Union Alehouse — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

Today is my traditional #dateyourwifewednesday! So we visited Union Ale in Virginia Beach. Here's the scoop..

Walking in you see a sign that says "Vaxx'd Up? Mask'd up? Don't care. Drink up!" It's great that things are slowly returning to normal, but the sign? Meh....as someone who is immune system compromised (and living in wisdom, not fear), I believe that sign certainly appeals to the non-vaccinated and non-masked.

Now onto the food...I ordered the PB&J Burger which came highly recommended ($12). My wife ordered the Surf and Turf Nachos appetizer for her meal ($14). Let's start with the burger...

I'm not a big peanut butter fan so I asked for the peanut butter on the side. Ultimately, I put the peanut butter on the burger and it was good, but for me the peanut butter was overpowering. That said, this was truly one of the best burgers I've had. It was cooked to perfection, perfect temperature! And the peach flavored jam that accompanied the peanut butter was amazing. I will order this sandwich again, but I will order it without peanut butter. The only other downside is that it was very messy. But other than that, this sandwich is insanely good and absolutely worth the price!

When it came to the Surf and Turf nachos, they were just okay. Unfortunately we felt that the nachos were soggy because of the sauce that is put on top of them. However our server noticed we barely touched them and when she asked, we said we didn't really like them. So when she brought our check she removed it from our bill. That was unexpected and very nice.

Bottom line, we'll go back for sure. Their burger was cooked to PERFECTION and I'd love to visit...

A satisfying, delicious meal!

The seared Ahi tacos are hands down the best. Nicely seasoned, properly seared Tuna over fresh Kale on warmed tortillas with a fresh pico.

The California chicken bacon gouda avocado was also delicious. Again, the chicken was nicely seasoned and seared with a juicy center topped with gouda, ripe fresh avocado, lettuce, a single tomato slice, and good bacon on a toasted chibatta roll.

The union grilled cheese with a smash patty was also tasty. For sides, I had the crispy Brussel sprouts that were fresh and crispy cooked through and firm. The side salad was fairly basic fair green leaf lettuce with some blah tomatoes and a few slices of a fresh crisp cucumber served with overly sweet basalmic dressing. Lastly, the redskinned potatoes were delightful. Cooked through but not mushy. They had a light pan fry crisp and were lightly seasoned.

The pickles that came with the Cali chicken and the union grilled cheese were fresh crisp perfection.

The chili nachos (sans chips) lacked spice and was a bit watery (probably not with Chips). The Baha sauce (sour cream I believe) blands out the flavor and spices of the chili to a point where you can not taste them. The remaining flavor is the crispy fresh raw red onion generously garnished on.

The service was friendly, though it would have enhanced the experience had they taken the time to write down my order rather than attempting to memorize it. I enjoyed the outdoor dining area. The meal would be exponentially better with higher quality tomatoes on the sandwiches, salad and the pico. All were well prepared but were limited by ingredient quality vs the other...

This ale house has been on our list to try for quite some time. It’s a very unassuming store front and can be a little convoluted to find. It’s no surprise to me that we haven’t gone here before, you’d never see it if you weren’t looking for it.

As far as our experience, I’ve just got to start by saying the buffalo cauliflower appetizer is delicious! But why, oh why is it $14? It’s literally just buffalo sauce, breading, and cauliflower. Really all of their appetizers are unusually expensive for what you’re getting. That alone merited the loss of a fifth star. We managed to get out of here with a total of $72, before tip, for lunch and we aren’t entirely sure how how we got there between 4 beers, the appetizer, and two burgers with fries.

All that said, the service was fantastic. For some reason, there were flies everywhere and that must have been rather unusual because they offered to move us away from the windows because of the flies. Not sure how that would help, but we also didn’t ask, so it was nice they volunteered to offer that. We were done dining at that point; so we stayed put.

The Elote Burger left much to be desired, and I normally love Elote dishes. No one specific ingredient stood out; so it was only okay. The Breakfast Burger received good reviews from the table; though I can’t speak to them myself. But I’ll take that for what it’s worth.

Overall, we will likely give this establishment another shot in the future now that we know where it is. I’ll update here if our experience ends up...