Ruddy Duck Brewery & Grill — Restaurant in Maryland

Where to start? I had their duck burger, and it came with the tomato, lettuce, and pickles on the side so you can kind of customize it. It was probably the best buns I'll ever have outside of my kitchen (because I'm going to have to attempt to recreate them now). When I mentioned that to the waitress, she proudly told me they were a from scratch house, where mostly everything is made from scratch. Because of that, things are usually hit or miss. They were brioche buns, and if you've ever had the pleasure of biting through the thin crunchy crust of a fresh bun just to meet the soft interior of a brioche bun, you know other commercial buns just don't compare. And I've had my fair share of in house buns, and they also have come nowhere close. The bun also changes texture the as you keep eating, because you squish the burger to hold it. It was great. With that said, the burger patty was completely too salty. That is, unless you eat it with with the said pickles, which was again, done in house. They were crunchy and just sweet enough, not too vinegary. I just wish they had either balanced the pickle and the patty in a way that they weren't so dependent on each other for balanced taste, or recommended people eat it that way. I usually don't like pickles and the only reason that I discovered that these pair great with the burger was due to me wanting to try to like new things. Someone who doesn't like pickles could've tried to finish the whole burger without it and struggled through a salty burger. Back to the patty, even though it was salty, I really did enjoy the texture of it. The chunks of duck weren't too big or small, it was fried nicely, and it somewhat had the bouncy texture of a sausage. I didn't ask the waitress, but after she made that from scratch comment, I'm assuming they ground the meat in house as well. I saw a comment box outside and would like to suggest coating the rim of the burger with coarsely crushed peppercorn (black if you want it to be sharper and green if you want sharp and bright) and if you pick black peppercorn, maybe add a lemon rind infused clarified herb oil(blend with herb, strain till clear, infuse with lemon rind) Other things I had: crab dip. There was plenty crab in this, but I was struggling to taste it's sweetness through the cheese. It was shredded too finely. I would suggest adding in large chunks here and there so there's lumps of sweetness. This would also improve the texture of the dip. Duck fries: fries that were fried in duck fat, and sprinkled with Parm. I wasn't a fan. These are homemade fries, and it seems they were just cut and fried. I dislike these type of fries since they are often no longer moist and fluffy on the inside by the time the outside is crunchy/crispy enough. They also always taste slightly over cooked to me as well. I prefer parboiled fries, but seeing as mostly everything is done from scratch and this is an issue of scale of production and profit margins(they don't just order them frozen like everywhere does and it takes a lot of dedicated fridge space to parboil and chill fries) I can see why they went with this. Also maybe people just prefer this type of fry and I'm weird. Just my two cents on the fries. Beer flight: Peach noveau: tastes really crisp and refreshing, fruity without being sweet or artificial Honey wheat: very nice and light, slightly fruity and floral Swift tail: too dark in flavor to be the medium it was supposed to be Overall I give them 5 stars because even with the hiccup of a really salty patty, it balanced out really well with the pickles and the bun was great. I always enjoy a place that constantly experiments and does a lot of things from scratch. It takes more dedication. If they keep the chef or whoever creates the recipes, I would like to come back every couple of years(I'm not local to the area) to see how they've progressed as a chef. Only, because I'm not a local though, I can't tell you the consistency of this place, so hopefully it's consistent and everyone has the same or better experience than me...

My husband and I decide to go to a local restaurant for our date night and the food was great! We started off with pretzels and beer cheese as an appetizer and they were delicious. He tried the blueberry beer, he said it was good, just much too sweet to sip with dinner. For our main I got the French Dip with French fries and it was AMAZING. My husband got the Brewhouse burger with duck fat fries and he said it was the best burgers he’s had in years.

The reason for four stars - our service. When we were first seated there were a few tables occupied nothing crazy. We started to scan the menu and a couple got seated directly next to us, we continued to scan the menu. After 3 minutes a waitress came up and got their drink/appetizer order while no one had greeted us yet. I thought it was kinda odd but we continued to scan the menu. Over the next 10 minutes 3 more tables were seated and they had all gotten their drinks while not a single person had said anything to us. I was about to call a waitress over when someone finally came up to us and asked if we had been seen yet I said no. The service for the rest of the night was great. It was very annoying to see four tables come in after us and all start enjoying their food before we did. However, the food was so incredible I still have to give this place 4 stars.

Another annoyance of the night was the paper soufflé cups they give you for condiments. Our hot beer cheese for our appetizer came in one and by the end of eating the pretzels it was barley standing up from the cheese. They also put my beef au jus in it for my sandwich and it was soaking through the bottom of the cup onto my plate making a huge mess. I’m just so confused why a very nice restaurant like this would be using paper soufflé cups and not nice metal ones? Makes no sense.

However my husband and thoroughly enjoyed our food and our date night so we will definitely be back to...

I had an incredibly disappointing experience at this restaurant for Mother's Day dinner. We had reservations for 5:00, but the hostess was unfriendly and cold. However, she seated our party promptly. Our server took our kids' meal orders, but it took about 10 minutes for her to return and take our drink orders. She apologized for some missing beers, which wasn't a big deal considering it was a craft brewery. Unfortunately, our flights took over 15 minutes to arrive, and we still hadn't even ordered our dinner.

Once the beers finally arrived, we placed our appetizer order, but when we asked to also put in our dinner order, our server said she would be right back and deferred taking it. It took her another 10 minutes to return and finally take our dinner order. By this point, we had already been at the restaurant for 30 minutes and had just placed our dinner order. The appetizers didn't arrive until 5:50, a whole 50 minutes after being seated. Our server blamed the kitchen for the delay but never apologized.

We understand the challenges faced by the service industry, but the restaurant wasn't even busy, and there were at least 8 servers. Our dinner arrived 15 minutes later. The Mediterranean platter, priced at $15, was disappointing as it didn't come with any pita bread. However, the pizzas were the only highlight of our experience; they were really good. On the other hand, the fish and chips, priced at $18, felt like a complete rip-off (see picture).

By the time we asked for the bill and left, the entire experience had taken nearly 2 hours. Despite the restaurant having many extremely positive reviews, I hope this was just a one-off, but based on the poor quality of the appetizers and fish and chips, I'm concerned this might be their norm. Lastly, as we were leaving, the manager/owner asked us how things were, and when we expressed our disappointment, he simply shrugged...