With the opening of B Side, there’s finally an original place to sit and have a drink.
Words by Stefanie Gans Photos by Rey Lopez
There was something missing from Merrifield’s Mosaic District.
The town center offered shopping—groceries, glasses, clothes, furniture—and places to grab a quick bite to eat. It was mostly area chains like Taylor’s Gourmet for sandwiches, Sweetgreen for salads and Cava Mezze Grill for rice bowls. But there wasn’t anywhere original to eat. To drink. To snack. To really hang out after a day of browsing expensive clothes or watching a 3D movie.
What Mosaic District needed was a spot to actually take a moment and sit down. To drop bags. To find a cocktail. To nibble on charcuterie.
B Side is this.
“Most people like to start with our charcuterie, it’s sushi style,” explains the server. The charcuterie, listed by flavor profile (which is also how Greg Engert, beer director of Neighborhood Restaurant Group, has long been arranging beer lists at the company’s area properties, including this one) on a long, narrow sheet of paper. We check boxes and Italian salami, fennel flavored coppa and an Armagnac prune rillette arrive, the last of which tastes savory and a little sweet, luscious and bright. From the almost 20 different options of rotating meat, I liked all of the ones I tried.
The bologna mac and cheese was another fun snack with lots of smoke and heat as a bright yellow cheese glazes little logs of cavatelli and seared nubs of meat. Don’t leave without an order of the smoked pimento cheese dip. It’s the spread of the moment, whether there’s a Southern bend to a restaurant or not. It’s the best version I’ve had yet and is created not with smoked cheddar, but by smoking mayonnaise until it breaks down, then recreating the mayonnaise using the smoked, separated fat as its base. It’s a time-consuming venture, and I’m happy for the manpower devoted to it.
The singular-animal pork meatballs showed the versatility of the pig (legs, shoulder, belly) and that these big rounds don’t need the help of beef or veal. The polenta below is ultra-creamy: luxury served in a tiny red cast-iron pot.
The restaurant is similarly well styled. The rectangle shape offers long rows for seating plus a bar, with not much more than 50 seats.
The restaurant shares a bathroom with its neighbor, Red Apron Butchery, and also a kitchen. When the space next door became available in the spring, all NRG had to do was knock down two doors and add a fryer. B Side opened in October.
The lighting is dim and the mood is comfortable. Until the music momentarily stops. This is because the managers have to manually flip records to the B side. At least it’s not a Pandora commercial.
But this isn’t the only interruption; not all dishes are favorites. Ranch-flavored pork rinds were hard and chewy instead of light and crispy and the pork belly pupusas were greasy with the ratio of dough-to-filling too high.
But the meaty fare saves the meal. The Italian beef burger with two patties and Italian beef drips with jus and satisfies dual carnal cravings. Better yet: the beef-fat fries. They taste like McDonald’s used to smell before the company was shamed into using vegetable oil instead of meat grease to cook fries. It’s a reminiscing experience but better than you remember. Will beef fat be the new duck fat?
Notes
B Side
Scoop
Take home smoked pimento cheese: $7 for 8-oz tub.
Dishes
Appetizers: $4-$12;
Entrees: $10-$28
Open
Dinner daily, plus lunch on weekends
Contact
8298 Glass Alley, Fairfax
(February 2015)