normally, I do the math before ordering.
The dip itself tasted just like a chicken sandwich although the menu says that it’s roasted ribeye. The middle of the plate had a bowl of savory au jus – which translates to “with juice” from French (thanks Google Translate). On the sandwich was gruyere, crispy leeks and horsey crème, all on a split French baguette.
Again, in retrospect, I didn’t realize that they were trying to replicate a French dish. For me and my friend, the sauce was sweet and far too weird to want to order this again for a whopping $17. Although it’s not authentically a french dish, I suppose they needed a dish to compete with La Gourmandine next door, but I really wished they hadn’t. Despite all the fancy words the sandwich by itself was average and didn’t taste special or expensive.
Last on our list were the five smoked-garlic parm wings for $7.50. The garlic parm sauce was good, and so were the wings. They had a smoky flavor and weren’t bad; they were certainly better than the wings at the Point Perk. They weren’t special, but they were worth trying for any wing lover looking for a fix.
The Forbes Tavern did an overall good job, but disappointed us with the most expensive thing we ordered: the tavern dip. The ambiance in the sports bar overall was nice. If I were 21, I would come here to drink, probably ordering everything except the dip at least once.
