Omaha – Tap House

I’ve been surprised just how many craft beer bars and breweries there are in the Omaha area, but this burger restaurant was particularly well reviewed, so I decided to start here.

It was an evidently popular restaurant for lunch as the tables were all full, but there was space at the bar. Unusually for a restaurant like this the staff didn’t seat customers, but there was a clear sign for diners that they needed to seat themselves so I didn’t stand there looking confused. After I sat down at the bar, the service was exceptional, engaging, conversational and welcoming.

The beer list, with a delightful selection of dark beers.

I went for the peanut butter porter, which is from Kinkaider Brewery, a local Nebraska brewery. It had a rich, creamy and smooth taste, a deep peanut butter flavour and soft after notes. Marvellous.

This photo doesn’t quite do justice to the portion size. The drink is pint size and each of the onion rings (and there were eight) was the size of the glass. The onion rings were free of charge as I received a free starter for signing up to the restaurant’s mailing list, they were full slices of onion which were then battered. They had a decent crispy exterior and weren’t too greasy, although it was a much larger portion than I had anticipated.

The fries were Cajun spiced, firm on the exterior and fluffy on the interior, with the spice adding some extra flavour. They were quite moreish, although after I had ploughed through the onion rings I was struggling to eat much more of anything.

The burger is the brown sugar option, which has home made brown sugar, cinnamon bacon, smoked cheddar and beer braised onions. The burger itself was perhaps just a little drowned out by the strength of the other ingredients, but it was tender, cooked well done (there wasn’t a choice on how it was cooked) and was moist. The bacon was excellent with a rich flavour, the beer braised onions were soft and succulent and everything was at the appropriate hot temperature.

I only realised later that pickles, lettuce, tomato and raw onions could be added for free on request, and I would have certainly had some pickles as that would have added some texture to the burger which it probably needed. However, the tastes were pleasant and it was all well presented.

The dining environment was vibrant, clean and comfortable and the server I had seemed to be one of the friendliest in the restaurant as the others didn’t seem to be engaging with customers quite as much. Overall, I very much liked the Tap House and if it wasn’t lunch-time I might have tried a few more of the beers. Very lovely.