RESTAURANT REVIEW: Core good for what ales you

The tapas menu at Core Public House in North Little Rock is adventurous, featuring items such as Gulf Coast Deviled Eggs with each pickled egg topped with a fried oyster.
The tapas menu at Core Public House in North Little Rock is adventurous, featuring items such as Gulf Coast Deviled Eggs with each pickled egg topped with a fried oyster.

The great country songwriter Tom T. Hall released a song in 1975 titled "I Like Beer," a rollicking number whose rhythm and words evoke a honky-tonk sing-along complete with sloshing pint glasses.

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This is no ordinary burger at Core Public House in North Little Rock. The steak-blended Bouvier Burger’s flavor is richer than a usual burger and closer to hamburger steak.

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The Naughty Bacon Bleu Cheese Fries at Core Public House in North Little Rock come topped with a bleu cheese cream sauce, bleu cheese crumbles, bacon and chives.

The song is direct, simply stating:

Core Public House

Address: 411 Main St., North Little Rock

Hours: 3 p.m.-until Monday Night Football is over Monday, 3-9 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, noon-11 p.m. Saturday and noon-until Sunday Night Football is over Sunday

Cuisine: Gastropub

Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V

Alcoholic beverages: Beer

Reservations: No

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 372-1390

facebook.com/corepu…

"I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow. I like beer, it helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow."

Back in 1975, Hall was probably rhyming about some mass-produced lager, but these days, in Arkansas, many beer fans are singing the praises of the exploding Arkansas-made craft beer scene. Where once there were only a handful of Arkansas craft brewers (independent brewers producing 6 million barrels of beer or less annually, though most nationwide are much, much smaller), there are now about 30 craft breweries in the state, mostly in central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas.

One of these "veteran" craft breweries is Core Brewing Co., started in September 2010 in Springdale by Jesse Core.

In six years, Core has expanded across the state, opening pubs in Northwest Arkansas and distributing their beer into central Arkansas. In March, the brewery decided to directly engage its beer fans in central Arkansas by opening a public house in North Little Rock's Argenta neighborhood in the former Starving Artist Cafe spot.

As a fan of Core's brews -- I'd put Core's Behemoth Pilsner up against any other pilsner around, and its Hilltop IPA and ESB are great beers, too -- this was a welcomed addition to the neighborhood between my work and home.

So, when the pub opened, I found myself going in there a couple of times a month for some after-work beers with friends. The beer was good, the service friendly, there was plenty of room, and some jolly chalk-written sayings on the wall, including Frank Zappa's perfect quote: "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

Still, for the longest time, visiting Core was simply a stop for beers and talk before transitioning somewhere else, somewhere with food. Sure, Core offered hot dogs -- a $1 hot dog that was as good as a $1 hot dog could be -- and encouraged drinkers to bring in outside food, but the brewpub wasn't someplace where one dined and drank.

It was instead drink for happy hour and then run, and the place was never crowded. In fact, sometimes it was completely empty.

No longer. In mid-August, the Core Public House in Argenta debuted a menu, created by chef Jeff Wetzel of Le Bouvier Chef Services in Bentonville. The one-page menu, which is split between tapas and entrees with one dessert, reflects a gastropub style (a pub with an emphasis on high quality food), and has even expanded to include brunch on Saturdays and Sundays.

The menu's short but adventurous, and contains many delights, starting with the Gulf Coast Deviled Eggs ($7) small plate.

It's about time the lowly deviled egg -- long a cornerstone of holiday meals, church dinners-on-the-grounds and family reunions -- got its praise, and Core's version turns them into high art in appearance and taste. The eggs are topped with a crispy fried oyster and Creole remoulade sauce, but the real winner here is the eggs. They are pickled, delivering a pleasing tanginess that blends well with the strong taste of oyster and sauce.

The Naughty Bacon Bleu Cheese Fries ($8) tapas dish is another simple dish (what bar doesn't have cheese fries?) that Core elevates. There's just the right measure of naughtiness to the dish, with the blue cheese cream sauce and blue cheese crumbles not smothering the dish, but accentuating it. Even the chives are given their moment to shine.

Among the other tapas dishes are Sweet Tea Fried Chicken Tenders ($7), served with a house-made Arkansas red honey mustard, and Open-Faced BLT Bites ($5).

Core's list of entrees is only seven items long and a bit more grounded than the tapas menu. There's the expected Fish and Chips ($14), which on an early visit I found to be encased in a delightful crust (made with the brewery's own Leg Hound Lager beer) but a tad too greasy, with the fish a little mushy instead of flaky.

A dining companion differed from my opinion on the fish, though, when ordering the Fish Tacos ($10), which also include the same Alaskan cod in Core's own batter. The fish was slightly overfried, he thought, but the tacos -- topped with a chipotle aioli, grilled corn and black bean relish, and cilantro creme fraiche -- were hearty and a perfect pairing for one of Core's heavier ales or a barleywine.

The Bouvier Burger ($12), featuring a pretzel bun, half-pound steak blend burger, smoked Gouda, bacon, tomato, lettuce and white wine dill pickles, is a success. The house-made bacon (which also comes on the Naughty Bacon Bleu Cheese Fries and other dishes) is savory with a touch of smokiness, and the juicy burger is richer in taste than a usual burger and closer to hamburger steak.

The brief menu does make room for a vegetarian option: the Buddha Bowl ($9), a collection of couscous, sauteed kale, bell peppers, shredded carrot, snap peas, pickled radish and goat cheese tossed in a roasted shallot vinaigrette.

Core's menu also features rotating specials, recently including Moules-Frites ($13), a platter full of fresh mussels in a white wine chorizo cream sauce and served over fries. Also, Crab Cakes ($11), which, albeit small, another dining companion said were still perfectly composed with all crab and no filler.

Only serving food for a month, Core's Argenta location is still finding its feet. On an initial visit in August, only a few days after food became available, there was no silverware, only plastic utensils. That -- fortunately -- has been remedied.

Servers are eager to know how things are. Not in that perfunctory "How was everything?" but in a genuine manner. And their passion is contagious. A server on one visit applauded as much as a dining companion did over the mussels. So contagious was the server's praise that I came close to stopping him from removing the plate and devouring the remaining frites soaked in the white wine chorizo cream sauce.

One month in, there's already a lot going right at Core in Argenta, especially concerning the food. So much so that the public house deserves to be a dining destination, and not just a bar with food.

So, no, this is not "pub food." It's a little higher class. More flavorful. Definitely robust, rising to meet the brewery's strong lineup of beers.

Weekend on 09/15/2016

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