TAKEOUT TASTINGS: Argenta craft brewery also offers hearty takeout for troubled times

While I'm sorry for all the disruption the evil ghosty floaty is causing, in a way we've been prepping for this, uh, adventure. For the past few years, we've been doing the takeout thing a couple of times each month.

We look forward to these sorties. Our dogs like the ride. I roll down the car window and Dublin sticks out her noble head while Paris and Audi roll their eyes at her. We pull into the parking lot, Karen runs in to pick up the eight to 12 pounds of food we invariably get (takeout portions tend to run heavy), I switch over to Little Steven's Underground Garage (Where have you gone Handsome Dick Manitoba? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you), and the girls and I bliss out to the Twylight Zones' "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" and Little Walter for a few minutes.

We like having a break from meal preparation, and it is pleasant to relax in the bosom of our own nest, with our own wine and cocktails and music, or something Netflickering on the electronic hearth. It's more about living how you want to live than it is about fine dining. Because our decisions were largely based on who was offering a deal, a lot of these takeaway meals came from fast casual national chains like Pei Wei and Chipotle. We'd get an email offering a BOGO, we'd take advantage of it.

We got paid in Red Lobster gift cards for an online project and while, no offense, the Red Lobster dining room isn't our idea of a romantic night out, we did find some interesting things on its menu (tilapia tacos! Cheddar Bay biscuits!) that traveled the few miles home well enough. And so a corporate restaurant we didn't think much about in real life became added to our takeout rota.

Then, about a year ago, we got a new neighborhood to explore. We would walk past Flyway Brewing and think about how nice it would be to walk down and have a beer and a bite on its west-facing patio, with our dogs at our feet. It was more an experiential aspiration than a culinary one — I'd had a few of their beer offerings and been impressed. Once I accidentally picked up some of their Bluewing Berry Wheat, and while no fan of fruit-infused beers (and certainly no expert on the type), I liked it. It had it all over Purple Haze, Abita Brewing Company of New Orleans' raspberry-tinged wheat.

But we didn't think about Flyway as a possible takeout partner; its atmosphere appealed more than the menu, which looked like serviceable pub grub. The point of Flyway seemed to be the beer and the being there, not the cuisine. Other than some vague rumblings about Flyway's food being "pretty good," I hadn't given their kitchen any thought until last week when, like just about everybody else who is in position to do so, we ordered some takeout.

And discovered a playfulness and unexpected subtlety to the menu.

It's not the chicken wings and slider sort of thing I expected, it's a kind of enhanced chicken wings and slider refracted through the prism of Southern soul food kind of thing, a bit like the twist South on Main gives some of its dishes.

Chef Georgina "Gina" Jones Price has a light but distinctive hand with spices, and all of the dishes we tried felt like the better versions of honest working suppers. While her meat plus one/two/three option riffs off the blue-plate specials offered by diners since time immemorial, they are elevated by a certain tenderness and care. "Made with love" is how the menu describes it, and that's probably as good an explanation as we're going to get.

In any case, we might have been playing "gotcha" when we ordered her roast beef and two sides ($9.99) — we figured such peasant fare was bound to be pretty basic. And it was — sort of. It was also fork-tender, with a hearty, savory gravy fittingly drizzled over a slice of soft white bread you might remember from your childhood. And the portion was generous enough that we were able to sock 40% of the protein away for later. (Pro tip: If you're planning on leftovers, pack them away beforehand, lest the operant conditioning of your upbringing cause you to join the clean plate club.)

Our sides were black eyed peas (pasty, smoky and excellent) and potato salad (sophisticated, with neither a pronounced mayo nor mustard whang, but an appealing dryness). And there was a bit of cornbread, sliding just a hair off plumb to the sweet side of the spectrum.

We held higher expectations for the Nashville Hot Chicken sliders ($9.99) and were not disappointed. They know how to fry at Flyway; the beer-battered tenders were texturally satisfyingly, with a crunch yielding to a delicate tenderness as just a touch of liquid heat emerged.

Garnished with sweet pickles, there's nothing showy about this hot chicken — if anything, we might have liked it a little more flagrant in its assault — but it's impressively balanced, with competing flavors finding their own spaces in the mix.

In the waffle that served as its bun, we detected some Carolina Piedmont influence, with a hint of pimento cheese perhaps borrowed from that region's very specific barbecue culture.

We also got one of their take-and-bake pretzels ($5.99), a quarter-pound monstrosity that made a lunch for two the next day. It came out of our toaster oven warm and chewy, and the bacon salt and smokey mustard were stars.

We also got a 32-ounce growler of Pintail IPA ($7 with a $3 charge for the growler glass included), a highly drinkable Czech-style pilsner with low-medium hoppiness. A nice refreshment, and we appreciate the size of the growler — it's about perfect for the two of us.

After a decent interval (one day), we returned to pick up a some pulled pork sliders ($10.99, a weekend special — check Flyway's Facebook page for limited-time offerings) and the black bean burger ($8.99). Again, both were well detailed and professionally realized, and the servings generous. The barbecue sauce that accompanied the pork was well-mannered and unlikely to offend anyone's palette, but its restraint didn't feel timid, only prudent. And when you're dining at home you can always add a little hot sauce.

Before the recent unpleasantness set in, we worried we were weren't getting out often enough. We used to go out to restaurants, we remind each other, we used to enjoy hearing the burble of other voices and the clink of others' flatware. We enjoyed the people-watching opportunities and the serial serendipities eating out in public affords. We'd see friends we wouldn't otherwise, make associations we might not otherwise. We could feel a real and vital part of our community, part of the civic pulse.

As much as we like our taken-in meals — we became connoisseurs of Styrofoam and molded fiber clamshell serving containers, and we never lack for single serving sauce packets — there was a little guilt associated with our chow runs. We weren't odd little cocooners cowed by the prospect of a wider world full of sometimes erratic people with different ideas about fashion, politics and religion, we weren't even homebodies — we just discovered it was more economical and a lot more fun to bring our supper home. Was that so wrong?

But now, what once presented as anti-social is ethical. You can go and wave that eat-at-home flag proudly, signal that virtue, son.

You ought to be getting takeout meals now. You can opt for contactless delivery or strap on a face mask (if you've got one) and creep out on a mission. Not only are you minimizing your interaction with other humans, to whom you might be toxic now; you're supporting your local restaurants, who whether they are owned by evil faceless corporations like Madrigal Elektromotoren GmbH or by the mean old man up the road, employ your neighbors.

Weekend on 04/09/2020