company pub & kitchen revisit

My last visit to Company Pub & Kitchen was back in 2012. I wasn’t really wowed by it back then, but my dad had a group deal for the place and he took me out to dinner here. It was actually a really nice evening and we sat on the patio. If I had remembered/known about the patio we could have brought Maya with us since they are dog friendly. Too bad!

I was flipping through the … table advertiser/drink list/omg we have desserts/happy hour menu list thing and I noticed they have a pretty cool sounding happy hour with everything here offered at $2. I would suspect some of these are smaller portions but still seems like a good deal.

I actually ordered these onions as a side dish to my meal. They were only listed as an add on side on the very last page of the menu for just a few bucks so I figured it would work well as an appetizer. The onion rings were thickly cut and the onion did not spill out after one bite (hooray!). The orange sauce shown here was actually a spicy little something something sauce. I actually asked for a side of ranch since this looked like thousand island dressing to me (it wasn’t). The onion rings were not too bad but also not too great. I felt like the batter was a little thick and I wished it had more seasoning to it.

[freddy’s farm burger / $12.75]

Dad ordered the Freddy’s Farm Burger which came with a half pound beef, bacon and lamb patty, goat cheese, fried egg, caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato and pickle. You get your choice of chips, fries or salad.

I didn’t try Dad’s burger but he didn’t seem too impressed with it. It’s kind of weird how it’s a little pink only on one side, but the other side looks more cooked through. I’m used to seeing runny eggs on burgers but this one had a pretty solid yolk on it, almost in hard boiled egg territory. Dad didn’t think the flavors really worked all that well in this burger.

On another note, why does the lettuce look like wilted, boiled greens?? Ick.

[lamb lollipops / $16.50]

I remembered that the last time I was here I had mac n cheese and ribs and I didn’t really enjoy them all that much, so I was hoping one of the fancier meals would do the trick this time and ordered the lamb lollipops. My entree came with seasonal vegetables and mashed potatoes. I was not too excited to see a whole mess of bell peppers on my plate. I ate one to see how I liked it, but as usual, the flavor and taste of bell pepper is overwhelming to me. I ended up eating the rest of the veggies though, just skipping the peppers.

I got four little lamb kebabs (err, lollipops) which each had a little daub of a merlot reduction sauce. I really liked the merlot sauce – it was robust and flavorful and had a little touch of sweetness that I liked. 

For the lamb, I was not asked how I wanted it cooked. Didn’t seem to matter though since each lamb lollipop seemed to be cooked differently… The first one was a touch overcooked, the second one was perfect and medium, and the last two were varying degrees of overcooked and one was actually dry. I love lamb when it’s done right but there seemed to be no consistency to how this dish was cooked. That was too bad since the 2nd one was near perfect (I would have preferred it more medium rare).

The mashed potatoes I got were also… kind of weird. They were super, super, extra cheesy (like OMG, did someone spill half a bag of shredded cheese into my one scoop?!). Extra cheesy I normally would not mind but the potatoes also had this odd, glue-like, gummy texture to them that became unpleasant to eat after a few bites. Mashed potatoes are normally one of my favorite things, but when done incorrectly they quickly become unloved.

My dad actually has a second coupon to this place and he regrets buying two now. Maybe his second visit will fair better than this round, but I think it’s safe to say that I really won’t want to visit again unless someone makes me go.

Company Pub & Kitchen
13670 Poway Road
Poway, CA 92064
(858) 668-3365