A few girlfriends and I went to Troll Pub Under the Bridge on a Friday night right before the epic UK UofL faceoff. Troll Pub, at the corner of 2nd and Washington, is marked by a large Troll statue motioning to his lair below, past a heavy dungeonesque doorway. We looked a little out of place in our Friday night dresses, but we were ready for some delicious pub grub; after all, how hard can it be to do standards like onion rings and hamburgers right? This kind of food should be a no-brainer, not a head scratcher.
We were some of the only patrons in the place, seated in a back dining room surrounded with giant, loud televisions, and right next to the oozing soda fountain. Our waitress clearly did not want to be there, and did not offer us any beer list, wine list, drink list, whatever, despite the fact it was 9:00pm on a Friday night and we were all clearly ready for a good time.
The menu was just your basic pub fare, but we went ahead and ordered. As they passed us to get cokes for their tables, some of the servers injected themselves into our conversation (for example: “You guys are catty!”). We got the beer cheese appetizer with pretzel bread, and it was really warm and totally delicious, great beginning to a hearty meal. When out food came, it smelled hearty and appetizing and my buttermilk fried chicken tenders were well spiced. However, the pasta, billed as “angry alfredo” was bland and certainly far from spicy or angry. This pasta wasn’t even mildly peeved.The fish and chips were soggy with grease and the restaurant didn’t even have regular tartar. The bacon cheeseburger had to be built from the menu, was not cooked to order (is charcoal gray a step above well done?) and the bacon was burned too crispy to enjoy.
In Summary: beer cheese was first-class, chicken fingers lip-smacking, troll statue, awfully cute. But the lackluster service, the burned bacon, the greasy fish, the blah pasta congealing in the bowl, the snarky servers lacking any kind of charm, and the unreasonable cost combined to turn us off a second visit.
photos: Elizabeth Orrick
